Montana

I can undestand your sentiments; however, the letter IS on the Montana Board of regents sight. It was put there (presumably) by a Montana official, or someone could have hacked it in.
The letter does have grammar and spelling mistakes but those are clearly from scanning to text or RTF and then reformatting to PDF without making the appropriate corrections (this happens when one scans images+text to text or rtf).

I submit that you can trust the Malawi letter to the degree that you can trust the Montana Board of regents. If it were California I'd have zero trust - Montana I am not yet familiar with.
Earon

 

The Malawi letter with my comments:

How did they learn? More broadly, why did a small African country become interested in an obscure non-accredited American school with a history of legal problems in the first place?

What does "accreditation" mean here? Has 'accreditation' played any historical role in Malawi higher education? Are there any other examples of foreign schools "accredited" by Malawi?

That isn't true. The reference to regional accreditation is an *exemption* from the oversight of the Montana regents. There is already a provision for dealing with foreign accreditation, just as there is for dealing with DETC, ACICS and similar forms of domestic accreditation. Applicants with those kinds of accreditation have to apply to the regents.

Interestingly, this letter refers to an upcoming meeting of the Montana regents in which CCU would presumably be discussed. That suggests two possibilities and a question:

1. CCU had already made an application to the regents and there was fear that it was going to be rejected. Or

2. CCU was simply setting up shop without approval and the regents were in fact alert and exercising their enforcement function.

Question: What happened at that meeting of the Montana regents? Were any decisions reached?

Obscure reference to Wyoming ommitted.

It sounds to me like Malawi is asking for a change in the Montana regents' policy extending an automatic exemption from Montana regents' approval requirements to schools with foreign "accreditation".

They can operate legally now by successfully obtaining Montana approval just as DETC, ACCSCT, NASAD or ACICS schools must. If Montana is unwilling to grant these recognized but non-RA accreditors automatic exemptions, then I don't see them granting blanket exemptions to foreign schools whose standards are far less reliable.





 

I just noticed this:

The Malawi letter is dated May 10, 2001 and refers to a meeting of the Montana regents scheduled for "next week".

The Montana policy at
http://www.montana.edu/wwwbor/NonaccreditedGuide.htm

is dated August 1, 2001.

So apparently Malawi was denied and no reference to foreign "accreditation" was included in the Montana exemptions, which name only the six regional accreditors.

What's more, the fact that all of this has been happening in the last few months shows that the Montana regents are awake and aware.

 

My point exactly (re: Bill's last sentence), reiterating John Bear's same point with a case example from Montana. As for CCU their website states the following regarding Montana licencing, so it would seem that they are 'currently' approved in Montana, which seems to have no California-like approval process (for what that is worth in today's distance ed market as a commondity). Here is the CCU statement on Montana and licensing, and the Malawi "accreditation" lifted a moment ago from the CCU website:

"Registration & Incorporation
In the State of Montana, Columbia Commonwealth University (CCU) is fully registered as a University corporation (#D106315-378379). The university is an institution of higher education with a primary mission to serve a selective population of already accomplished mature students. CCU is empowered by its Board to confer Bachelors, Masters, and Doctoral degrees to students who have met the graduation requirements of the University. All CCU degrees granted are issued as fully accredited by the Commonwealth Republic of Malawi. Malawi is a member country of the Commonwealth of Nations, which also includes England, Canada, and Australia." ---End of CCU web-site Statement----.
Earon

 

Does "registered as a university corporation" indicate the approval of the Montana regents or simply the possession of a business license?

If CCU already had the approval of the regents, would Malawi's Canadian high commission have worded its letter as it did? Extending the RA-exemption would be moot and CCU's ability to legally operate would not have been an issue.

 

The above are very good questions.
Unfortunately, Bill, I don't have the answers to your questions. You might send a letter or email to the Montana Board of Regents and get their official answer. You could then post it here.

I will now post the contents from the Montana Board of Regents overviewing what we are discussing. The statement is as follows:

"REQUIREMENTS FOR RECOGNITION OF OUT OF STATE SCHOOLS IN THE STATE OF MONTANA

Montana State statutes (20-25-107 MCA) say:

(1) No person, corporation, association, or institution shall issue any degree or such similar literary honors as are usually granted by universities or colleges without the prior approval of the regents of the adequacy of the course of study.

(2)This section does not apply to any educational institution accredited by an educational accrediting association whose accrediting is found by the regents to be generally recognized by state and other universities in the United States.

(3) Violation of this section is a misdemeanor.

The Board of Regents has adopted a policy (Policy 320.1) that states:

For purposes of . . . 20-25-107 MCA the Board of Regents recognizes the following accrediting agencies:

a. New England Association of Schools and Colleges
b. Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools
c. North Central Association of Colleges and Schools
d. Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges
e. Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
f. Western Association of Schools and Colleges

Schools that do not meet the above criteria are not recognized by the Montana Board of Regents. 8/2/2001"

I think the clause that is important here is Clause 1, specifically the words "without the prior approval of the regents of the adequacy of the course of study".

"(1) No person, corporation, association, or institution shall issue any degree or such similar literary honors as are usually granted by universities or colleges without the prior approval of the regents of the adequacy of the course of study."
My reading of the above is that
(1) Approval is necessary to operate
(2) Regionally accredited schools are exempted (as might be schools recognized by other USDOE recognized accreditors, although that is not signified with any specifics).

My understanding is that CCU has approval (what approval that exists) from the state of Montana. You could also check that out with Montana for verification when you write them.

Earon

 

I missed this thread the first time around, but just saw a reference to it in the more recent thread about CCU.

I can't help but think that the Malawi accreditation is just as much a joke as the short-lived Native American accreditation scam that the then- CPU tried several years ago.

Why on Earth would the government of Malawi have the slightest interest in accrediting an obscure distance learning program that was already thrown out of one state?

Also, conspicuous in its absence in the letters from the Malawi official is anything remotely attesting to the academic integrity or quality of CPU programs or what was done to inspect them. It's not unlike St. Kitts, where the Ministry is remarkably and actively non-responsive to all requests to pin down exactly what it is they're doing to ensure the quality of programs under their charge.

Does the management of CCU *really* believe that *anyone* will take seriously a school claiming to be located in one of the most notoriously lax (well, until now) states in the U.S. that claims accreditation from an obscure African country?

As I said in the other thread, this sort of thing is another excellent justification for eliminating the UNESCO handbook as a credible measurement of GAAP qualification by a school.

 

Except that GAAP is a description of the process, not a set of criteria to be trimmed or added to. While the accuracy and selectivity of the guide can certainly be criticized, the IHU is used by many admissions officials and others to determine the legitimate existence of a foreign school. Anecdotal evidence and Bear's survey of admissions officials support this. Perhaps it should not be so, but it is.

Rich Douglas