Document# 497811- For Degree Consulting Clients/CPU

[Randall Flagg]

Document # 497811

Three things impress me about Columbia Pacific in comparison with all other non-resident universities now operating at the undergraduate and graduate level.

1- The quality of the people involved. The President Richard Crews, is a psychiatrist with his M.D. from Harvard University. The co-founder and Dean, Les Carr. Ph.D., was for many years, President of a large traditional university in Illinois. No other school of its kind has officers with such impressive backrounds.

2- The facilities. Unlike many new schools that start out with small rented offices and no permanent foundation, CPU is built on the foundation of an existing and large entity, the Wholistic Health and Nutrition Institute, which has its own large building, a national clientele and reputation, and a good staff. This close interaction, between University and Institute, is reflected in CPU's emphasis in areas related to health sciences, nutrition, wholistic health, rehabilitation counseling, and the like. However, with an adjunct (part-time) faculty of more than 80 persons (nearly all with earned doctorates), degree work is available in dozens of fields, including business, psychology, aviation management, law enforcement, fire sciences, and economics.

3- The costs are quite low, CPU apparently feels that while it is not wrong to make a profit running a school, it need not be an exorbitant profit. The cost of degree programs has been set well under those offered by any of the other schools operating under California's $50,000 law (i.e. if you have that much in property, and meet other minimal requirements, you are authorized to grant degrees). The typical degree programs cost around $1,600 to $1,700.
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This document is titled "Information Prepared by Dr. John Bear Exclusively for his Counseling Clients." The document bears the number 497811 and is assumed to be an information document used by Bear early on in his educational consulting practice.
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John DeNevers, supplier of this document writes the following about 497811.  

"It was Prepared EXCLUSIVELY for the Clients of Degree Consulting Services." The date of personal consulting services with Dr. John Bear was January 22, 1980.

At the time the address was:
Dr. John Bear, Ph.D.
Drawer H
Littleriver, CA 95456

It's now:
Degree Consulting Services
P.O Box 3533
Santa Rosa, CA 95402

--John DeNevers--2001--By email--Located at CPU History  
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I think this should clear up any thoughts or ideas that John Bear was not recommending CPU to his paying clients. There was obviously a well thought out method to this consulting advice. Later statements that try to put distance between John Bear and CPU are misleading and incorrect. This information of what he (John DeNevers) was advised by John Bear is what many others have also reported. Document #497811 is the smoking gun.

[Randall Flagg]

"To make an informed decision on graduate school, I consulted the most authoriative reference in print for alternative education, Bear's Guide. This guide highly recommended Columbia Pacific. Bear also rates schools from 1-5 (5 is fully accredited, and Columbia had a 4."
--Jerry Bergman--The Religion of Vague

Now Jerry Bergman did it the right way, or so he thought. He found a school he was interested in and went to what he had been told was THE guide to alternative education, Bear's Guide. He looked up Columbia Pacific University and found Bear was in love with CPU. His description was one of complete satisfaction. Thus satisfied Bergman did the work and got a CPU degree.  

Now this is why all those very positive words, from Bear, are so important. Many people, as they have said, either found CPU in the guides or used the guides to support their beliefs that CPU was a good school. Bear said it was and they became students and eventually graduates. Now how must they feel to see Bear say that unaccredited schools are either very substandard or completely phoney. He has also singled out CPU as too light and problematic. You know, I have looked through his guides and don't see these warnings to the public, only praise for CPU.  As late as 1996 it was still being described as one of the best schools in America. In 1997 it still received a positive mention in the guides.

Bear is the cause of many people being first intrduced to CPU. He is also the safety net used by many to be sure CPU was good enough. Unfortunately, of late, the safety net has developed many holes as the author of the guides moved on to greener pastures.  $$$

He said CPU was one of the best, a number 4. People believed him and used CPU, and now they are shills-liars-frauds, according to the gang, supported by the same man, John Bear. He made the pitch to the public that non-traditional education was a good substitute for years of sitting in classrooms, did he truly believe? did he mean it? or was it just something to sell? He says times change and that he was right when he said it was one of the best and right now when he says it really wasn't. Well, I say you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't sell it and then out your customers. And they were his customers. He owned stock in CPU and he recommended it to one and all, including his consulting clients. If it was good enough for he and his wife to work there, it was good enough to use by people seeking college degrees, unless he wishes to admit he lied or was ignorant of the facts.  

Here is my take on CPU. It was a real school, though not the great school that Bear hyped and pushed. It was in the same grouping as CCU and Pacific Western. I think CCU was better but that is just me, others disagree and like CPU best, so be it. But CPU was a real school that met the needs of many people for years. Anyone who has a degree from CPU during the years it was state licensed and later state approved has a degree that is legal and real. Only ignorant people are now going back and saying it was nothing. Bear called a Ford a Corvette for his own benefit, not the benefit of those who used the school for degrees. But a Ford is a decent car and though not a Vette, it's a vehicle that will get you there and back in reasonable style and comfort.  For him to now try and walk away from his own hype and advertising plan is ridiculous and unfair. Hell, Bear helped design CPU and certainly helped the main owners ( Bear was a minority owner ) sell the school to the public.  Well, he convinced all of us it was real, now the question, was it? Bear now says it's too light, and then? he said it had great strength and weight. Take your pick, that's what everyone does. The gang goes with the new Bear and says it sucks. The graduates still recall the song Bear sang for over 20 years and say it's real. My vote, for what that's worth, REAL. Bear just got cold feet and ran like a sissy. He also no longer has any financial interest in the school and counts his money from other locations. His heart and his money are elsewhere and he has forgotten those who listened and bought his 497811 ideas.

