Oregon and Kennedy-Western

Discussion in 'Accreditation Discussions (RA, DETC, state approva' started by Alan Contreras, Mar 2, 2005.

Loading...
  1. mlslcan

    mlslcan New Member

    I am a long time lurker that has decided to finally post. I am no where near being an expert on education. I am however someone who used this board to help make the decision on how I would proceed to complete my BS degree.

    Russ,

    I disagree with you statement and premise here. I believe that most American demand that the government protect them from fraudulent business practices. I would cite the numerous law suits brought about by State AG offices as proof. One example would be the number of states that won settlements against the tobacco companies. These tobacco companies were operating legally, and within the guidelines set by the federal government (they dispayed the required warning on the packages). One might think that there is a big difference between the tobacco cases and education, but I would argue differently. In the case of "less than wonderful" schools they are offering a degree program that by its title (Bachelors, Masters, Doctoral degrees) the average American would expect a certain level of education. When the school does not ensure that its students meet those standards, then the public is being misled with the titles. According to some of your previous post, one of your biggest concerns is who gets to set the standards. Well that is the job of the accreditation agencies. It is these standards that make the US State Dept's "substantial coursework" definition less subjective. If a school chooses not to submit to the "voluntary" accreditation process, then the school becomes responsible for showing that it's requirements for issuing the degree are on par with the accredited schools. In the case of KW, they will not publish these standards. We only have anecdotal evidence of what they require. Furtermore the anecdotal evidence seems to be lacking in sufficient content to meet the State Dept's "substantial coursework" requirement.

    Mike
     
  2. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    Hi Mike,

    Thanks for coming out of "lurk mode" and making a post/contribution. Welcome to the forum.
     
  3. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    If you're willing to accept K-WU, then you have absolutely no idea about quality in higher education. That also means you are an irresponsible employer, and are failing in your responsibility to the company's owners. Congratulations. You've succeeded once again to defeat your own arguments. Self-check!:rolleyes:
     
  4. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Back a few years ago, as I was getting out of being an entrepreneur due to the lack of parsing generator and grammar specialist work that came after the 2001 slump, I was being interviewed for a position as a tester and it turns out that the VP of Dev. of the company I was being considered for was a computational linguistics academic whose work I'd considered citing a short while before in a paper that I'd just had published.

    So, I brought this up during the interview because of the "it's a small world" effect, and she and I started a bit of chat about my unaccredited degrees. She held a Ph.D. from a well respected local university, and I explained to her my own background. She was very understanding and asked to see the paper I'd most recently had published, since it was in her field, after all.

    It was all very respectable. I didn't get the job because it was for a tester and my experience and interest was obviously more in the development end, and they needed hardcore .NET experience in that end.

    But not once did she in the slightest downplay my doctorate, even though I was very adamant about its controversial nature in the eyes of some. The words she used were, "I like people who show initiative and push to achieve their goals."

    So please do not confuse the issue of what employers are willing to accept with what you or what others are willing to accept. There very well may be those who laugh their asses off in the background, but not everyone shares the common wisdom.

    Respectfully,
     
  5. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    Anything can happen once

    In about 1970 I dated a young lady who thought I looked like a rock star.
























    Her seeing-eye dog was named Butch.
     
  6. tcnixon

    tcnixon Active Member

    Hi Quinn,

    With all due respect, and just to clarify, you didn't end up getting the job. I'm not trying to rattle your cage, but if this is your success story, you may wish to have a back-up story. :)



    Tom Nixon
     
  7. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Re: Anything can happen once

    Hehe.

    That reminds of the joke about double blind refereeing.

    "This paper has been written by one blind scholar and accepted by three blind referees."

    Seriously, though....

    If res ipsa loquitor is to be taken at face value, the work speaks for itself, right? I've already mentioned in the past that my research has been taken at face value, and has been accepted. Although some here are of the opinion that I don't appear to have more than a junior college level of education, some not don't judge me with such strong words as that.

