Chased out of Virginia by the degree Nazis, U of Northern Virginia has found academic freedom in South Dakota.

"Loophole" or escape hatch to freedom?

Quote:School's troubled relocation to South Dakota raises questions about state's education scrutiny
By DIRK LAMMERS Associated Press
February 28, 2014 - 2:53 pm EST


This Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2014 photo shows an office building in Sioux Falls, S.D., that is listed on the website of the University of Northern Virginia as the home of its new main campus. The school in October announced it was relocating to South Dakota after the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia shut it down for failing for the last five years to receive accreditation from any organization recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. The school's suite in Sioux Falls sits empty. (AP Photo/Dirk Lammers)

SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota — Website photos showing off the University of Northern Virginia's new main campus certainly look inviting: plush green grass lines a modern two-story office building, a fountained pond burbling outside as students attend class within.

But don't try jumping on the Washington Metro to get to class. The school was shut down by the state of Virginia for lacking accreditation, amid suspicions the school's primary function was to allow those enrolled to obtain visas.

The state found temporary shelter in South Dakota, which critics say lacks the kind of accreditation and rigorous regulatory hurdles used by other states to protect students and follow ethical and education standards.

"They must have been looking around for a soft place to land in terms of regulation, and they thought they found one," said David North, a fellow with the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies.

Roughly 1,300 miles from northern Virginia, the school's new South Dakota home is Suite 123, a vacant unmarked Sioux Falls office inside a building also housing a dentist, insurance companies and the state soybean association. An Oct. 25 letter to students from Chancellor Ali Dastmalchi said the "main campus, offices and classrooms are ready to accept and service new and returning students. Please check the winter term 2014 courses schedule."

University of Northern Virginia's status is unclear, and it's not known if the school is offering any courses online or overseas. School officials could not be reached for comment at the Sioux Falls office. A woman who answered the phone at the school's listed number in Virginia said Dastmalchi was traveling out of the country. An email sent to Dastmalchi was not returned.

The university's website offers a winter class 2014 schedule, a 2014-2016 university catalog and links to photos from the school's 2013 graduation at its Annandale, Virginia, and Prague, Czech Republic, campuses, but the school's Twitter and Facebook accounts have been inactive since 2012.

South Dakota law allows an unaccredited school to do business as long as it has an affiliate agreement with an accredited institution, a clause North calls "a silly loophole ."

The state requires no site visit, no appearance in front of a board, no surety bond and no annual check-ins — common requirements in other states, said Matt Gianneschi, with the Education Commission of the States, a Denver-based organization that tracks state policy trends.

"If they have a one-time authorization and it's just, you get in, you get out, you're authorized and it's a lifetime authorization, that's pretty attractive," Gianneschi said. "Once you get through that hoop, you can operate independently without any other oversight from the state."

Private universities used to not need a certificate to operate in South Dakota, but Gov. Dennis Daugaard's office in 2012 asked lawmakers to add the process to comply with new federal regulations related to student loans. Existing universities were automatically certified upon the law's passage, and new ones would have to apply.

Governor's spokesman Tony Venhuizen said the University of Northern Virginia received certification based on the paperwork it submitted, but questions have been raised about whether its affiliate agreement covered all of its programs. A complaint came in to the South Dakota Attorney General's office, which is investigating.

Venhuizen said rather than duplicating regulatory efforts, South Dakota has always taken a less heavy-handed approach with private institutions and has relied on the existing accreditation process.

"Any system you set up depends on the validity of the records are filed," he said.

The University of Northern Virginia had operated in Annandale, Virginia, for about 15 years, once serving more than 1,000 students who were mostly from India. But U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials raided the offices in 2011 amid allegations that the school's primary function was to allow those enrolled to obtain a visa.

Virginia officials shut down the school in July 2013 after discovering it failed for the last five years to receive accreditation from any organization recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. ICE followed up in October by withdrawing the school's approval for attendance of nonimmigrant students. No charges have been filed.

Rather than shut its doors completely, the school headed west.

