Update on John Bear

Hi, Folks. John Bear called me the other day, and it seems like a good time to give you an update on our beloved colleague.

John is 87 these days. His mind and voice are as sharp as ever, but his eyes are troubling him. He also has another affliction, but it is in remission and the odds of recurrence are low. He and his wife, Marina, are living in Portland near two of their daughters, and that's where he's settled.

We had our usual spirited conversation about a great many things; John's mind is never in one place for too long!

Anyway, I won't bore you with the details. I just wanted to let you know he's doing fine.

 

Thank you for the update, Rich!!

 

Thanks for sharing all of those updates, @Rich Douglas!

While I never had the chance to meet John personally, his name and quotations from his books were everywhere during my early days here at DegreeInfo. So, my mind basically associates distance education and his work.

Next you get a chance, please do send him greetings from us here at DI!

 

This is great! I'm glad John is hanging in there.

 

Thanks for the update!

I was thinking about John not long ago, which actually inspired me to check back in here.

 

Good to hear. 90 years old, wow! Any update to Mr Levicoff?

 

Steve passed away in April, see Steve Foerster's post here: Steve Levicoff has passed away | DegreeInfo.

 

John is 87, not 90.

That's "Dr" Levicoff.

 

Thank you Dr Douglas. Don't know why I said 90; obviously he said 87. And yes, I know it's Dr Levicoff. No slight intended. Just didn't think about it. Glad to see you sticking up for a fellow Union grad. Enjoy your weekend.

 

I was in my basement today looking for something when I came across my Millard Fillmore Institute diplomas. When my twins were born, John thoughtfully made them honorary doctors, complete with MFI diplomas to prove it, which are incredibly ornate and well-designed, much more impressive than any of my real diplomas.

My twins both graduated from real colleges last year (daughter UMass-Amherst and son Framingham State University), it made me realize how quickly time goes by.

 

As I recall, this was purposeful in order to mimic the same common practice with diploma mills.

Union Institute and University was always a very nontraditional school. Yet my PhD diploma is as ornate and huge (11"/17") with embossed lettering in that familiar caligraphy style--the whole shmear. My Doctor of Social Science diploma from the very traditional University of Leicester, on the other hand, looks like someone typed a brief note on A4 size paper. You just never know.

 

One of my favorite stories that John told was when someone (I forget if he was directly involved) had a celebration for Millard Fillmore's birthday, and invited a military marching band to perform (again, my memory fails me which branch). The band showed up in a bus, got off, and was quite surprised to see a total of about 10 people at the high school football field. They shrugged it off, got their stuff together, and did their thing for a few laps around the field.

My MSPP diploma is massive, you could serve a full dinner on the thing, but not especially ornate. An employer requested a photocopy of it, I had to send them a photo because it won't fit onto a copy machine.

 

The Texas State Bar wall license certificate could cover a quarter of the average New England state and they give you TWO of them. Being New Mexican, I have a theory about that; the Texan makes everything big to...um..."compensate". Our NM certificate is a modest 8x10.

 

I was recently in Texas (Pearland) for a conference, and they do seem to like to emphasize BIG there........

 

Texas-shmexas. I'm from Seattle, Alaska's beachhead in the Lower 48. WE know BIG when we see it. Or hear about it, anyway.

As for my theory of "compensation", years ago it seemed that every pickup with a Lone Star license plate sported a set of those "Trucknutz" so that's another data point.

 

I was in high school when my mother gifted me one of John's books. That, coupled with a local professor's time bomb going off and making the papers, began what has proven to be a lifelong interest in distance learning, accreditation and whatever else we want to call this peculiar hobby of ours.

It's really difficult to overstate the value John's work has had on higher ed and on me individually. I doubt I would have earned a bachelors while I was on active duty without that base knowledge. A good many people when I was enlisted believed you could only study what was offered on-base or within a reasonable commute. The idea of distance education was so fresh to so many people that it didn't even seem like a real avenue. Now we see elite schools offering these sorts of programs. It's been a very interesting thing to watch unfold.

 

And Pearland is about 10 miles from where I work. LOL

 

Very nice city!

On the advice of the locals, we went to Skeet's BBQ, a little hole in the wall at a small strip mall, but it didn't disappoint! One day during the conference there was an extended lunch break, so we went to BJ's Restaurant, which I guess is a chain in those parts? It was very good, but not really outstanding.

 

I originally went back to college because of a very generous education incentive at work, at a time when DL programs weren't even considered for the incentive program, so I went with what's probably best described as the "non-traditional" route. Thanks to John's book (and Steve Levicoff's advice), I knocked out almost 60 college credits via CLEP/DANTES exams and portfolio assessment, saving me a ton of time and thousands of dollars, I can't give them thanks enough.