    If someone wants to take a poke at me -- they should refute this:

    http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/jackson02some.html

    and seek at least peer-reviewed publication of their refutation.

    I can respect that, because if I disagree with someone's work, that's how I have to disagree with it.

    I'm not completely daft about educational standards.

    I have problems with certain practices -- "life doctorates" being one of them -- and for very specific reasons. If somehow "life doctorates" were to become all the rage at an accredited level of institution, I would still have problems with them. I have specific reasons for my objections to them. (I am less against life undergraduate degrees or even life master's degrees, because many of the objections I have to life doctorates don't apply to those levels of award.) Doctorates by publication -- no problem. That's not the same thing, though. Doctorates by demonstration that one's research meets certain criteria -- again fine.

    But it seems that my past educational choices have effectively rendered my opinion void here and worthy of blind jokes? Or did I misread that? Is it really "about the work" and about "quality of education" or is it about posture? Accreditation protects the consumer against gross misappropriation of public funds, on this I agree. It prevents certain internal abuses, on this, I agree. It protects or somehow guarantees a minimal and consistent quality of outputs, on this I disagree. Sincere scholarly process tries to do that, and sometimes even then fails to do so for whatever reason. And that's where quality of output assurance should remain, in my opinion.

    And I don't just say that because of my past. I say that because that's how I want my children's future to be. I don't think the government makes a very good arbiter of quality anything. They have tried in the past to guarantee quality elementary education, for instance, and for the most part, have failed miserably to provide a framework that is consistent and doesn't alienate certain learners.

    Heck, they can't even keep children from assaulting parents or ask them to apologize when they do. (I know this because a youngster threw a basketball directly at my wife's already injured neck, nearly hospitalizing her, and the school could not even get a written apology out of the boy due to their "accredited" privacy policy.)

    If they can't even do what 20 years ago would have been just a such and so simple matter -- I don't trust them to do what scholars should be doing amongst themselves and outside of such bureaucratic frameworks.

    Protect public funds. OK. Protect investors. Great. But to protect minds from ... what?
     
  8. Guest

    Guest Guest

    I knew I didn't have the job BEFORE she and I started talking about my degrees, Tom, because I wasn't a fit to the job description.

    When the market is a "buyers market" in software development, software developers sometimes try to become "testers" just to "get in the door". Hey, I've seen that happen with people I've interviewed. Nine out of ten such resumes get put aside, because the feeling is that the testing position will not be the candidate's first concern.

    She and I are still in contact via email and have a collegial correspondence.

    Just to clarify. ;-)
     
  9. tcnixon

    tcnixon Active Member

    Hi Quinn,

    With all due respect, and just to clarify, you didn't end up getting the job. I'm not trying to rattle your cage, but if this is your success story, you may wish to have a back-up story. :)



    Tom Nixon
     
  10. Guest

    Guest Guest


    And also to clarify ... I've never considered my unaccredited degrees any kind of success or failure story.

    What happened with a certain university and my time teaching there was not so much about my lack of accredited degrees as it was about other forces that I need not explain in great detail except to say that interference (of the tort nature) occurred at just the right moment in the history of that institution and it was considered best for all concerned to not renew my contracts. That’s pretty reasonable, even though they had waived my need for accredited degrees in order for me to start teaching there in the first place.

    What I do consider a success story is that my research has been cited in more than one doctoral dissertation, master’s thesis, and refereed paper. And that has nothing whatsoever to do with any kind of degree, which is what makes it all the more satisfying to me as a researcher. I have been invited to referee, and present in my field, and have been cited—that is success because that speaks not of my degrees or my education but of the merit of the work.

    And that is what was always important to me about scholarly research. Not the bloody degrees. I can run around calling myself whatever I want until I’m blue in the face but that won’t solve one open research issue standing.

