Trinity College PhD Dissertation

Discussion in 'Accreditation Discussions (RA, DETC, state approva' started by RFValve, Dec 1, 2002.

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  1. MarkIsrael@aol.com

    [email protected] New Member

    Re: Re: Trinity College & University Dissertation Requirements

    This can be answered with one or more noun phrases.
    These are two yes/no questions.

    2000 words are not required (unless you want to be evasive).

    Another plug for your work is also not required.
     
  2. fnhayes

    fnhayes New Member

    In general terms I agree with the comments from Dennis and Jack, and, just like many NZ's, I believe I would make an excellent Prime Minister.
    But in terms of "violating the terms of service" I should mentioned that all proceeds from sale of the brown teal manual go direct to the Brown Teal Conservation Trust (a registered NZ charitable society) and that my families long involvement in the whole brown teal recovery programme (32 years) has been a very financially expensive exercise, but, we believe, a critically important one. The manual itself is a high quality publication, which was largely financed through the BTCT as well as another major NZ charitable trust.
    The manual has already proven to be an intrinsic 'educational' tool and whilst I'd be the last person to claim that it has turned the recovery programme around - from one of abject disaster to one of success, the fact is that since its publication, and implementation of many of its receommedations, the rapid decline of brown teal has been rapidly retarded and that the programme is, for the first time, showing positive signs.
    The fact that TCU was a 'tool' in this exercise is viewed, by myself at least, to have been an important one.
     
  3. fnhayes

    fnhayes New Member

    Mark, I know that you would never be happy with a YES & YES, but I'm happy with YES & YES!
    I've been accused of many things in my time, but can't remember ever being accused of being 'evasive', but I can live with that, as I know that brown teal wouldn't agree with you - or any of the thousands of DL students I work with, or the many thousands I have worked with - over a 35 years period. :)
     
  4. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Without a doctoral committee, doctoral advisor, and an outside reader evaluating the work--and who knows the doctoral candidate, where is the necessary quality control? And what prevents the candidate from submitting someone else's work?
     
  5. MarkIsrael@aol.com

    [email protected] New Member

    Rich Douglas asks:

    > where is the necessary quality control?

    Now, now. Why is quality control "necessary"?

    To protect the reputation of the school? Surely that doesn't apply in TCU's case.

    To separate the good from the bad? Time does that best. The good will survive, and the bad will perish.

    TCU leaves the quality up to the student. Are you opposed to giving the student that much responsibility?

    > And what prevents the candidate from submitting someone
    > else's work?


    Are we talking about plagiarizing without permission, or paying someone else to do the work?

    Plagiarizing without permission: Didn't Stephen Ambrose and Martin Luther King both do their doctorates at RA schools? Aren't Web search engines making it harder for plagiarism to go undetected? Can't the original author sue for breach of copyright?

    Paying someone else to do the work: Surely this is more of a problem for freshman essays than for doctoral dissertations? How many doctoral candidates can afford to pay someone else for work that takes years to do?
     
  6. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    No one, to my knowledge, has asserted that Stephen Ambrose plagiarized his doctoral dissertation.

    That MLK might have has no bearing on the question. No one is questioning the quality of Harvard because of that.

    The point is, there are not sufficient supervisory and evaluative processes at a school like that to give the degree any meaning.

    Dissertations are available for sale. It would be simple to submit one to the school in question and go undetected.

    I graduated from Union, which gives a great amount of authority to the learner to take control of his/her education. I think I know what I'm talking about, nor am I against the idea. But even at Union you've got a committee made up of Union faculty, adjuncts from your field of study, peers, and a review process by the school after the committee is done with you.

    Without effective quality control, the degree is meaningless, regardless of the quality of the work in question.

    "The bad will perish"? Market forces are not sufficient to ensure academic quality. There are terrible schools and degree mills that have been operating for decades. Operating because of market forces.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 20, 2003
  7. Gus Sainz

    Gus Sainz New Member

    Miami-Dade fire chief battles to retain his job amid harassment charges

    ”Phillips' executive assistant, Sarah Hartfield, also accused the chief of making her do his homework during work hours for a doctoral program he was taking at night.”
     
  8. MarkIsrael@aol.com

    [email protected] New Member

    > No one, to my knowledge, has asserted that Stephen
    > Ambrose plagiarized his doctoral dissertation.


    See Ambrose Problems Date Back To Ph.D. Thesis. He didn't plagiarize the whole thing, but as in his later books, he used other people's sentences as if they were his own.

    > That MLK might have has no bearing on the question. No
    > one is questioning the quality of Harvard because of that.


    "Might have"? You can see the evidence for yourself at http://chem-gharbison.unl.edu/mlk/plagiarism.html. Of course, we should make allowances for the fact that the charges were not made in his lifetime, so he had no chance to offer a defence.

    I don't know why you mention Harvard. MLK did his doctorate at Boston University, although he did take some courses at Harvard.

    > Without effective quality control, the degree is meaningless,
    > regardless of the quality of the work in question.


    FNHayes is waving his dissertation/manual at us, not his degree. The only claim he's made on behalf of his degree is that it motivated him to do the work.

    > "The bad will perish"? Market forces are not sufficient to
    > ensure academic quality.


    Academic success is usually measured in terms of how many people cite your work, not how many people buy it. Uncited work gets forgotten quite quickly.

    > There are terrible schools and degree mills that have been
    > operating for decades. Operating because of market
    > forces.


