Dixie Randock's taxpayer-funded vacation has relocated from chilly Dublin in northern California to warm and breezy Victorville in southern California.

http://www.bop.gov/iloc2/InmateFinderSer...=&x=96&y=8

This is quite a scenic venue, offering a breath-taking view of the snow-capped San Bernardino mountains from the desert side. While some people are hurting their backs shoveling snow and enduring the harsh and icy punishment of "global warming," Dixie gets to enjoy her leisure time in this lovely locale. She surely will miss this charming holiday spot when she is released a mere 400 days from now.

completely full of crap?

Is this meat-beater trying to tell us that some licensed social worker with an M.S.W. who then obtains a DETC PsyD won't try to portray themself as a psychologist? I hate to say it but I agree with Nosborne on this one.

DD thread

Union goons beware!  Taxpayers are tired of your extortionate schemes and they are beginning to stand up to the bullies.

All Administrators and Teachers at Rhode Island School Fired

Quote:Written by Warner Todd Huston    
Thursday, 18 February 2010 00:15  

I don't expect this to stick. I fully expect some left-wing, paid off judge to come to the aid of these union thugs. But... in Central Falls, Rhode Island School Superintendent Frances Gallo has fired an entire high school's worth of teachers and administrators over a labor dispute.

Central Falls High School is situated in one of the poorest sections of Rhode Island yet the teachers there make between $72 and $78 thousand per year, far above the mean income of the area. The school is also performing dismally.

So, Superintendent Gallo told teachers that they would have to work perhaps twenty-five minutes more per day and help tutor the students. Naturally the un-caring teachers union refused - proving once again that education and the kids are not of interest to a union.

The union wouldn't budge so Super Gallo just fired them all. Now THAT is some funny stuff right there! Good for Super Gallo.

Like I said, I doubt that the courts will allow it, but they should. These unions need to be busted.

The actions of this recalcitrant union brings to mind the nick-name that the founders had for Rhode Island. It was called Rogues Island back then. The name still fits.

This also brings to mind a famous quote of a teachers union chief from decades past. Albert Shanker, former president American Federation of Teachers (1985) was AFT president for over 20 years. His most famous quote is: "When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children."

Gay boy pornmeister and pervert pandering puke Thomas "Chip" White claims he can't fathom the "personal/ad hominem attacks" on the DL boards.

Of course, not by him and or his cabal of fellow deviants and socialist retards.  Oh no, it's those nasty "mill operators" who have been doing it.    

Quote:In reflecting on this, I'm sure that I've been occasionally guilty of an ad hominem attack on somebody, but usually it's people like mill operators who use circular logic, blatant lies, or other deceit and misdirection to make their case, and then go into a shuck-and-jive routine when called on it.

What about situations where the integrity of the poster (or lack thereof) is central to the argument the poster is making, and, therefore, a focus on the poster's integrity becomes at least somewhat relevant to the discussion? Would that fall under ad hominem, and in terms of argumentation, is raising such issues appropriate?

Sometimes it's just too easy.

Rich?Douglas Wrote:...My story is one of failure in that regard. When I first set out to do a Ph.D., I was in my mid-20's and in the beginnings of a career as an Air Force officer. My Air Force specialty was education and training, and I saw myself one day working at a DL school after leaving the Air Force. But because I took so long to graduate, what I set out to do and what I had become had changed dramatically. By the time I graduated I was a seasoned training and development professional. I tried to go a different route once I'd taken the Ph.D., but it was a mistake. (I chaired a campus department of UoP for a year. I was then offered a dean's position at two universities very well known on this board, but turned them down to return to T&D--and the commensurate salaries.)

So now I have a Ph.D. in a field in which I do not work, I do not research, and I will likely not do so in my future. It's kind of messed up, which is why I'm fixing it.

Randell1234 Wrote:So the magic question - how are you fixing it?

Rich?Douglas Wrote:Still looking for suggestions.

