Pride is a terrible thing to waste

Thanks and congradts on your soon to be graduation.

KWU has you document all work, military professional experience. Then you have to have your transcripts sent from your previous schools. The school then assigns a RA Professor to evaluate your case, where you stand in the program, and how many more courses you need to take. In my case I had 103 RA credits, and I still had to complete 5 classes and write my thesis. After all work is satisfied, your file is audited, and if approved, you graduate, from KWU, an Approved State Liscenced Post Secondary Degree Granting Institution. I have one more class then my paper. I am hoping to be finished by fall.

Thanks,

RJT
Future BS Grad., Kennedy-Western University (State Liscenced School)
Phila. University (1990-2001)
HRM Studies
AA in Business Admin. Completed, Bucks County Community College (Regionally Accredited School)

 

One logical fallacy you keep using is to say K-W uses RA Professors to do this and to do that as if that some how lends crediability to this unaccredited degree mill. What it means is that the academic job market is very competitive and some of the RA graduates will do anything to make a buck. It is similiar to saying the McDonald's on the corner has a fry cook with a Ph.D. It may be true, but I am not going there to get a Degree. As has been pointed out repeatedly the standard in the U.S. is REGIONAL ACCREDITATION. Even the local community colleges are RA. Without RA a school and its programs are untested and unaccountable. They are not accepted as academic institutions. Even K-W, apparently, chooses RA graduates over its own to teach its class. The comparison between Columbia State and K-W is accurate. For several years CSU got away with selling degrees. Eventually it caught up to them and to their students. K-W with its history of moving from state to state to escape regulation, being illegal in some states, and calling itself a university when it isn't is the same kind of game. Eventually there will be a price to pay.

 

"Approved" by whom? The fact that an organization is able to obtain a business license does not imply that the state has evaluated that organization as a credible school. In general, states aren't even equipped to do that sort of evaluation, and for the most part they don't try to do it.

I wish you luck, but I think that you're really deluding yourself, and you're doing a big disservice to others by touting those delusions as fact. I don't know what your motivation is for going with KWU, but I can't imagine why you wouldn't just finish an RA degree, or something that is nationally accredited at the very least.

 

Respone

David:

I apprciate your reply. However, KW does not sell degrees. You have to work for them. Unlike Columbia State, you have to take and pass course work designed by instuctors to cover the same content as in a bricks and mortor school. My advisor is, yes, an RA Professor, but, he flat out told me that the course work is the same as in his RA class, the differnce is it all comes down to a timed final, in his RA class it's a series of exams. KWU is not a degree mill. They will not pass you, or not graduate you if you do not meet all requirements A, B, C, in all courses (no D, after a C you fail). In addition, I have to wite a difficult thesis, and prove a problem. I have done intense research, and have requested multiple tutorials with my RA faculity advisor, he is always very helpful. As I said, the courses I am taking and the thesis are more difficult than the work at Phila. U., and more intense, as you have program deadlines you must meet. You may disagree with me, but, KWU is not a degree mill, you must complte all work, pass, and prove yourself. Much differnt than CSU. Finally, RA is not the only way a school cn legitimately operate in the US. The US DoE clearly states, that States have the authority, and KWU meets that definition. Also, you are speculating on the KWU moves, how do you know what or why exactly motivated the founders mind; some RA schools have insituted questionable practices as well. Is it any better that some RA schools award degrees to star basketball players, who never attend class, or the fact that they would rather make $$ off of sports teams, than what the intent of the institution was in the first palce. maybe you disagrre with the approach of KWU's style, but that is no reason to condem the school, when you have never attended one course in their program.

 

Re: Respone

RJT, I haven't heard anyone disagree with KWU style. I've heard people say that KWU is unaccredited so the degrees will have minimal to no utility. I've said that awarding 60 credits for 5 years of work experience means that KWU degrees are substandard. To me if the school is offering substandard degrees then I call them degree mills. It is immaterial that you claim to have done 120 credits worth of academic work to get your degree from a degree mill. I am convinced that your 103 credits of RA classes would serve more utility than a KWU degree.

