Neil and Century

I don't think that anyone is *entitled* to be called "Dr.". They are entitled to use those initials themselves, but when others use 'Dr.' to address them it's done to show respect. Well, my respect is mine to give or withhold as I see fit.

Of course to withhold use of the title in a formal situation where it is expected can be construed as an insult, which I guess lack of respect is.

Personally, I can imagine cases where I would have no hesitation in calling a graduate of a state-approved school 'doctor'. That would be if I respected him or the school. On the other hand, I might pointedly fail to refer to an RA-graduate as "Dr." occasionally. If some professor of Magyar poetry is trying to use the title to seize the high-ground as an authority on American presidential politics, an insult might be appropriate.

I think that would be tremendously redundant and a waste of resources. We already have a fine accreditation system. There is no reason for fifty states to each try to duplicate it.

What the states need to do is to tighten up their regulation of non-accredited schools. My preference would be for them to restrict state-approval to a finite time period, and add an exemption to at least some approval requirements for schools accredited by USDoE/CHEA approved accreditors. Schools that fail to make it to the exemption in x years lose their approval.

California does not require state approval of WASC-accredited California schools, for example. So widen that to all recognized accreditors and make CA-approval into a temporary status for new schools. You could retain the separate provisions for approving CA branches of accredited out-of-state schools as they exist now. Non-degree-granting vocational schools would continue to be handled as they are now. But there is no earthly reason for the BPPVE to be its own little alternative accreditor.

 

Sorry but the position that it was an unAmerican law is very weak. The problem with the law was that there was no way for an exception to be made and there are in fact unaccredited schools that are valid. It was unfair to not allow those graduates to use the title that they had earned. The Florida Supreme Court said that the intent of the law was good and the rest of the law was valid and served the public good. The court in fact encouraged the legislature to fix the unconstitutional piece of law, which has not yet been done.

BTW Gary, do you think it would be unamerican to not allow people to use or claim degrees from say one of the schools listed in the degree mill chapter of Bear's Guide?

 

Interesting thread. I disagree with DWCOx with regard to the issue of RA and CA approved. Admittedly I am basing this on anecdotal evidence. Even Calif. Coast University, which has been called one of the better CA schools, has had it's standards called into question on this forum. I believe that a couple of people have posted an example of the Masters level (MBA ?) requiring less work than an RA MBA and another of a doctorate thesis that was somewhat slim.

I do agree with Russell Morris and others with regard to the issue of addressing people as "Dr.". If you have earned the academic credential you deserve the title (as they used to say in the army it has nothing to do with respect for the person but the rank or in this case the credential). I find that often people who do not want to give others credit for their achievement (in this case "Dr.") are really somewhat jealous (inferiority complex). It's our American competitiveness. My rule of thumb is that is we are in a situation where someone would be referred to as Mr. or Ms it is proper to call someone with a doctorate "Dr".

North

 

Apologies, I must have misunderstood your post!

Russell

 

But you yourself wrote: I do not think that graduates of doctoral programs in state approved schools should be entitled to be called "Dr.". Isn't that a contradiction?

If you argue that those graduates haven't truly earned the title, who are you to judge? Aren't you reserving for yourself the right to decide in actual cases when the use of the title is justified?

Good insult. But how do you throw gasoline on others without getting caught in your own flames?

 

Not necessarily, with qualifications. John is usually careful about what goes in that section. Looking it over again brought some more laughs, including his two personal adventures in selling novelty degrees. I wouldn't be comfortable with a state government giving one or two people that much power (i.e., using Bear's Guide as the law's source for defining degree mills). But looking at the Bear's 14th edition today, I'd feel comfortable saying that people should only use such credentials strictly for novelty purposes. Encoding that opinion in law would take a legion of attornies to try and keep it constitutional. Since those that use such credentials fraudently likely end up in various other legal and other quandries eventually (exploding time bombs), it hardly seems worth the effort. The difficulty in defining degree mills is the reason most of them get busted for other reasons, such as overcharging student's credit cards. I'm not defending the mills, I'm just saying they will always be with us, like roaches, and the novelty aspect (i.e., L.I.A.R. and Millard Fillmore Institute, etc.) is certainly no crime, nor should it be.

Gary

 

Hey! The second paragraph in the quote from Bill Huffman, my above post, is (of course) my words. UBB defugilty. Please excuse. Thanks,

Gary

 

My understanding (from a Usenet poster stating he was a lawyer that had read the ruling) was that the law was declared unconstitutional because there were people that had earned valid degrees from unaccredited schools and they were denied the right to use the title that they had earned. I believe that this is not quite the same thing as what you expressed although what you say about the dificulty of a legal definition for degree mill is indeed very problematic.

You seem to have assumed that any solution would require the definition of a degree mill to be made part of the law. This is likely not the best solution. For example, the law could possibly be changed to say that any unaccredited degrees when used would have to include that information.

