The Online Degree Dorm Room

online degree programs psychology | Capella awards fifth Doctoral Scholarship

Posted by bposton on December 19th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

Hey you PhD wanna-be

I just heard that Capella University and the League for Innovation in the Community College have announced that Generosa Lopez-Molina is the recipient of the university’s fifth-annual League for Innovation doctoral scholarship.

So what is this “League of Innovation”?

It’s an organization that recognizes the accomplishments of educators in community colleges across the USA.

They award three years of tuition in Capella University’s PhD online degree program.

The scholarship is valued at $50,000, and includes tuition for three years, residency fees for three, a one-week colloquia, and graduation fees.

VERY sweet deal

So here’s a little more about this year’s winner.

Generosa Lopez-Molina currently serves as the director of the Division of Academic Foundations at Lorain County Community College in Elyria, Ohio. In her postion she oversees academic foundation courses, international initiatives, the Office of Special Needs Services, and the Academic Support Center.

Lopez-Molina is also the secretary/treasurer of the National Alliance of Community and Technical Colleges (NACTC), an organization that aims to enrich sharing and networking among community and technical college members across the nation, and addresses challenges facing these colleges.

At the moment she is pursuing her doctorate in leadership for higher education in Capella’s School of Education.

Here’s what she had to say about the program:

“Learning and reflecting with other learners and faculty in the doctoral program has given me the opportunity to be exposed to different learning experiences and academic styles. All of the factors of Capella’s doctoral program equip me with the necessary academic foundations to further expand my sphere of innovation and contributions to shape higher education in the 21st century, while achieving one of the most important goals in my life.”

in case you haven’t heard, Capella is one of the biggest online learning institutions, and they have 23 doctoral specializations to choose from. Not only that, but they say that nearly 45 percent of their students are enrolled in PhD programs.

That sounds like quite a lot of PhD wanne-bes to me

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online degree programs psychology | Tragic story of student death

Posted by bposton on December 19th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

I normally don’t like to share somber stories with you, but when I read about this I thought you’d want to know about it.

Another reason is that I’ve visited the campus in the story.

There was a student who was supposed to receive his master’s degree in business administration last Friday from the University of North Alabama. But he died at Huntsville Hospital on Thursday.

I’m not sure if the University has identified the student officially, but the papers found out that he was the fifth student in the university’s international program to be linked to two confirmed and two suspected cases of tuberculosis at the university.

You see, for a while now the university has been battling a TB outbreak.

Two weeks ago, the President of UNA, Bill Cale, sent a letter to all parents of university students regarding the TB scare.

That letter was part of an ongoing effort to end rumors about the TB cases.

The university also set up a telephone hotline to answer questions about the possibility of other cases.

Because of the situation, the university created a policy that would require all students, domestic and international, to have certain immunizations before coming to campus. If approved the policy would take effect Jan. 1.

All four of the UNA students are being treated for the disease. At this point none of them are still in the hospital and none are contagious.

Health officials have not said it the dead student died as a result of TB.

Although he had been a resident of Florence, the student was in Huntsville (about an hour south of Florence) at the time of his death. Records indicate that he had taken one course on campus at UNA and another through the University’s online degree program.

Again, it’s not clear if this student was the cause of the other infections on campus, but the investigation is continuing.

Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection that often is found in the lungs but can spread to other parts of the body. Most American students are given a TB skin test in childhood.

The student who died was from overseas.

I certainly hope that the other four students fully recover from the disease, and my thoughts are with their families and the family of the deceased student.

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online degree programs psychology | Degree Mill scam claims another victim

Posted by bposton on December 18th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

Here is yet another story of how good intentions can lead to big problems with online degrees.

Down in Florida, the cheif pilot for the Sarasota County Sheriff’s department has resigned.

IT turns out that there was an Internal Affairs investigation going on at the time regarding an online college course that the pilot took three years ago.

Now this guy had 21 years on the job, and had dedicated his life to law enforcement. And he was brought down by a mistake he made while trying to finish up his degree.

As the story goes, when he was hired full time in 1989 he had 144 college credit hours, and he wanted to convert them into a bachelor’s degree online.

However, he made a big mistake when he chose the online college to do that. It turned out that the college he chose and received his degree from was not on the agency’s accredited list.

What happened was the that the college he actually received his degree from had the SAME NAME as an accredited college. However, the college was not an accredited school.