It took me about 2 minutes to figure out that AMU did not accept credit for life experience like RJT was claiming. It was another few minutes to track down the ACE information. Is RJT so incapable that he couldn't do that? I don't consider that a very likely possibility. In my mind it is just another indication that RJT is a troll or a shill. I seriously doubt that RJT is currently enrolled at KWU. I also seriously doubt that he is a recruiter for a Fortune 500 company.

 

If KWU is more rigorous than many RA universities, accreditation would be a walk through.

KWU could then assume its well earned place in the the RA alphabet between Harvard and Yale.

Or are there problems?

Accreditation has been earned by thousands of very ordinary schools and represents only a minimum acceptable standard.

Must be pride that keeps KWU from seeking accreditation.

 

Re: Respone

Oh come on. You know very well what issues people have with KWU and you have made no serious attempt to answer them at all.

If you are a troll, well then you have had a little fun posting and have certainly not made any case for KWU at all.

If you are serious abot KWU and have decided to disregard the well thought out opinions and presentations of fact here then all that is left is to wish you good luck. I know if you came to the large organization I work for, the HR dept. would not even consider a KWU degree or any unaccredited degree for that matter for *any* job requiring a degree. They check degrees and would catch it. In fact foreign degrees must go through a foreign credential evaluator service that the HR dept. lists.

North

 

Re: Re: Respone

Very true, he refuses to answer what the current stated policy is for work/life experience in the current KWU catalog. The closest that he's come to addressing this issue is trying to smear AMU with the substandard practise of accepting credit for life/work experience.

BTW RJT, an intellectually honest person would apologize when their false facts are exposed. When you don't it lends evidence in my mind that the error was an attempt to deceive rather than an honest mistake.

 

Hi Bill,

I have a catalog on the way from K-W. I'll be doing some forced reading and maybe become the unofficial expert on their catalog. Hmmm.......or at least police certain poster's statements.

Tony

 

Sounds great! I'll be especially interested to see what their official policy is on credit transfer and credit for life/work experience.

For an unaccredited school, I don't think that K-W is the worst there is. At least they apparently do teach classes and grade homework and tests.

On the other hand they have some of the same attributes/policies that are unique to degree mills. The bottom line though is that since they're unaccredited their degrees will have little to no utility.

 

Yep!! So am I.

The worst? Maybe not, (segway into the next quote) but does it matter?

Yeah, I think most of the people here would agree with that, even the more "open minded" of us.

Tony

 

Off my chest

Hello:

I appreciate all the responses and the willingness to at least review the catalog before shooting my experiences and/or observations. I never claimed that KWU is more rigorous than RA schools, just that their courses are designed by RA instructors, and graded by RA professors. This is an attribute to the school. I do realize that many feel that being awarded credit for experience is a negative. But I feel that KWU at least has an evaluative process and period. Some of the other UA schools, even licensed ones, allow you to do the evaluation online, and you get immediate feedback. In fact, I felt that KWU was very conservative in my evaluation. After having worked in recruiting for 12 years, including 7 as a manager in a big-5 company, I was hoping to have just one or two classes left. Again even w/the 103 RA, and 12 years experience they awarded me a total of 105 credits, I still had to complete the 5 classes. I am down to my last course and I am writing the 75 page paper. I can not speak to others but based on my experience, I feel that they are not a DM.

Why aren't they accredited? As I mentioned they require 0 humanities, just course work that deals with your profession. General eligibility is dependent on having the AA degree, or equivalent work experience (however w/out the AA, they make you take basic foundation courses, in preparation for the senor courses). The perception is that in earning the AA, the student has completed the humanities, non-applicable professional classes already. RA will not accredit without the school offering some level of Liberal Arts Curricula. KWU is for the mid-level professional and sees no value in this. Neither do I. If I had stayed with Phila. U., I would have had to of taken a temporary prospectives course for my capstone class. At KWU my capstone is the thesis proposal, and final paper. Much more applicable than the CP class to my profession. What I acre about is taking courses that I can apply to my job, that is what KWU offers. ... Needed to get that off my chest.

Thanks for hearing me out!