School officials sent an application to the South Dakota Secretary of State's office on Oct. 15, and three days later the office certified the unaccredited school to provide postsecondary education in the state.

The South Dakota Board of Regents, which governs the state's public higher education system, has no authority over private nonprofit and for-profit universities. A South Dakota statute that applies to anyone offering postsecondary education credit or degrees says an institution must be accredited by a U.S. Department of Education-approved agency or actively seeking accreditation for no more than five years while operating in South Dakota under an affiliation agreement with an accredited institution. The statute makes operating without an agreement a misdemeanor with a $25,000 civil penalty.

Northern Virginia had such an agreement with IGlobal, an accredited online school. That agreement was in place only until December, when IGlobal canceled the partnership. David Sohn, IGlobal's president and chief executive, said he signed the agreement with the understanding that qualified students from Northern Virginia would be able to take online IGlobal masters of business administration courses. But Sohn said he didn't know at the time that the University of Northern Virginia lacked national accreditation, making those credits unable to transfer to IGlobal.

"We found that later," Sohn said.

Now that the wealthy, entrenched higher ed cartel has managed to eliminate or co-opt so much of their unaccredited online competition, what do you think happens to the price of a degree? Yup, the price goes up.

Quote:Are online college degrees really cheaper?
By Jake New, Assistant Editor
February 27th, 2014

The average cost of an online bachelor’s degree is now more expensive than many face-to-face bachelor’s degrees.

Examining data from nearly 700 colleges and universities in the Peterson’s Distance Learning Database, Hanover Research found that the average cost of an online bachelor’s degree in the United States is $43,477.

According to the College Board, the average cost of a face-to-face bachelor’s degree for an in-state student at a public university is just more than $35,000. Neither cost accounts for deductions due to financial aid, however.

“Our analysis serves to provide a useful base through which to outline the current types of degrees offered online, the most popular subject fields, and tuition rates,” Gretchen Novak, Hanover Research’s chief marketing officer, said in announcing the findings.

The 699 institutions examined by Hanover offer almost 9,000 online certificates and degree programs, the researchers said.

Many of the programs were offered by public non-profit colleges and universities.

The average cost of an online master’s degree program was $21,959, less than half of what it costs to earn a bachelor’s.

This is not too far from the College Board’s estimate for the average public, face-to-face master’s degree, which costs around $15,000 to $20,000, depending on the length of the program.

For out-of-state students, online degree programs are still a bargain. The average cost of a public four-year education for those students is more than $80,000, twice that of an online bachelor’s degree.

And average costs do not reflect all online universities, with some degree programs costing far more and others costing far less than $43,477.

The recently accredited University of the People offers degree programs in business administration and computer science while charging no tuition.

At Thomas Edison State College, students can earn credit through free online courses, provided they pass a pre-approved credit-by-exam program.

“While there has been a huge growth in the online student population in the last decade — over 30 percent of the postsecondary student population has taken at least one for-credit course online — detailed online education trends can be difficult to determine due to limited institutional reporting,” Novak said.

Just like at Penn State and who knows how many others, the regionally accredited Gold Standard institution ignored child sex abuse. Since it was the music department and not the athletic department nobody is going to hear about it, and nobody is going to put them on probation. What is their regional accreditor going to do about it? Ha ha, that's right, not a goddam thing, as usual.

Note that the perv favored "young looking male students." Sound like any discussion board operators you might have heard of? Hint: George Gollin made 1,280 posts there.

Quote:Abuse Ignored
February 27, 2014
By Scott Jaschik

In July, the University of Connecticut placed the music professor Robert Miller on leave and barred him from campus, amid allegations that he had committed sex crimes with minors while working at a camp, and had had inappropriate interactions with UConn students. The allegations concerned conduct that had apparently gone on for years, prompting the university to commission an outside law firm to determine whether the university had failed in its responsibilities.

On Wednesday the university released that outside report -- and its findings were damning not only of Miller (who remains on leave and isn't talking) but to others who are or were at the university and who knew about the allegations for many years and did little if anything about them.