    I consider my time teaching to have been a success, despite the final noisy outcome on AED. I went through the process of designing 6 courses, and applying Bloom’s to all of those courses, and marking papers, and assisting students towards their goals. I learned a lot about what my real inclinations were in that regard. Although I liked undergraduate teaching, it turns out that there were elements of it that truly did not particularly interest me. And they would not have interested me any more had my Ph.D. been from an accredited institution or the process I had been through been any different. However, had I committed umpteen tens of thousands of dollars to my Ph.D., rather than the zero red cents I did pay for the process, I may have felt obligated to stay in a field of teaching for who knows how many years just to justify the expense.

    And I think that’s a reasonable interpretation of the facts, rather than just an opinion. I did not get a great deal personal career satisfaction out of the logistics of teaching online, for instance. The software involved has not yet reached a point that it’s terribly fun for an online professor to use. Much time is spent uploading this, that, and so, and if I want to copy files from here to there I can do that on my home network. Reading term papers was perhaps the most interesting part of the whole experience, maybe only after trying to help students with particular logistical needs keep up their course just as they were being deployed into Iraq. Designing the courses and writing the course guides came second. Marking exam essay questions third. But I can see (only after having “done it” that doing year upon year of that really would not have been to my tastes. So in that way, it was a success. I learned a lot about my previous declaration about not being suited for that. I was mostly right, despite the high points. No amount of accreditation would have made a difference in any of that.

    My “back up” story is that I am now better in my own skin. I still “sting” from the attacks – a considerable amount of damage was done to my family as a result of what happened, and I won’t pass the buck and say that I don’t feel an incredible load of responsibility for that, because had my degrees been from Acme RA University, that damage would not have been done. I do not run from my past mistakes, however, and I don’t “recant” my past – shit happened, I did my part in setting up a situation where that shit could happen, and mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy.

    But through it all I remain unconvinced about many things. I remain unconvinced that the cure for cancer is to be found in the RA beaker or the GAAP test tube. I remain unconvinced that the current state of affairs in tertiary education can (or is even willing) to do a danged thing about educational outliers who simply do not fit in and are being marginalized by their existing choices. I remain unconvinced that the demonization of non-accredited degree holders and degree granting institutions will provide answers for people who sometimes, in their personal search for enlightenment, simply do not fit into the models proposed by bean counters.

    And I’m not convinced that a seriously, thoughtful, productive dialog is impossible between those who would RA and those who would not. But let’s face it, in recent years, it has become an adversarial affair. Both sides have made it into a personal battle, and this disturbs me no end (and not just because of what happened to me). I may be perceived by some as a stirrer, but in fact I do value rational, calm, considered dialog between people who hold different views and perspectives. I think both sides get the long shaft in the end by the name calling, belittling, mockery, and other things that go on.

    Just some thoughts, submitted respectfully,
     
  11. Jake_A

    Jake_A New Member

    Finally! The wolf steps out naked - from the sheep's wool it had deceptively worn in these forums.

    Smacko, wacko, tacko, shillko!

    We now have a working definition of a diploma mill from the anonymous, secretive and shrill diploma mill shill:

    0 courses, valid credit card = no work = diploma mill
    1 (maybe 2 or more) courses = some work = NOT a diploma mill.
     
  12. Jake_A

    Jake_A New Member

    Welcome, mls.

    As a Biomedical Engineer and Public Health researcher, I like your "legal tobacco industry versus state-licensed diploma mill" analogy.

    The state may essentially say that "with this license you hereby may operate (legally) and pay taxes into the treasury coffers" but that says almost nothing about quality as a prerequisite or the over-riding need to protect the public from harm, unhealthful practices or behaviors, or educational deception.

    Stick around, mls. You will learn a lot. I, too, like you, became a Degreeinfo member and read, but did not post (i.e lurked), for a year.

    Just watch out for the mill shills in shrill and frill clothing. I wish you well.
     