    I'm optimistic here. I think what we're seeing is growing pains in the Information Age. Even the densest person will not be suckered an unlimited number of times by someone with a phony degree, and eventually everyone will have the knowledge and the tools to verify every credential that matters.
     
  9. MarkIsrael@aol.com

    [email protected] New Member

    > ”Phillips' executive assistant, Sarah Hartfield, also accused
    > the chief of making her do his homework during work hours for
    > a doctoral program he was taking at night.”


    Thanks, that was interesting. It goes on to say that the State Attorney's Office found problems with Hartfield's story. How many doctoral candidates have "homework" so easy and generic that their secretaries can do it?
     
  10. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Thanks for the info on Ambrose, Mark.

    I always thought MLK took his doctorate from Harvard. Oops.

    As for the dissertation, one can produce outstanding work sitting by one's self. But we're talking about a doctoral dissertation here. The context of the school is important. Otherwise, we'd be talking about a book about a duck.

    Hey, that's it. We're talking about a book! No university, no doctoral program, no processes, no supervision, therefore, no degree. Therefore.....no dissertation. A book. About a duck. Maybe a good book. Maybe a great one. But not a dissertation, and not a degree.

    As Bill Huffman points out, the quality of the work produced does not mean the institution in question is legitimate.
     
  11. Gus Sainz

    Gus Sainz New Member

    She wasn't his secretary; she was his executive assistant at a salary of $102,000. Moreover, initially they were both enrolled in the same program. She has now led investigators to a 49-page book report she wrote for him. Since then, things have gotten even uglier (it’s all very political) and the criminal case might be reopened. For more info see here and here.
     
  12. fnhayes

    fnhayes New Member

    I'm sure that Dr Rich knows full well that most dissertations never see the light of day, and I don't suppose his will either. They invariably languish in a university library and are often never referred to again. Largely because many dissertations are of interest to a small minority only. However, because of the interest in wild waterfowl, this is often not the case when a dissertation on waterfowl is involved and a number of waterfowl research dissertations have eventually ended up as books - or in my case as a reference manual.
    Dr Rich can play with words as long as he likes, but the fact is that the brown teal manual has already become a major educational, advocacy and management tool, and it is being constantly being referred to by wildlife professionals and waterfowl enthusiasts in several countries.


    :)
     
  13. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    And, the fact remains that your dissertation on the brown teal netted you an unaccredited doctorate, which has almost zero utility when compared to a legitmately accredited degree.

    Sorry, but you brought up the subject. :rolleyes:
     
  14. fnhayes

    fnhayes New Member

    But Bruce, according to Dr Rich there is no such thing as an unaccredited doctorate?! Anyhow I was always referred to as 'Dr Hayes' long before DegreeInfo was invented and long before there was any such thing as unaccredited internet DL degrees. :)
     
  15. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    No, there are plenty of schools without accreditation that perform with academic sufficiency. Unfortunately, you didn't attend one of them.

    As for your book, I've made no statements about its utility or quality.
     
  16. MarkIsrael@aol.com

    [email protected] New Member

    Gus Sainz wrote:

    > She wasn't his secretary; she was his executive assistant at
    > a salary of $102,000.


    "True, the investigation shows that no one could explain what she was doing, besides Phillips' homework, for her extremely generous $102,000 salary."

    > She has now led investigators to a 49-page book report she
    > wrote for him.


    I was surprised at the notion of a doctoral-level "book report". But your sources call this a "research paper", so perhaps "book report" is your own term.
     
  17. Gus Sainz

    Gus Sainz New Member

    No, Mark, “book report” is not my own term. I was just as surprised by the terminology as you, and I guess it just stuck in my head. The first article I provided a link to (Miami-Dade fire chief battles to retain his job amid harassment charges) employed the term.
    • ” With Burgess expected to make a decision soon, the State Attorney's Office has accepted another piece of evidence offered by Hartfield that could prompt a reopening of the criminal case: a 49-page book report that Hartfield said she compiled for Phillips while he was in Hong Kong.” [emphasis added]
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 21, 2003
  18. fnhayes

    fnhayes New Member

    Dr Rich is certainly back to his usual obnoxious line of attack - no doubt attempt to keep up with his comrade Gus!
    In an earlier rude post Dr Rich clearly stated that there was no such thing as a unaccredited Doctorate.
    But regardless of the rudeness of Rich & Gus my dissertation/manual has gain considerable acclaim all over the world; which is surely a far greater achievement than these two will ever come close to - except in their own eclectic minds.
    Dr Duck
     
  19. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    According to Merriam-Webster:

    Main Entry: 1eclec·tic
    Pronunciation: e-'klek-tik, i-
    Function: adjective
    Etymology: Greek eklektikos, from eklegein to select, from ex- out + legein to gather -- more at LEGEND
    Date: 1683
    1 : selecting what appears to be best in various doctrines, methods, or styles.


    I'm okay with that. Thanks! :)

    It is difficult for a student at an unaccredited school to meet the definition of a doctoral dissertation. One's work is not reveiwed properly, nor is it made available to other researchers through the usual sources.

    I see Dr. Hayes doesn't refute my points about why his dissertation is really just a book. And as such, can his degree really be a doctorate? (A question, not an answer.)

    I wish all the best regarding his success and his book's impact both on the field and society in general. I would remind him, however, that I am not competing with him. Should he benefit society more than me, that would be just fine.
     
  20. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    Executive assistant, or (exe)cut(iv)e ass(istant)?
     

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