The report praises UConn officials for a prompt, vigorous response when the allegations resurfaced last year. But that stands in contrast to the findings about how UConn faculty and administrators responded before that -- even as complaints were filed and Miller's reputation was such that upperclassmen took to warning freshmen and sophomores about his "creepy" behavior.

"[T]he response of university officials prior to February 2013 was insufficient to ensure the safety of minors on campus and of university students,” the report said.

Susan Herbst, president at UConn (who was not president when the allegations first surfaced against Miller), said Wednesday that "we will take all appropriate action and we will do so as swiftly as possible."

The report said investigators found "strong, credible evidence" that Miller had "engaged in serious misconduct with minors and with university students." The report found "numerous instances" of violations of university rules and policies (and potentially anti-harassment laws) in which Miller provided alcohol to underage students, took students to his vacation home after being warned by his dean not to do so, showered with students at his health club, and went into a hot tub naked with students.

Miller was known to favor young-looking male students, and was known by students and others to have a "type" of young man on which he would shower attention. While the report could not find conclusive evidence, it said that "more likely than not" there was truth to a report about Miller dancing with students, in his recording studio, with everyone in their underwear.

By 2003, the report said, there were numerous rumors among music faculty members and administrators about Miller's alleged inappropriate conduct. Further, there were rumors about Miller's conduct as a camp counselor and allegations that he inappropriately touched boys there.

In 2006, the music school at UConn received an email from Virginia that said: "To whom it may concern, Just so you know, if your faculty member Robert F. Miller is the same one who taught at Whittier Junior High in the late 60’s in Fairfax county, he is a pedophile. He is responsible for molesting several 7th and 8th grade students. I am certain it was the reason the Fairfax County school board suddenly moved him to McLean High. I would gladly provide you affidavits from myself and other students who were victims of this pervert. If you doubt me, fine, but watch out your [sic] young boys around this guy."

The email (and follow-up emails) were circulated among university officials, none of whom acted on the information. David Woods, formerly dean of the college that included the music program and now a professor at UConn, told investigators he tried as dean to have Miller dismissed, but the inquiry found no evidence of this. In light of all of the rumors about Miller, the report said that the emails "should have set off alarm bells" for Woods and others. (Woods did not respond to a request for comment on this article.)

A second letter the university received may be even more shocking in that it arrived after the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Pennsylvania State University broke, in 2011, and issues of sexual abuse of minors were receiving heightened attention nationwide. This letter also detailed allegations against Miller and said at the top, in all upper case letters: “DO NOT LET UCONN BECOME A PENN STATE OR SYRACUSE U. STORY.” (Allegations about a coach at Syracuse, subsequently dropped, were also in the news at the time.)

The professor who received the letter said that she brought it to Dean Woods, and that he told her to take the letter home and put it in her file. Woods denies this and said that he first learned of the letter in a newspaper article in 2013, but the report said that he "either was forgetful or not being truthful," because an email from the professor to the dean referenced the need to talk about the "anonymous letter." The report called it "inexplicable" that no one reported the letter immediately to authorities.

Not only did Dean Woods not get appropriate officials involved with investigating Miller, the report said, he promoted him. In a footnote, the report said: "In fact, Dean Woods appointed Professor Miller special associate to the dean for the 2011-12 academic year. In defending this decision, Dean Woods contended that it was not a promotion and that Professor Miller did not receive the usual $10,000 supplement normally associated with such a position. The university confirmed, however, that Professor Miller’s salary for this period did, in fact, reflect that he received the full salary, including the supplement, associated with this position."

We all knew George Gollin (George D Gollin, George Dana Gollin) was a hypocrite, as well as a liar and a scumbag, but we didn't expect him to be quite so blatant about proving it.

George Gollin has endorsed Carol Ammons as the Dumb-ocrat nominee for the 103rd House District seat in Illinois.

Quote:In Ammons' corner are such Democratic stalwarts as . . .congressional candidate George Gollin . . ..

Quote:Carol Ammons is running in Illinois to be the Democratic nominee for the House of Representatives in the 103rd District, home of the University of Illinois. Ammons is quite sure all this talk about her Walsingham University degree being bogus amounts to "the elites" smearing her for being a woman of the people, but so far, try as he might, Erik Jakobsson has not been able to find any evidence that Walsingham is anything other than a scam.