  13. Jake_A

    Jake_A New Member

    One must admit though, mustn't one, that having a dog in the fight might possibly cloud one's perception and influence one's predisposition or tolerance for unaccredited and possibly millish schemes, which is not to say that this is definitely the case in your case. Just a possibility, however remote.

    I do empathize though, with your call for calm and reasoned debate on the acceptance and accreditation issues.

    But do the mill shrills listen and should one not pummell the shrill shills out of respect for forum cordiality and calm?

    I wonder .....
     
  14. DaveHayden

    DaveHayden New Member

    Or what about entities such as SRU that require a real or even bogus resume? What about schools that require a 1 page paper? Obviously His definition is an unworkable.
     
  15. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    My dear Quinn,

    Tell me this. You don't like my joke (on myself, btw, for this was a true event).

    In your posts both here and on the forum that has called us sodomites, fascists, and other nice things, and has posted a fake Contreras, you consistently adopt a noble and vaguely aggrieved tone. Each of your posts contains a reference to some wrong suffered by you. Each of your posts presents yourself as a noble, wounded, misunderstood person, soldiering bravely on. Well and good.

    It's the external contrast, not the internal content, that I find mystifying. It's not your loquaciousness but your silence that I find odd.

    Tell me this, Quinn. In your nobility, in your empathy with others' suffered wrongs--or is it only your own misfortune which moves you--why did you see fit to object here to a true story from my own vaguely ridiculous, um, life experience; why did you object with great highmindedness to the discussion of the good chief cosmonaut-archbishop-und-so-weiter; and yet never once object to the endless sexual innuendo, vicious personal attacks, egregious shilling, nonstop scurrility and defamation on that other forum?

    Yust wunnerd.

    You said, "But it seems that my past educational choices have effectively rendered my opinion void here and worthy of blind jokes?"

    Wrong. And a bit whiny.

    I defend certain unaccredited schools. You defend your choice of an unaccredited school. What renders your opinion a bit hollow here is your selective moral high dudgeon. What I recounted actually happened to me. Unlike you, I happen to view the ridiculousness and misbegottenness of much of life as funny. The joke's on all of us, Quinn.

    Even you.

    Even though you come here and display self-pity and moralism, while happily posting on a site given over to milling, shilling, and shrilling--without so much as a murmur from you about any of it.

    I'm quite happy to hear your views. But pardon me for dissenting from your exquisite highmindedness. I'm a somewhat disabled Balkan peasant. Your lofty woes are lost on me as a form of argument for your ideas, which are likely quite worthy of discussion, whether they are right or wrong.

    Discuss your ideas to your heart's content, if that is possible.

    But leave the violins and hankies at home, as we say in the old country.

    Cordially,
    Janko the Mad Priest
     
  16. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Actually, "millish schemes" are as unsavory to me as they are to most here.

    The quote that comes to mind is:

    "The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things—the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit."—Samuel Johnson

    That I do not take the "accredited only" tack has less to do with having a dog in the fight than it has to do with trying to discern what is truly bad from what lacks specific bureaucratic trappings.

    There was no dog in the fight back when I didn't have any degrees, and as I sought an institution that would suit my particular needs and wishes in the late 90's, and I still cast a less damning eye upon some of the institutions that are spoken poorly of in this forum.
     
  17. Guest

    Guest Guest

    I suppose Moliere said it best when he said:

    Most likely, Janko, the answer to your questions rests somewhere between my all too human overly developed sense of self-importance and my inner desire for harmony in human congress. I know more of what has happened to me, why it has happened to me, what the consequences in my own life has been, and how I have dealt with it at multiple levels than I know what has happened to Joe Random Person, and so, I often too eargerly strive to connect that which is external to that which is internal, and the result, when presented in social contexts, comes across as extreme self-concernedness, and possibly as distasteful self-righteousness.

    All that to say that the answer to your main question is this: I feel for those who are attacked for their own sake, but I admit that I can only understand it fully and to the bone when I internalize and personalize it. I do not like to see another's character be attacked publicly any more than I like to be attacked myself.