Regards,

RJT

 

Re: Re: Pride is a terrible thing to waste

Additional anecdotal support abounds on the KWU Virutual Student Union (VSU) web site. Excerpts of messages on that site follow.

K.Michael's concerns were discussed by at least one KWU alum in a different message thread after the "BIG MISTAKE" thread was closed:

On a side note, I got quite a laugh when I read an earlier message in the same thread, in which it is noted that the KWU VSU is not a private site:

But I digress. Getting back to the topic at hand, here are more excerpts regarding credit awarded for experience.

Also in the same thread:

There might be more, but I think that I might have overdone it a bit as it is.

It's too bad that as a California resident I am ineligible to enroll at KWU. With my A.A. and over twenty-four years of full-time employment experience (including eight years as a Programmer/Analyst) I would likely gain so many credits for experience that I'd hardly have any coursework to complete. I could knock out a bachelors in Computer Science in practically no time at all!

Cheers,

Lowell Kinzer
[email protected]

 

...or Dr Richard [Dick] Suhar?

You could have included that letters of congratualtions to one of our regulars who is also an academic Richard Suhars CMfgE who now goes as

"Dr Dick Suhar"

His comments would be helpful as they would not be anecdotal but direct.

Dr Dick - where are you?

 

One of the things I find interesting about K-W is that whether you have 2 years or 24 years of experience, you still do 5-7 courses! I guess they realize that despite their status as degree mill that if people only have to commit to a few course for a BS/MS/Ph.D., they can make the sale. If they require less than 5 courses, K-W's take is not enough. After reading their "Virtual Student Union" and their policies, it is clear they are on a level with Columbia State. There may be people who put in a legitimate amount of work, but they are still getting a degree mill degree. As pointed out before there will definitely be a price for people with K-W degree to pay.

 

I do not think there is any point in arguing with RJT. RJT, spend your money, earn an unaccredited B.S. and lets see how far it will get you. The posters here have challenged your statements and given you fair warning. With all of the accredited undergraduate DL options your choice of a degree does not make sense to me but neither has your arguements in support of KWU. In the long run you will find many more doors closed to you than those that would be opened by an RA BS.

John

 

I think you hit the nail on the head there, Dave. K-W has worked out this business model. Admittedly without a lot of data, it appears that their business office is run purely for profit and they can assign up to about 7 classes and still know that they will be very profitable. (I assume a fixed cost degree or possibly fixed cost with adjustments.) I suspect that the number of classes required for graduation is dependent as much on what they think the customer will accept as on anything else.

Apparently the education side of things is separate and the classes are similar (in rigor) to accredited classes. The fallacy being pushed by RJT that this is enough to prove that K-W is not a degree mill. It just means that K-W is a degree mill that offers academically rigorous classes. I suspect that the main purpose of requiring a thesis for Bachelor degrees is that it is fairly cheap to administer and it makes it more difficult in the minds of some to compare it to standard Bachelor degrees.

 

Worked Hard

Bill:

I can appreciate your approach. But, as I am toiling over my Thesis, I must admit that it angers me that you and others pan KWU, and call it's program of Thesis a "cheap" alternative. My time is not cheap and I have poured time and work into my project. I've worked harder here than I've ever had to at my previous RA school. I am balancing this while still studying for my final class. To call the school a DM is a slap in the face of my and all the other KWU students who've worked so hard.

 

I have not called KWU a degree mill. But I do find it worrying that all students, regardless of the extent or depth of their academic and work experience, seem to end up with just 5-7 courses to complete after KWU's supposedly careful review of their prior learning.

 

Re: ...or Dr Richard [Dick] Suhar?

From the other UoP thread I repeat:
Re: ...and at KWU?

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Peter French
You stated that ...

'...Most of my academic life was spent on the quarter system and when I shifted to a semester system, I thought I had time on my hands...'

Did you work under this to get your PhD just recently at Kennedy Western?

How do you rate the KWU program? ...it is being discussed under another heading here, and i have been looking forward to your contribution.

