Gee, the things one finds whilst playing on the web (unsurprisingly, their URL is www.yorktownunversity.com ). jon ------------------------- State Higher Education Council of Virginia Grants Approvals to Yorktownunversity.com In June, 2000 Yorktownuniversity.com successfully completed a critical first step towards its goal of becoming a fully accredited online university. The Virginia State Council of Higher Education gave its approval for Yorktownuniversity.com to offer college level courses for degree credit, and courses in Certificate Programs for degree credit as well as approval to offer both a B.A. degree in Government and a B.A. degree in Managerial Economics. Yorktown's next goal is to secure operating authority from the state of Illinois, which is similar to Virginia in both its standards for approval and in the fact that approval can occur in less than a year. Also, Illinois is located in the geographic region of the North Central Association which has already accredited an online university. Having achieved Virginia's approval, Yorktown's aim is to systematically move towards full accreditation by that regional accrediting agency most open to the full functioning a totally online university.
Hmm -- their Virginia location puts them in Southern Association of Colleges and Schools territory. My impression is that the North Central Association has been the most open to online universities; they've accredited Jones International University and Capella. Perhaps the Yorktown management should have done a little more research on regional associations before setting up shop. Yorktown President and CEO Richard J. Bishirjian, Ph.D (Notre Dame) also launched the American Academy of Privatization -- http://www.mrprivat.com -- in 1999. This is "an Internet-based distance learning program of lectures on privatization topics that is offered free of charge to public executives in state and municipal governments." Looks like their program is a whole three lectures -- which is pretty much what it was when I looked at it last December. Yorktown's conservative credentials seem good -- chairman of the board is Paul Weyrich, founding president of The Heritage Foundation. My impression is that those who founded Yorktownuniversity.com may care a bit more about twitting those horrible liberal academics than about creating an actual institution of learning and inquiry. ------------------ Kristin Evenson Hirst DistanceLearn.About.com
I hadn't read this thread but ran across the school via a strange path. I "discovered" a nice resource in the library: "Vital Speeches of the Day," which is a newsletter (twice per month at $45/yr) that prints the text of (generally) important speeches from government, public policy, business and education...about 8 speeches per issue. They've had most of the presidential addresses over the last few years. They printed a speech that Mr. Bishirjian, President of Yorktownuniversity.com delivered in January at CSU-Hayward entitled, "Profits, Education and the Internet," a kind of in-your-face case for for-profit schools. BTW, there was some discussion in this thread about their RA track, but their web site says that the earliest that they could achieve DETC status is in 2003. Since this thread had already revealed this school, my real reason for adding this was to pitch the newsletter. I don't think the Yorktownuniversity.com speech was a good representation of the newsletter; there are certainly more mature for-profit online schools out there.