"When I thought about the relationship between what she had done and the possibility that she would represent the district that has Parkland College and the University of Illinois in it, that seemed to me to transcend politics as usual," he said.

"One of the reasons I feel so strongly about this is because I've spent my whole career at the university, and diploma mills totally undercut and undermine and devalue what real institutions of higher education do, like Parkland and the University of Illinois. We just can't have someone in Springfield who doesn't value that."

Quote:Walsingham University, according to its website (http://www.walsingham.ac/ABOUT_US_2.html), was founded in 1954 and offers "home-study correspondence courses to students wishing to pursue a programme in liberal arts studies," and that it provides "courses in a distance learning format. We currently service international students from 26 countries around the world."

Eric Jakobsson said Walsingham "has all the earmarks of a diploma mill.

"It's not like a legitimate correspondence school or online course at all. Typically these diploma mills don't exist as educational institutions at all," he said. "The fact that they have the .ac domain, which is the favorite domain for many, many diploma mills. The fact that they have same telephone number in the UK as Stafford University, which was a notorious diploma mill. The fact that when I tried to Google the administration and faculty who were named on their website I couldn't find any evidence that these people actually existed. All of these things together, it has all the earmarks of a diploma mill."

Sound familiar? Marxist millionaire George Gollin (George D. Gollin, George Dana Gollin) believes that his deserved path to glory is being blocked by an innocent woman, so he begins stalking her obsessively.

Caught in the act by fellow Dumb-ocrat Big Debbie (again).

Also note the comments from posters, who describe Gollin and his "absolutely bizarre" conduct as "screwball," "cuckoo," "lame," "dishonest," "a joke," "silly," "goofy," "idiotic" "pitiful," "pathetic" and "moron." Or in short, pretty much the same stuff he used to get on the DL boards.

If I were Ann Callis I'd think seriously about obtaining a restraining order. Gollin has a well-documented history of death threats, stalking, computer hacking, defamation, civil rights violations, academic fraud, impersonating law enforcement, and quite likely a few other things that only his darling lesbian cheerleader daughter Chlamydia knows for sure. This guy is a bad day at the post office waiting to happen, and he ought to be kept under lock and key.

Quote:Posted on February 20, 2014

Gollin gets screwy.

There is no doubt that George Gollin is running an unconventional campaign, but unconventional may have just veered into screwball.

According to an Ann Callis volunteer, Gollin himself spent this Saturday afternoon (2/15) outside the Callis Campaign Headquarters, located at 1922 Edwardsville Club Plaza in Edwardsville, putting flyers on Callis volunteers' cars and putting up Gollin yard signs in front of the Callis HQ. Oh, and our tipster also got photos of Gollin doing this:











Hey George, I'm no David Axelrod, but a little friendly advice: the reason campaigns spend time ID'ing voters is in part so they don't waste time and resources trying to persuade or GOTV voters who support the opponent's campaign. Here you are doing both, to not only Callis voters, but people who volunteer for Callis. That's cuckoo.

Well, not sure this is really a race anymore, but I am still looking forward to that debate tonight at 8pm. Wonder if Gollin will show up at the Ann Callis Pre-Debate Party at Quality starting at 5:30?

Quote:This is a new one on me
Friday, Feb 21, 2014


* From the always interesting Big Debbie's House blog about Champaign-area politics--


There is no doubt that George Gollin is running an unconventional campaign, but unconventional may have just veered into screwball.

According to an Ann Callis volunteer, Gollin himself spent this Saturday afternoon (2/15) outside the Callis Campaign Headquarters, located at 1922 Edwardsville Club Plaza in Edwardsville, putting flyers on Callis volunteers' cars and putting up Gollin yard signs in front of the Callis HQ. Oh, and our tipster also got photos of Gollin doing this

Gollin and Callis are Democrats hoping to challenge freshman GOP Rep. Rodney Davis.

* One of the pics--



What an absolutely bizarre thing to do.

