I know people attack Almeda, but...

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by intsvc, Nov 5, 2005.

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  1. Dave C.

    Dave C. New Member

    moi aussi

    I second the motion.
     
  2. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I know people attack Almeda, but...

    One criteria that pops out at me from that list is when the school's owner is arrested for fraud then it should probably pull the school down on the acceptability scale. Now I don't know that Alemda is under investigation. Although I hope that the authorities eventually do get around to arresting the owners of all the better known diploma mills and even the mill shills pushing these places on DL forums.
     
  3. potpourri

    potpourri New Member

    This is what I find interesting about this forum. There are some people that will spend so much time debating over something that seems so obvious. In example, this school that is mentioned on here and the endorsements that they have listed on there web site could be anything but legitimate. The point here is that when someone asks us about such a school and whether it is legitimate for the amateur person who has just signed on to our forum we need to show a little patience with them. However, when someone has been informed about such accreditation and this poster tries to make a point of justifying an issue that seems so obvious, one has to wonder whether the person is trying to use their time for a good reason, or is just trying to take up some valuable time. My whole issue here is not to judge others, and to make any ill comments. I just feel that what we need to do is perhaps have some kind of way of interpreting this and to make an appropriate decision based upon what the poster is trying to say. I mean it is clear that this school lacks the proper accreditation and this just seems to be another way that we have been waisting our time when we could be helping people who really need to know the difference of a legitimate school v. a not legitimate school.
     
  4. Khan

    Khan New Member

    I know people should attack Almeda, so please do...

    It is. But they have the whack-a- mole business model down to a science.
     
  5. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I know people attack Almeda, but...

    Degreeinfo becomes the USNews of unaccredited schools? No, no,no,no,no! I don't think that we want to go there.

    I'm inclined to say that's true by definition for unaccredited schools... But not entirely.

    Accreditation isn't the only indication of legitimacy that we have. Particularly at the doctoral level, accreditation probably isn't even the most persuasive external measure.

    There's the intellectual life of the institution. There's the names that work there. There's the publications and presentations that flow from it. There's all the citations of that work. There's the collaborative work that the institution participates in. There are grants and awards won. There's the opinions of other universities, government agencies and the scholarly and trade press.

    The paradigm example of what I'm talking about is Rockefeller University in New York City. Apart from their NY regents approval, they aren't accredited as far as I know. (I still find that amazing.) But they show very well in all the ways I suggested in the last paragraph (the Nobels probably help). I expect that their graduates don't have any problem finding gigs, since everyone who would want to hire a Rockefeller graduate can be expected to already be familiar with what Rockefeller is.

    Obviously Rockefeller is the exception to the rule. There are only a vanishingly small number of Rockefellers out there, but there are countless degree mills. So I certainly don't think that Rockefeller's success can be uncritically generalized.

    What the Rockefeller example does show us is how an absolutely legitimate unaccredited school does it. It illustrates in the ideal case how unaccredited schools can go about building their reputations. And it suggests the kinds of things to look for when we are evaluating other mystery universities. It's why I Google schools.
     
  6. CalDog

    CalDog New Member

    RockU is NA, not unaccredited

    Note that the "New York State Board of Regents and the Commissioner of Education," which accredits Rockefeller University, is recognized as a "National Institutional and Specialized Accrediting Body" by the US Dept. of Education (link here, at the bottom of the page). So Rockefeller is technically not unaccredited -- it is simply "nationally accredited," rather than "regionally accredited".

    The term "NA" is commonly associated with DETC, but there are other "national accreditors" as well. The "New York State Board of Regents and the Commissioner of Education" is classified by USDOE as a "national accreditor," even though it only accredits schools within one state.

    Another well-known example of an NA, non-DETC school would be the University of California's Hastings College of the Law, which is one of the oldest and most respected public law schools in the western US. It is not RA, but it is ABA-accredited. The USDOE accepts the ABA as a national accreditor for free-standing law schools, such as UC Hastings.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 7, 2005
  7. Jake_A

    Jake_A New Member

    Thanks, CalDog, for a most informative and enlightening post.

    BTW, as far as I know (based on my emergency medicine/public health research work there in the early '80s), part of the reason for "RockU" (Rockefeller University) not pursuing regional accreditation, at least in those days, must be, in part, their erstwhile complaints that regional accreditation requirements and criteria were/are/may be a bit lax - at least in certain academic and faculty hiring aspects - and thus needed to be ratched up four-fold (or somethimng to that effect).