 

No contradiction at all or at least none intended. I do not think they should be entitled to be called doctor. Now, that does not mean that through self study they are not experts in their field. Has nothing to do with their level of knowledge (otherwise we could all call ourselves "Dr. in some field or another). There are a great (and I mean a great) many people who know more about mechanics than I do. That does not make a mechanic a "Dr." just because he got a doctorate from a legal South Dakota diploma mill. I think we have to use common sense. As I said it has nothing to do with the worth of the person or their knowledge level. One of our State attorney's mentioned the fact that common sense definition legally applies to degrees and what recongition they are given (I am NOT an attorney).

If you wish to see it as a contradiction then we can look at it another way. The recognized standard (by regulatory agencies etc) for degrees is recognized accreditation (US Dept. of Ed or CHEA). Therefore respect for the doctorate (again not the person or the abstract knowledge level) should be accorded to someone with degree which has met recognized standards for that level. That obviously means the degree and the knowledge level are not mutually exclusive.

Not intended as an insult. Merely an observation I have made. Incidentally, I saw a similar issue in Ann Landers several years ago. Nor am I getting caught in flames. See above and below. Take an RA doctorate anywhere in the United States and it is recognized. RA is also recognized abroad. That is why a woman at a British education agency said they would not recongize Trinity Seminary (Indiana) with it's Liverpool accreditation. When they think US degree they think RA. Unfortunately that excludes National accreditation. At any rate, now take your state approved degree and in most cases outside of California state approved degrees being recognized in California they are not recognized as degrees meeting standards. This ranges from illegal in Oregon to just useless in other states. The various state regulatory agencies where I live to do not recognize State approved degrees for meeting the standards of the regulatory agencies. In fact you cannot obtain employment with the state with an unaccredited degree.

Incidentally, does anyone know if CA approved degrees are recognized in California for employment as a teacher?

North

 

This should by all rights be a new thread by now, but oh well. As part of a pilot project, the Commission on Teacher Credentialing (www.ctc.ca.gov) reviewed and subsequently included several BPPVE-approved colleges in its list of approved institutions:

Antioch University of Southern California
CalState Teach
City University
Nova Southeastern University
University of Phoenix

The schools are not WASC-accredited, so they are technically California approved -- but you will not fail to notice they are all RA!

 

Ohnalee,

If the schools are RA, why would they need to be approved by the BPPVE? Does CA require all schools not accredited specifically by WASC (e.g., SACS, NCA, etc.) to be approved by the BPPVE, before they can operate in that state?

Thanks,
Russell

 

California requires all non-WASC schools operating in California to be state-approved. That includes local DETC, ACICS, AABC, TRACS, NASAD and all the rest of the recognized but non-RA crowd.

They also require all the out-of-state RA schools operating California satellite branches to get those branches approved. All the U. of Phoenix campuses are state-approved, as are the ERAU and City U. satellites. Touro is too. There are actually lots of them: Goddard College of Vermont operates some kind of social change thing in SF, Johns Hopkins has a hospital administration program etc. Nova's local clusters are state-approved I believe.

Sometimes it can be complicated. Matthew Fox's University of Creation Spirituality in Oakland is state approved for its own D.Min. It also provides the teaching, GST/Potch-style for a Naropa U. masters degree (Boulder Colo., North Central Association). That out-of-state RA program in turn has a separate state approval, even though it is taught by the same people in the same building in Oakland.

 

Massachusetts requires the same thing. The University of Phoenix just opened a campus in a Boston suburb, and they had to get approval from the MA Board of Higher Education before they could start operations.

Bruce

 

Indeed it can, Bill. Thanks for the information.

Russell

 

I have to preface this post by saying I am not an attorney (not even a graduate of a miserable state-approved CA lawschool) nor have I read the FL decision.

But I think that the above account has the problem that it implies that there is a true and objective criterion of university validity separate and apart from accreditation. If the FL statute that was overturned created a legal definition of validity in that state, pegging it at the level of accreditation, what higher definition of validity is there to contradict the legislators' intent? How can an example of a valid university that is excluded by the law even be produced? But without such an example, how can you raise equal protection arguments or whatever?

Personally, I think that there is a lot more potential legal problem in defining an unacceptable *use* of a degree, whether or not there is a statute defining the degree's validity. That's where the vague and overbroad objections probably could arise, as well as the constitutional issues.

What if a graduate simply uses the invalid degree to boost his or her ego? That's certainly a use. What if he or she tells friends informally at a party? What if the friends in turn tell strangers that the graduate has a Ph.D.? What if one of the strangers offers the graduate a job?

It seems to me that there are an awful lot of grey areas in this, and strict enforcement would probably raise free-speech issues.

As I understand it, it is legal for a phony off-shore M.D. to pose as such at parties, just so long as he or she doesn't actually practice medicine. The law can't make it illegal for you to even suggest that a degree from a questionable school is legitimate. If you want to say that a Trinity C&U degree is a valid doctorate, that's your first amendment right I guess, since the Constitution exists to protect people who say unpopular things. But the law can govern entry into practice of particular professions by setting licensing requirements and so on. And that might include defining which degrees are considered valid in that context.

This is where I think that a law like Oregon's will collapse if challenged. You can't just vaguely outlaw all "use" of a degree without violating people's first amendment rights. And you can't just pass a blanket regulation governing entry to each and every possible profession without the law being vague and overbroad.