    My call for civility and taking the high road also rang on that "other forum", as the distasteful spoofing of a certain government official went over the shoulder of the high road and into a ditch, but that thread disappeared last night before I could respond to the response to my call for civility.

    My response was this:

    Ahkenaten's downfall was not that he elected to live a life of personal enlightenment, but that he alienated the entrenched priestly class and mandated what should have been left to the conscience of the people. As for the need to go to war, consider IV.15-16 of Sun Tzu's Art of War

    and IX.11:

    But anyway -- I'll try to refrain from the extreme self-reference in future, since it is distasteful.

    Thank you for your feedback, Janko. Much appreciated.

    (P.S. It is likely that my willingness to carry on civil discussion here may displease some "there" because of their views of "here". You can please some of the people some of the time, maybe even most of the people most of the time, but never all of the people, all of the time. :))

    Respectfully,
     
  18. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    If Quinn finds his degrees have utility in some situations, great. I'm all for him. What I'm against is someone proposing a policy for blindly accepting degrees from unaccredited schools--there's too much variability and too much chicanery to tolerate that.

    Being against such schools is not the same as being against someone with those degrees, unless that person engages in deceptive practices. But that standard applies to everyone.

    I'm against people like the one posing as "russ" because they, irresponsibly, promote substandard schools as if they're sufficient.

    Quinn has been a solid contributor to these discussions, and has certainly seen his privacy invaded in ways that few of us have experienced. We might be on opposite sides regarding some questions, but our experiences dealing with that issue binds us, even though we've never said a word to each other. (Or even about each other, to any great extent.)

    Let's keep our eye on the ball.
     
  19. Gus Sainz

    Gus Sainz New Member

    So an employer who ultimately did not hire you listened to your one-sided explanation of your degree mill doctorate did not laugh his or her ass off in front of you.

    What’s your point?

    Because, Quinn, if you truly want to have a civil and serious discussion with members of this forum, we should not have to sift through verboseness of Brobdingnagian proportions dealing almost exclusively with personal angst (however mellisonant it may all seem to you) to uncover even a semblance of a position on anything.

    Who is confusing what issue? The fact that many employers are duped by and accept fraudulent credentials has been discussed ad nauseam on this forum.

    Moreover, not sharing the “common wisdom” (and it is called “wisdom” for a reason) concerning the acceptance or legitimacy of bogus credentials is, more than likely, not attributable to a progressive or non-conformist mentality, but instead simply to ignorance.
     
  20. Gus Sainz

    Gus Sainz New Member

    Re: Re: Anything can happen once

    Yes. I don’t recall anyone disputing this.

    I do not recall anyone on this forum stating or suggesting that you don’t “appear to have more than a junior college level of education.”

    I don’t think so, Quinn. If someone wants to make fun of you, I believe they should be allowed to use whatever material they deem appropriate, and not have to utilizing only that which you, in your unbridled munificence, have officially sanctioned. ;)

    Once again, I don’t recall anyone on this forum disagreeing with your work. What I disagree with is your stating or implying that legitimate work renders a degree legitimate, regardless of the institution that awarded it.

    OK. So how daft are you? ;)

    You seem to be glossing over some worthy topics of discussion without articulating a clear position.

    It’s definitely about the posturing. It’s about the posturing (usually under the popular guise of victimization) done by those who, whether because of a sense of entitlement or outright sleaziness, want the world to accept bogus credentials as equivalent to legitimate ones.

    All of this is fine and good, Quinn, but what evidence do you have that schools that are not accredited engage in or adhere to “scholarly processes” equal to or superior to schools that are accredited? Moreover, how and to whom do they demonstrate this?

    Keep it up, Quinn; you almost have me convinced that “big brother” and “the accreditors” are really personally out to get you and your family. :rolleyes:
     

Share This Page