Hard to believe, but this is yet another thread about yet another glaring, obvious error by the self-appointed accreditation "expert" and CHEA buffoon George Gollin (George D. Gollin, George Dana Gollin).

The "expert" apparently has no clue about the British system of accreditation. In particular, he is utterly oblivious to the Accreditation Service for International Colleges (ASIC), an accreditation body recognised by the UK government.

That doesn't stop The Sphincter from making his grand public character assassinations at DD, though.

ASIC is the very same UK accreditation body that issued the well-publicized accreditation of Warnborough College, discussed here and elsewhere back when it happened.

ASIC also accredits Trans-Atlantic College, which was included on a list of mills recently posted by Gollum at DD. Poster "Harley Peterson" politely inquired why TAC was on the list. The idiot "expert" jerkoff fool Gollum replied that he couldn't find TAC on the DCSF lists of recognised and listed UK institutions.

Poster "johann" then dropped the hammer on the moron Gollum:

Quote:Yes - As Harley Said, Transatlantic IS recognized!
by johann on Thu Feb 11, 2010 11:07 pm

Oh - looky! Transatlantic College is right here (Page 106 -alpha order).
http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/employersandsponsors/pointsbasedsystem/registerofsponsorseducation

That was easy! Thanks, Harley, for enlightening us on this particular college. Thanks, Malcolm Jenner, for referencing this list in the "Stoopid Diploma Mills" thread, thereby letting us know that International College of Excellence wasn't the "brown and smelly thing" Dr. Gollin thought it was.

It should NOT usually be difficult to distinguish a dog-turd from an authorized school.

Johann

Hell hath no fury like...

3 Die in Shooting at U. Alabama-Huntsville

Quote:HUNTSVILLE, Ala., Feb. 12, 2010

Shooter Allegedly Opened Fire After Denied Tenure, CBS News Affiliate Reports; 3 Other People Injured

Three people were killed and several more injured in a shooting Friday in a science building at the [regionally accredited] University of Alabama's Huntsville campus, university officials said.

A woman was in custody, but university spokesman Ray Garner said he could not identify her or the victims. Local television stations reported she is a faculty member.

A source tells CBS News affiliate WHNT-TV in Huntsville that the suspect is a faculty member who was denied tenure at the university. After being denied tenure in the morning, the suspect walked into a biology department faculty meeting Friday afternoon and opened fire, WHNT-TV reports.

WHNT-TV reports that three victims were injured in the shooting. Two of those victims are in critical condition at a hospital, the TV station reports.

Two of the injured victims are men and one is a woman, WHNT-TV reports. Huntsville Hospital spokesman Burr Ingram confirmed that description of the victims. The gender of the victims in critical condition was not clear.

None of the victims were students, WHNT-TV reports. Garner told reporters Friday night that, of the six people shot, five are faculty members and one is a staff member. The staff member was in critical condition, Garner said. The three people who died were faculty members, he said.

At one time, Huntsville Hospital was told to expect as many as 10 victims, WHNT-TV reports.

WHNT-TV reports that a man and a woman were in custody. Garner told reporters Friday night that the man was detained for questioning, not arrested, by Huntsville police.

Earlier, university spokesman Ray Garner said one suspect is in custody.

Sophomore Erin Johnson tells The Huntsville Times a biology faculty meeting was under way when she heard screams coming from the room.

The shooting happened Friday afternoon in the university's Shelby Center, a science building. University police secured the building and students were cleared from it.

Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby released a statement to WHNT-TV about the shooting.

"I am deeply saddened to hear of this horrible tragedy. My thoughts and prayers are with the faculty and staff of the University of Alabama-Huntsville," the statement reads.

The Huntsville campus has about 7,500 students in northern Alabama, not far from the Tennessee line.

The university posted a message on its Web site Friday afternoon telling students the campus was closed Friday night and all students were encouraged to go home. Counselors were available to speak with students.