The investigation revealed that when he took the college courses online three years ago he received incentive money after he received his online diploma. The incentive money amounted to $2,250.

He has volunteered to reimburse the agency in full.

Now I don’t have any information as to the exact name of the college in question, but as in my last post, it can happen. Remember that LaSalle University in Louisiana is a dipolma mill and LaSalle University outside of Philadelphia is a real accredited school.

So now this guy has left his life long profession all because he made a bad choice when converting real college credits to a 4 year degree online.

Don’t let this happen to you. Be smart and check out the college you’re interested in. Make SURE that it is accredited by a legit accrediting body.

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online degree programs psychology | Degree Mill may claim another victim - Part 2

Posted by bposton on December 18th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

Here’s a little more about this school superintendent candidate with a doctoral degree from a degree mill.

In all fairness, the search committee has said that having a doctoral degree was not a factor in picking this person as a finalist for the position, which has a budgeted annual salary of $95,000 plus benefits.

And, the candidate has served as superintendent of the Owego Appalachian Central School District. He has also been an assistant superintendent for instruction, a principal, assistant to the superintendent, director of elementary programs, coordinator of elementary social studies, an adjunct professor and a teacher.

However, there is another point that should be considered.

The candidate in question also applied to be the superintendent of schools for Leominster Public Schools in Massachusetts. The resume he submitted for that job did NOT list his doctorate, and he withdrew from consideration for that job to take the position of superintendent of the Owego Appalachian Central School District.

So if he didn’t list this phoney degree before, why now?

In case you’re wondering a bit more about the diploma mill that handed out his degree, heres some interesting history:

The founder and president of LaSalle University in Louisiana, James Virdamon Kirk, was sentenced to five years in prison for fraud. According to a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, Kirk acknowledged no educational value was provided by LaSalle University. Kirk and associates of his lived an “extravagant lifestyle” and spent $36.5 million in fees and tuition acquired fraudulently.

some 15,000 graduates from LaSalle in Louisiana were sent a letter from the U.S. Attorney and offered a refund. Most did not respond, because they would have had to renounce their degree.

Again, I must point out that there is a real LaSalle University, a Catholic college outside of Philadelphia, which is accredited and is not associated with LaSalle in Louisiana.

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online degree programs psychology | Degree Mill may claim another victim

Posted by bposton on December 18th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

Just thought I’d share a recent news story about how a guy with a degree from a diploma mill may be in trouble with his prospective employer.

Out in Claremont,New Hampshire they’ve been searching for a new Windsor Southwest Supervisory Union superintendent. However it was recently learned that One of the two remaining candidates has a doctoral degree from a well-known diploma mill.
He was named as one of two finalists for the job last Tuesday. and On his resume, he listed a doctorate of philosophy from LaSalle University of Louisiana.

Fact number one - In 1995, the FBI raided the unaccredited Louisiana school and its founder was convicted of fraud.

Fact number two - LaSalle University, a Catholic college outside of Philadelphia, is accredited and is not associated with LaSalle in Louisiana.

This candidate declined comment When questioned about his doctoral degree.

Ok, so are you ready for this?

When the search committee was told of this phoney degree, they said that they still considered him a viable viable candidate.

The spokesperson for the search committee said that he began his doctoral work in Maryland and elected to finish the degree online after moving out of state, and that he had significant experience in the field of education which was more than the base qualifications for the job.

This candidate does indeed have a masters of education in curriculum and instruction from the University of Maryland, as well as a bachelors of science in elementary education from the same university of Maryland.

Of course, that’s according to his resume.

So, how would you fell if he got the job? Especially if you’re a parent of a child in that school system?

Or the other candidate…:-(

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online degree programs psychology | The real reason for the lack of online education acceptance

Posted by bposton on December 7th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

OK so you’ve read my posts about what the Sloan report has to say about why 95% of all the CAO’s (Chief Academic Officers) of higher education agree that there big barriers to the odoption of online learning.

But as I delve into the report in more detail, I see what I personally beleive is the biggest reason why this is:

According to the report, over 72% of the CAO’s beleive that online education reaches students not served by face-to-face programs.

Although the report doesn’t confirm it, I beleive that these CAO’s also believe that online education is still best ONLY for those types of students.