    Bill Dayson is correct: RockU's doctoral reputation and doctoral production caliber is unparalleled in quality and global acceptance.

    Now, that is (RockU's) institutional and programmatic quality for you!

    Thanks, Uncle J., for positing the original motion, seconded by Dave C. and seconded-seconded by moi, that venerable DI poster/member, Rivers, did get it right (what he said about trollish behaviors on behalf of clueless, unaccredited Almeda et al).
    What he said!
    Are you (customers and shills of/for Almeda and KW"U" and Preston"U" and other entities domiciled in Wyoming, Alabama and elsewhere) listening?

    LOL.

    Thanks.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 7, 2005
  8. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    How come??

    I understand why they don't "offer" medical or law degrees, but as a matter of general interest, why do they offer doctoral "degrees" in theology but not in any other area? Is there a state law with a religious exception, or what?
     
  9. DesElms

    DesElms New Member

    I've always had a problem with that kind of excuse: The lame "we'd get accredited by so-and-so, but so-and-so's standards are so much lower than ours" excuse.

    Oy. :rolleyes:

    That an accreditor's standards might be lower than a given school's is no excuse for said school not going ahead and getting accredited; and, if the school's claim/excuse is sincere, then it demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what is accreditation's purpose. Accreditation is not about how high a given institution's standards of quality can be assessed to be or to have risen; rather, accreditation is all about the level beneath which a given institution's standards of quality will be guaranteed never to have fallen.

    Accreditation is a minimum standard. When an institution refused to get it, it's saying that it doesn't want to demonstrate to the world that it meets at least the minimum standards. It can always get accredited, and then point out, specifically, in its literature and on its web site, the many ways in which its standards exceed even those of its accreditor.

    The "our standards are higher than the accreditor's, so we're not doing it" excuse sounds like little more than a secular version of the kind of excuses that religious unaccredited schools use. It's just folly, in either case.

    (Whew! Now I'm all worked-up. Sorry, Jake... I wasn't jumping on you; I was jumping on the excuse.)

    The shills are always listening. They just don't hear.
     
  10. CalDog

    CalDog New Member

    This is purely speculative, but I wonder if Rockefeller prefers to deal with the NYSDOE as an accreditor because of its specialized experience with standalone biomedical graduate schools. As it happens, NYSDOE accredits not only Rockefeller University, but also the Watson School of Biological Sciences at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and the Graduate School of Molecular Medicine at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research. These are all respected non-RA institutions.

    The NYSDOE only accredits 24 schools total, so biomedical graduate schools are a significant part of their business. Maybe NYSDOE serves these specialized schools better than a regional accreditor would.
     
  11. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    With a name like Smucker's you have to be good. With name like Rockefeller you just have to be you.
     
  12. potpourri

    potpourri New Member

    Good point!

    "WITH A NAME LIKE SMUCKERS...IT HAS TO BE GOOD!"
     
  13. Jake_A

    Jake_A New Member

    Agreed! Absolutely true.
    1. I do not, now or ever, speak or think for "RockU" but I can opine definitively that "RockU" does not need, nor does it offer or condone, excuses of any kind, especially in the graduate and post-graduate research and academic (content and delivery) and quality measurement realms.

    2. I may be wrong on this but I am tempted to read what may be seen by others to be an "excuse" as, maybe, an attempt to nudge a few others to consider raising the floor on quality (academics, faculty hiring requirements, etc.) and not, by any stretch of the imagination, to lower the ceiling.

    Of course, if I am wrong here, it will not be the first or the last time.

    Thanks.
     
  14. DesElms

    DesElms New Member

    I hope this attitutde isn't the same as saying that just because the school's among the best of the best, accreditation's not important. I mean, I know that's not what you guys are saying... I'm just making the point that accreditation is necessary pretty much no matter who you are.

    That would be nice. Let's hope!
     
  15. CalDog

    CalDog New Member

    OK, let's turn back to Almeda University, if only for entertainment value. Now consider the following issue:

    Almeda claims to be accredited by something called the "Interfaith Education Ministry Accreditation Association". The Almeda accreditation page proudly links to a convincing IEMAA web page that documents their accredited status.

    But wait -- here is another web page that purports to represent the IEMAA. And this other page indicates that Almeda's IEMAA accreditation has been cancelled due to ethical violations.

    So Almeda may be breaking new ground here in the field of academic misrepresentation. Lots of places claim bogus accreditation. But it takes twice the chutzpah to make a bogus claim of bogus accreditation.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 9, 2005

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