Garner said the campus was closed while police gathered evidence. He said at a news conference that the shooting was not unlike one the area experienced a week ago, when a 14-year-old student was shot to death in a middle school hallway, allegedly by a fellow student.

"This town is unaccustomed to shootings and multiple deaths," he said.

It looks like Dr. Robert Ray Hill has been appointed to the faculty of
Global Evangelical Christian College & Seminary (GECCS) of Wetumpka, AL for the Spring 2010 semester.

www.globaleac.org

I had never heard of this school but as I have stated before, I am not especially well-versed in religious higher education and seminaries, and the degrees they offer. It is my understanding that it is largely denomination specific. If Dr. Hill accepted a faculty appointment there then I'm sure that they have all their bases covered with respect to accreditation and licensing.

They just added three new members.  Who knew it even existed?  

Sounds like a great idea, consistent with what some here have suggested in the past relative to securities-like disclosure for degree programs.  

You have "Lemon Laws" for car dealers to protect the public, you have inch-thick prospectuses for franchises and investments, but you have no disclosure whatsoever for the expensive and ethereal RA gold standard that actually measures nothing.

Interesting that it's the DL schools voluntarily taking this step toward transparency.  Forward thinking in one area, forward thinking in others.

Three More Colleges Join Major Distance Learning Transparency Initiative

Quote:BOULDER, Colo., Jan. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- College Choices for Adults, a website dedicated to providing adult learners with unique information to accelerate and better inform their college selection process, announces publication of data for three additional providers.  Ashford University, Nazarene Bible College, and University of the Rockies join the 13 Transparency by Design charter institutions, which already publish information about their program-level learning outcomes, outcome metrics and how students perform against these measures.

"The concept of transparency is very attractive to us and consistent with our university's educational philosophy," said Ashford University President Jane McAuliffe. "This partnership raises the bar and takes us all to new levels of accountability."

David M.  Phillips, Vice President for Online Academic Services of Nazarene Bible College concurred: "Thorough disclosure is a key differentiator in an increasingly competitive marketplace.  This site represents part of a positive trend in higher education."

The website (www.collegechoicesforadults.org) continues to evolve, most recently with expanded search capabilities accompanying publication of new member institution data.  Future updates will provide adult learners with access to student satisfaction ratings, progress rate, and additional school- and program-specific data.

"Our presence on College Choices for Adults enables potential students to make more informed decisions about their higher education experience," said University of the Rockies President Charlita Shelton.

The Transparency by Design initiative, which resulted in the College Choices for Adults website, was born out of the President's Forum, a consortium of both traditional and non-traditional institutions sharing information about successful operation in an online environment.  WCET (formerly the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications), a division of  the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), was chosen to provide quality assurance on the standards of data reporting jointly developed by the charter institutions of the Transparency by Design initiative.

"The name says it all," comments Russ Poulin, Project Director of Transparency by Design and Associate Director of WCET.  "College Choices for Adults is about helping prospective students to understand their options.  We are very excited that our new partners have committed to empowering adult learners with information, and we look forward to growing an even larger transparency-focused coalition."

Transparency by Design is funded by a grant from Lumina Foundation for Education and by annual dues from each of the member institutions.  Members of the initiative are:  American InterContinental University Online, American Public University System, Ashford University, Capella University, Charter Oak State College, Colorado Technical University, Excelsior College, Franklin University, Kaplan University, Nazarene Bible College, Regis University, Rio Salado College, Southwestern College Professional Studies, Union Institute and University, University of the Rockies and Western Governors University.  New data from member institutions is regularly added to the College Choices for Adults website. ...

We know Chip and his toe licker pals at DI must be wondering who this Online Ed guy is and what sort of viagra he took to achieve meteoric growth.

But this is actually an article about online education and how it is increasing in popularity.  Of particular interest was a comment following the story by "Muser of NM," who makes a point that often has been made here.  Real growth in DL will come when the cartel's accreditation monopoly is broken.