What I mean by that is this:

While it is true that the majority of CAO’s beleive that online education is becoming a more critical part of their institution’s long term strategy, I think that they see this growth only for students that can’t take advangtage of face-to-face traditional classroom programs.

Remember, as with all things internet, it begins with a split between the “brick and mortar” world and the virtual world. Then it is later embraced. Think about how Amazon lost money for years and now all the major retailers have an online presence for the typical shopper. Now replace the shopper with a college student…see what I mean?

So these CAO’s think that there is still much more value to the typical college bound student to have the brick and mortar classrooms and the face-to-face instruction than a virtual online class or degree program.

But I think that there are many college bound students, in addtion to the typical “non-traditional” student population, who would love to take online classes rather than cozy up to a smelly dorm room.

Take MySpace and FaceBook as an example. Can’t these be seen as Virtual dorm rooms?

OK so that’s my opinion. Am I right? Don’t know. but it makes sense to me anyway

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online degree programs psychology | More barriers to online education acceptance

Posted by bposton on December 7th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

Here’s another reason why 95% of all the CAO’s (Chief Academic Officers) of higher education agree that there big barriers to the odoption of online learning.

According to the latest Sloan report on online education, professors say that it takes more time and effort to teach online.

My take - well I’m certainly not a professor, and I don’t “profess” to know what they’re doing

But I wonder if some of that is due to the reluctance to accept the technology that would make teaching online easier.

And maybe the professors are ready to accept it, but the college they work for isn’t - maybe due to the cost.

But I also think that there is still this stigma out there with many faculty whenever you say “distance learning” that invokes diploma mills and things of lower statue than a prestigous Ivy League environment.

They beleive that they want and need that face to face interaction on a classroom for their students to be challenged.

I don’t disagree with that thought, I just think that the technology is there that can come very close to replicating that environment. Both to teachers and students.
More to come…

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online degree programs psychology | What are the barriers to online education acceptance

Posted by bposton on December 7th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

I don’t know about you, but when 95% of all the CAO’s (Chief Academic Officers) of higher education agree that there big barriers to the odoption of online learning, I sit up and take notice.

That figure is from the latest Sloan report on online education.

So why do so many of the CAO’s out see barriers to the acceptance of distance learning.

I’ll start with the information from the Sloan report, and then some of my own ideas.

According to the Sloan report, two-thirds of the faculty reported that online students need to have better discipline.

My take - well I’m still trying to figure out what that exactly means

you could take it to say that there is a need for more management of student’s activities online, including what actions to take if students abuse the online system, or fail to complete their assignments.

But I think it means that students learning online need to remember that it does take more self-discipline than with a traditional class. I’ve talked about this before. If you’re online you often don’t have a dorm mate telling you to wake up and go to class, for example.

So that’s one reason professors say that there is a barrier to distance education acceptance.

More to come…

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online degree programs psychology | Educators see barriers to online education

Posted by bposton on December 6th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

In the latest Sloan report on online education, I found am intereting and somewhat disturbing fact.

The data shows that only 4.6% of all CAO’s (Chief Academic Officers) of higher education agree that there are no big barriers to the odoption of online learning.

OK, so that’s sort of like a double negative.

It means that about 95% DO see problems with online education being adopted nationwide.

Scary number to me.

So Why do to they see problems in this area?

It has to do both the students and the teachers. And the report confirms that.

More in the next few posts…

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online degree programs psychology | An interesting conflict

Posted by bposton on December 6th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

I was just taking a look at the latest Sloan Consortium report on online education, and I found what appear (at leadt to me) to be something of a contridiction.

Not that the data is wrong - not at all.

I just found this a little curious:

According to the report, of the 3.1 million people taking online courses over 80% of them are at the undergraduate level.

Yet when you look at where they are taking their online course, over half (51.5% to be exact) are taking these classes at a two-year associcates institution. I take that to mean community college or Junior College.

Compare that percentage to the overall higher education population and you’ll find that only about 38% of all higher education students are enrolled in a two year program.

So here’s what I don’t understand. What does the Associate institutions know that the others don’t?

It think it must mean that there still must not be enough of a selection in courses or full 4 year undergraduate programs online. That’s maybe why students are turning to Associate degrees first.

Anyway, my mind is shot on this one.

Maybe I’m just looking at the data wrong, but it appears to me that folks may be having a hard time find a four year degree program that fully online.

Ben

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