Peter French
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Good Morning Peter Etal;

My work was independent of any semester or quarter hour time frame. The student is give an 18 month time frame based upon enrollment date to complete all requirements. The clock starts from the dated letter of acceptance into the program. The student receives the syllbus for the first two of their selected courses and the student manages their coursework from there. Basically you either work on two courses in parallel or serially. I did mine serially. If the student cannot complete their progam in the 18 month time frame, a six month extension is granted upon request with no charge. For any other extensions, if approved, the student is charged a $100 monthly maintenance fee. I did my program in the alloted 18 month time frame so I cannot speak specifically to how extensions are granted.

I did find the 18 month time frame to be agressive. The student is supposed to start the "Final Paper" process when the last two courses are taken. My dissertion took me 13 months to complete and I started on it "unofficially" prior to my last two courses. I was glad I did. I had my topic selected before I ever enrolled. Capital Justifcation has been an interest of mine since 1982.

I have a problem with the way KW grants credit for the capstone work. The BS is requied 75 pages, the MS 100 pages and Doctorate 150 pages minimum. Tables, graphs, appendicees, abstract, title page, table of contents do not count in the page count. All papers are given 3 semester hour credit for the proposal and 9 semester hour credit for the final submission. Outside of KW, all my thesis and capstone work was given various credits and the quantitiy reflected the level of the degree. I cannot see the justification of granting the same semester hours of credit for such widely varing expectations of scholarly work.

I opted to have my dissertation copyrighted. I am waiting for the letter of approval.

As far as the challenge of the program, I was no "A" student. I did manage to garner every grade KWU had to offer. I am living proof that at least one student failed a KWU exam. For the doctoral exams, the typical format is essay questions. I did take one exam that was a mix of math problems with essay. I used the full alloted three hours for every exam. All my exams were proctered and I took them at my company's technical training center at my place of work. My program was Engineering Management. So I cannot speak to the level of difficulty the poster RTJ refers to in the HR program.

My posts on the KW PUB are a matter of public access. As far as the accredidation issue goes, there is a post I resurrected from the moderator concerning the KW business model. They make their case in the post as to why KWU does not seek accredidation. KWU is what it is and the management makes no bones about it. During the interview process prior to enrollment, Angela Rasmussen answered all my qusetions and at no time did I feel any high pressure sales tactics that others described.

I am aware of the accredidation issues. I am currently serving a term with the Society of Manufacturing Engineers as an ABET Volunteer Visitor for progams in Manufacturing Engineering.

In my adjunct position with University of Phoenix, I required a Masters degree with 5 years experience to teach coursework in my area of expertise. I am currently certified to teach 20 courses in the undergraduate and graduate business programs. My KW degree is irrelevant to this position. University of Phoenix does not recognize non-RA degrees for their faculty positions. I have taught at the Philadelphia Campus for the past two years. At age 56 I have no desire to pursue a tenure track position at any university.

So why did I do all this work??? I am a registered PE and I do consulting work from time to time. I plan on continuing my practice after retirement from my current job. My dissertaton topic supports the area I like to consult in. So the Ph.D, although unaccredited. does open some doors of opportunity. I concentrate on small business in manufacturing. Unbelievable as it may seem, the vast majority of manufacturing organizations in the SIC 35 classification are those with less than 50 employees. These organizations typically do not have full time engineering staff concentrating on Capital Justification. I believe my tools can be of use to them. The dissertation is a useful tool to extract info out for the managerial decision making process while the copyright gives me some legal measure of protection for the way in which I present my ideas. So in response to your question, I do rate the Engineering Management program right for me.

Is KWU a good place to go for everyone? Of couse not. But if you have your goals and expectations firmy aligned, it might be good for some. I never specifically recommend KW to anyone, but I do recommend they closely look at what they expect any degree to do for them. A choice of a particular program is a deeply personal one. I believe the individual should carefull examine their goals before they rely on the word of someone they really don't know from the internet.

I typically know who from KWU Pub posts in forums such as this one. The persona "RJT" is one I have not been able to figure out. Whoever this person is has stated inaccuracies with respect to KW. I really don't know the motivations for the post.

I trust this post sheds some light on the the issue and that I have answered all your questions.

Regards,

Dick