Study: Online Education Continues Its Meteoric Growth

Quote:By Jeff Greer
Posted January 26, 2010

Online college education is expanding—rapidly. More than 4.6 million college students were taking at least one online course at the start of the 2008-2009 school year. That's more than 1 in 4 college students, and it's a 17 percent increase from 2007.

Turns out it's the economy, stupid.

Two major factors for the soaring numbers in the 2008-2009 school year are the sour economy and the possibility of an H1N1 flu virus outbreak, according to the seventh annual Sloan Survey of Online Learning report, titled "Learning on Demand: Online Education in the United States in 2009." But, the survey's authors say, there is a lot more work to be done, and there's huge potential for online education to expand, especially at larger schools.

"For the past several years, all of the growth—90-plus percent—is coming from existing traditional schools that are growing their current offerings," says Jeff Seaman, one of the study's authors and codirector of the Babson Survey Research Group at Babson College. Seaman's coauthor, Elaine Allen, who is also a codirector of the Babson Survey Research Group, added that community colleges, for-profit schools, and master's programs have seen significant growth in online offerings.

With a higher demand for college-educated workers, colleges are more popular than ever. The higher-education population grew 1.2 percent between 2007 and 2009. And with public institutions dealing with dwindling budgets and laid-off workers trying to expand their skills, online education seems a natural, inexpensive fit. The study found that 50 percent of institutions with online education programs have seen their institutional budgets decrease, compared to 25 percent that have seen their budgets increase.

"What we hear now is that the issues that are related to [online education's challenges] have nothing to do with online itself," Seaman says. "Things like budget constraints—issues that apply to institutions as a whole."

The swine flu prompted many schools to develop contingency plans for pandemics on campus. The survey found that two thirds of schools have formal plans in place to deal with an outbreak. Substituting online courses for face-to-face classes is a component of 67 percent of those plans, the survey says. Allen says that only 2 percent of the schools surveyed had a disruption in classes caused by H1N1. She added, however, that such incidents as a recent outbreak of norovirus at Babson and the impact of Hurricane Katrina on Gulf Coast schools forced the utilization of contingency plans that involved online courses.

"When you have an online plan in place, classes go on as usual," Allen says.

Despite all the data that show significant growth and interest in online education, there are still some faculty members who balk at teaching on the Web. The study found that the acceptance of online ed by faculty has remained constant since the first survey was published in 2002. Fewer than one third of chief academic officers—meaning provosts, deans, and the like—believe their faculty accepts the value and legitimacy of online education, the report says.

However, a study published last year by the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities—Sloan Commission on Online Learning indicated that faculty might not be so opposed to online ed. The study found that one third of public university professors had taught online courses and that more than half had recommended that students take such courses. Schools like Stanford University and the College of Charleston have a major presence on websites such as YouTube EDU.

"The biggest challenge for institutions is that, when 1 student in 4 is taking classes online, you must step up and begin to think strategically about this," says Frank Mayadas, a special adviser for the project from the Alfred Sloan Foundation. "The survey shows that the idea hasn't quite sunk in. ... Not enough [institutions] have thought strategically [about online education]. ... Many have, but there's still a gap between the reality of online learning and the strategic thinking across the board."

Quote:Muser of NM
Jan 27, 2010 14:01:17 PM

Other advantages of online

are elimination of fuel used and time spent for working adults to drive to a physical-plant college for classes, and the ability to view the computer on your own schedule.


The BIGGEST advantage, though, will be cost savings to students which will occur if and when society finds a way to break the "accreditation" lock heretofore owned by existing institutions.

Bits and bytes are not very expensive and most kinds of knowledge can be copied and transmitted this way to masses. The key is to get real knowledge on the cheap and have it "recognized" without paying a monopoly's toll for it. Time marches on, and so will this.