- Posted by Rich Miller

Attempting to gather proof? Isn't that the very same excuse sociopaths like George Gollin and Gregg DesElms use to justify their antisocial behavior? There must be some book like Sociopathy for Dummies out there that these pervs read, because they all use the same lame excuse and are too dumb to think up anything original.

Quote:Pervy Professor Cops Plea In Voyeurism Case
Man used camera pen to film under clothing of two students

FEBRUARY 18--The college professor who claimed that he secretly filmed under the clothing of two female students to determine whether they had improperly failed to wear undergarments to class has pleaded to a video voyeurism charge, records show.

Don Samuelson, 65, entered a no contest plea to a felony count and was sentenced last month to three years probation and ordered to pay a $672 fine. Samuelson is seen at right in a mug shot taken at the time of his plea.



Samuelson, a [regionally accredited] University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine professor, used a camera pen to surreptitiously film two students on four separate occasions last year, according to a police report.

After one of the victims realized that Samuelson had been videotaping her, she contacted cops (who later seized the camera pen during a search of his Gainesville office). The device contained “upskirt” and “downshirt” videos, as well as footage of “females working in Samuelson’s laboratory and/or meeting with him in his office,” police reported.

When investigators confronted Samuelson about his videos, the educator claimed that he was “attempting to gather proof” that one of the victims “was not wearing undergarments” in class, which he thought was “inappropriate.”

As for the clips revealing that he “directed the camera pen at students’ breasts,” Samuelson “acknowledged that this activity was ‘inappropriate,’” investigators added. (3 pages)

Quote:Pervy Professor Cops Plea In Voyeurism Case
Man used camera pen to film under clothing of two students

FEBRUARY 18--The college professor who claimed that he secretly filmed under the clothing of two female students to determine whether they had improperly failed to wear undergarments to class has pleaded to a video voyeurism charge, records show.

Don Samuelson, 65, entered a no contest plea to a felony count and was sentenced last month to three years probation and ordered to pay a $672 fine. Samuelson is seen at right in a mug shot taken at the time of his plea.



Samuelson, a [regionally accredited] University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine professor, used a camera pen to surreptitiously film two students on four separate occasions last year, according to a police report.

After one of the victims realized that Samuelson had been videotaping her, she contacted cops (who later seized the camera pen during a search of his Gainesville office). The device contained “upskirt” and “downshirt” videos, as well as footage of “females working in Samuelson’s laboratory and/or meeting with him in his office,” police reported.

When investigators confronted Samuelson about his videos, the educator claimed that he was “attempting to gather proof” that one of the victims “was not wearing undergarments” in class, which he thought was “inappropriate.”

As for the clips revealing that he “directed the camera pen at students’ breasts,” Samuelson “acknowledged that this activity was ‘inappropriate,’” investigators added. (3 pages)

Quote:Rubio Calls for 'Swift' Overhaul of Accreditation
February 11, 2014

Two prominent Republican Senators on Monday continued to push for an overhaul of U.S. accreditation of colleges, seeking to open up federal student aid to non-traditional forms of higher education as a way to lower costs and broaden access. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, in a speech at a National Journal event in Miami, called on Congress to establish a new independent accrediting board that would accredit free online courses -- a proposal also floated by President Obama in his 2013 State of the Union address. “Action on this issue can and should be swift,” Rubio said, adding that “members of both parties are beginning to realize that for every day we delay bold accreditation reform, our education system leaves more Americans behind to languish in a dwindling market of low-skill jobs.”

Rubio praised a proposal by Senator Mike Lee of Utah that would allow states and companies to accredit courses. At a separate event in Washington, Lee said that such a plan would help lower the cost of higher education.

In his remarks in Miami, Rubio also laid out several other higher education proposals. He suggested that income-based repayment should be the default payment plan for federal student loans. He said that the various federal income-based repayment programs are underutilized and too confusing for borrowers.

In addition, he proposed a mechanism called “Student Investment Plans” as an alternative option to loan-financing for college tuition. Under the plan, students would have the option of applying for an investment plan from an “approved and certified private investment group” whose investors would pay the students’ tuition in return for a percentage of their income for a set period of time after graduation.