497811 tells it just as Bear claimed to believe. It is the measure of the honesty and integrity of the man. He meant it or he didn't. He told the truth then or now, not both.

John Gray's Ph.D. in 1982 was legitimate and real or Bear lied over and over for years, it's that simple.

Here's Bergman's full story, and it's a sad one, one that Bear helped create.
I got Beared: Link

[Randall Flagg]

If the link doesn't work you can type it in, or click here. One or the other should do the trick.

http://www.rae.org/racistresponse.html

[ham]

well, John Bear & his droning clones are just snake oil vendors of the cheapest sort...BUT! any person choosing an education for himself, whose badge he'd proudly display and/or upon which he would build a career or the like, based on some cheap booklet "phone directory style" found in the shelf next to a "secret forex trading strategies of the wealthy'n'famous", "lose 50 pounds in three weeks with dr.Skummitz all-liquid diet", "marry a model like me, by worldwide dating authority E. Sluttova ", etc IS A VERY UNWISE PERSON.
Any "street smart" conman will always get the upper hand against gullible people.

Lately i was shopping on the net for some new DE/DL providers. True, these days a web search sorts more real-time results than a pile of old books, and equally true I have bought Bear's guides in the distant past, but people should never, ever trust advertising...and most books ARE advertising, especially "directory " books...same as "black" or "gold" lists on some sites.

I am in charge of myself, so i located a few new DE/DL providers. A couple well-known (& duly chartered) UK universities i ignored offered DE/DL courses-degrees AND a few US universities.
Now I usually shun US outfits, whether accredited or not, because they are typically expensive AND place a lot of unnecessary burden on some categories of students.
Well, they proved me wrong this time...
I was able to call the schools, ask questions, and verify i can get courses for under $400, fully accredited and hassle-free.
I even got feedback back from a couple instructors!
A couple universities were not for me (or i was not for them)...
Needless to say, the links next to these good schools advertised both dodgy/gray-area schools of dubious reputations, outright degree mills and degree mills masquerading as "alternative" schools.
In one case they wanted more to be believed, but pressed for details and under scrutiny, a "school" admitted all they offer are high-school level courses...
Usually, links/ads for dodgy providers are more catchy or promising than ads from accredited providers.
So perhaps i should change my name and write a book...

It's YOUR life people...stand up for it! Do the homework!

[Randall Flagg]

Bear has certainly helped to show many of the points you have listed, Ham.  People made the mistake of using the Bear Guides for more than a directory to the schools, it was no more than that. MANY of the schools he called good, weren't, and many of the ones he rejected actually had some decent usage. He did part of this from ignorance, and much of it from self-serving bias. He advertised his own schools= any he was connected with, as being good and very useful, even if they weren't. We should have listened to him then and now, in the same way we would listen to the man trying to sell us that unwonderful used car on the lot of "Honest Fred's Used Cars."  Bear claimed to be an expert, and he was, but not about colleges. He was an expert at selling himself and his products. That a self proclaimed expert should prove to be unrelaible and undependable is hardly shocking and in his case almost inevitable.

But the unaccredited schools met the needs of many people and they still do. The fact that they are not for everyone is just good common sense, and that was true back then as well as today.  Bear just painted us a picture that was too bright then and too dark now. The poor bastard missed it then and now. Some say on purpose for profit and others say because he was too lazy and arrogant to look. Who knows the real reason but he sure has it wrong.

People wanted to believe what Bear was saying and that made it all the easier for him and others to make the sale. He told people that CPU was great and that schools like Harvard and Yale were just chomping at the bit to get their graduates. He told us that faster-cheaper-easier was just fine, that CPU..Greenwich...Summit...Kennedy Western...were good usable schools and you could dance through them in just months and people would just love the hell out of you. He now tells the people who wish to use schools that are Cheaper-Faster-Easier to use the accredited replacements for CPU and Greenwich. The guys who are buying into Bear's new sales idea, "That schools like Excelsor / TESC are just as accredited and just as usable" as schools like Penn. State or Michigan, are headed for many surprises. Ok, if the new Bear fans want to believe that they can do it faster and easier and cheaper, that's fine, but remember this. That is the very same song Bear used to justify the unaccredited schools for more than 25 years. If you do it a lot faster, cheaper and easier, like at Excelsior / TESC, people will know. Now just like the unaccredited schools there are many cases where these degrees will work just fine, but, not in all cases or places. If Bear promises you too much you had best think twice.  You had best verify every single glowing word from his lips. He sells himself along with his ideas and as I have shown over and over, the profit he makes is VERY important to him, in fact more important than you will ever be. That comfortable retirement he now enjoys comes from the pockets of his clients and buyers. He sold the idea that Easier, Cheaper, and faster works just fine, well, it did for him. Did it turn out right for all who bought into his song and dance? from what I hear, probably not. Especially for those who John helps to out on national TV or in interviews for the press. What he sells you today may well be the thing he outs tomorrow. Will we see John saying Excelsior isn't that good tomorrow? could be. Especially if someone needs the dirt on another person and will grant John a short spot on national TV.  

If it sounds too good to be true that's probably because it is.

Degrees in thirty days, 4 in 21 months, good? Ask John in 3-5 years. No telling what he will believe then, or today, or even yesterday.     He has a long history in believing in what pays well at the time.