How deep is that pocket, George Gollin?

Thinking of suing some asshole college drone for stalking, extortion, defamation, civil rights violations or computer hacking? If the asshole college drone in question is George Dana Gollin you are in luck--according to public disclosure forms George Gollin claims to be worth between $2.3 million and $4.0 million. A nice deep pocket to go after if for some reason you can't figure out how to sue the State of Illinois.

Quote:The metro-east candidates running for U.S. House nominations in the March 18 primary have filed financial disclosure forms on their household assets and incomes. These documents show that:

13th House Democratic primary

* Former Madison County Chief Judge Ann Callis reported household net worth of between $3 million and nearly $10 million and income in 2013 of at least $50,000.

* Physics professor George Gollin reported assets of between $2.3 million and $4 million, and earnings by August 2013 of $88,208 as a University of Illinois professor.

Surprise! Higher ed "quality assurance" is arbitrary. Who would have guessed?

Quote:Court Loss for an Accreditor
January 24, 2014
By Doug Lederman

A federal judge took the unusual step last week of blocking an accrediting agency's decision to strip an institution's accreditation, and the highly unusual (if not unprecedented) step of fining the agency for its action.

The ruling by the federal judge in Virginia came in a case involving a Missouri massage school, and so has remained under the radar.

But the approach the judge used in deciding the case could apply to any accreditor's review of any college, and so raises issues much more broadly for higher education quality assurance agencies, at a time when they are under broad political attack, too.

Professional Massage Training Center sued the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges in August 2012, after the agency revoked the school's accreditation, citing concerns about the continuity of its management, the adequacy of its learning resources, and its verification of faculty qualifications. The lawsuit argued that the agency denied the massage school due process; the court had granted a preliminary injunction in September 2012 blocking the denial of accreditation, but this was the judge's first full ruling on the merits of the case.

In his ruling, Judge Liam O'Grady, of the Eastern District of Virginia, acknowledged that in line with federal court precedent, judges owe "great deference" to the decisions of accrediting agencies, as they do to administrative decisions of federal agencies. (He also stated that the standard the school must meet for winning -- that the agency's decision was "arbitrary and unreasonable" -- is "a high bar.")

But O'Grady proceeded to find the agency's analysis lacking on several counts. The judge noted that ACCSC officials had declared the school's learning resources to be inadequate while passing up an opportunity to review a nearby university library to which the school's students had been granted access as part of an agreement. "To deem the [learning resource center] inadequate without having examined it is arbitrary by definition," the judge wrote.

The judge found the accreditor wanting in the other areas, as well, concluding that the agency did not have clear standards or documented evidence for dinging the school on faculty requirements, and that the accreditor had twice previously found the school's management to be adequate. (The judge also essentially accuses the agency of being biased against the school's longtime leader.)

"To summarize, ACCSC's decision to revoke PMTC's accreditation was based on an inadequate LRS that ACCSC didn't visit, the school's reasoned flexibility in applying its own faculty experience requirements, and application of a vague standard to find the same management that had previously been adequate is now inadequate. The Court considers these bases arbitrary and unreasonable, so finds in favor of PMTC" on its due process claim.

The judge sided with the accreditor on the lawsuit's other five counts -- but the one successful claim was enough for him not only to reverse the accreditor's decision but to require it to pay damages of $429,000, the school's lost profits from the students it was unable to enroll because its accreditation was stripped, plus legal fees and costs of rehiring employees.

And rather than simply vacating the loss of accreditation, he mandated that the accreditor must renew the school's accreditation until its next normal review cycle.

Supporters of the massage school characterized the judge's decision as a "David vs. Goliath"-style victory, which a news release characterized as "stunning."

A statement from ACCSC described the agency's officials as "disappointed" by the decision, which they called "flawed in several important respects."

Lawyers who work on accreditation issues said they were surprised by the judge's willingness to substitute his own judgments for those of the accreditor, and especially for the financial penalties, which one said he believed to be unprecedented.

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