Talk:Vancouver University Worldwide

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Contents 1 Accreditation in North America 2 The school's FAQ and accreditation 3 USA Today reports Vancouver as providing "illegal degrees" 4 It is not the purpose of an encyclopedia to bash a specific webpage 5 Help needed/offered 6 Nonprofit, charity status 7 Request for Comment discussion

[edit] Accreditation in North America

It is bizarre American imperialism for Oregon (and copy-cat Michigan) to assert that Commonwealth-based universities must be accredited by American accrediting agencies. Oxford is not so accredited. Nor Cambridge. Nor the University of Toronto. Nor most universities in the Commonwealth. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]]).
Accreditation in Canada
In Canada, provincial/territorial ministries and departments responsible for education, are also responsible for the accreditation of of all postsecondary institutions. In British Columbia, institions that call themselves "universities" and offer degrees are required to comply with the "Universities Act" which sets out very stringent requirements and sets the standard for recognized institutions.

The Canadian Information Centre for International Credentials (CICIC) collects, organizes, and distributes information, and acts as a national clearing house and referral service to support the recognition and portability of Canadian and international educational and occupational qualifications. Vancouver University is not on the list of recognized institutions. University of Toronto is, and is clearly accredited by the Province of Ontario.

--Kariss 06:59, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

USA Today says:

The state of Oregon keeps a list of some of the institutions whose degrees cannot legally be used in the state because they're not accredited by an agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education or the state (www.osac.state.or.us/oda). [1]

So if Vancouver University Worldwide wants to avoid being called a "diploma mill", I suggest they make more prominent mention of two facts:

• They do not offer accreditied degrees.
• The state of Oregon mentions them by name as an institution whose 'degrees' are not legally valid in Oregon.

I'm not saying they are or are not on the level. It looks like a gray area. --Uncle Ed 13:44, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] The school's FAQ and accreditation

Their website's FAQ does not claim that they are accredited, but it does not come right out and admit that they are NOT accredited either:

Q. [American] Are you accredited? + [Canadian] Are you authorized by statute? A. Member colleges of the consortia are variously and appropriately registered or accredited and our degrees authorized in statutory context. American (and culturally-confused Canadian) readers please note: outside the United States, universities are authorized in various ways - Royal charter, Papal charter, historic Common Law and/or Parliamentary statute. Although we had long-standing recognized presence in Washington State, and additionally authorized within the Alberta Universities Act, we are primarily constituted by British Columbia statutes and various British Commonwealth Common Law precedents. Vancouver University's statutory context is the BC society and company acts, enhanced by a Common Law tradition of academic freedom which emerged from early struggles first with the Crown and later with clergy. Vancouver University has a formal constitution granting it authority to conduct "university work" (the traditional British Commonwealth terminology for degree-granting programs, when married to "university" and "university college" identity).

They claim to be "recognized" or "authorized" and appeal a tradition of academic freedom, but US accrediting boards don't accept VUW's standing.

Their certificates are not considered "degrees" in the United States. Whether this makes them a diploma mill or not is hard to say. If they were to say up front that they are NOT ACCREDITED, that would alleviate all the confusion. --Uncle Ed 13:55, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] USA Today reports Vancouver as providing "illegal degrees"

Fred Bauder wrote:

> According to the Oregon Student Assistance Commission Office of Degree > Authorization which lists Vancouver University Worldwide under > "illegal degrees" and defines Illegal degrees in Oregon See http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2003-09-28-fakedegrees_x.htm

In particular, "The state of Oregon keeps a list of some of the institutions whose degrees cannot legally be used in the state because they're not accredited by an agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education or the state (www.osac.state.or.us/oda). The list includes Columbia State University in Louisiana, which was closed by court order (not affiliated with Columbia University in New York or any other accredited colleges and universities that use the Columbia name), Hamilton University in Wyoming, Great Britain's Hartley University, Stanton University in Hawaii, Vancouver University Worldwide and University of Wexford in Great Britain."

See also http://www.michigan.gov/documents/Non-accreditedSchools_78090_7.pdf : "This is a listing of colleges and universities which are not currently accredited by an accrediting body of the Council on Higher Education Accreditation. Degrees from these institutions will not be accepted by the Department of Civil Service as satisfying any educational requirements indicated on job specifications." This is admittedly quite a long list; Vancouver University Worldwide appears on page 12.

[edit] It is not the purpose of an encyclopedia to bash a specific webpage

The title of this section says it all. Labeling something a "diploma mill" is not verifiable either. I can see if we could say something like "State of Oregon does not reconize degrees from this group", but just calling it a diploma mill is IMO, out of question. --68.33.164.12 02:25, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

• USA Today called it a diploma mill. The American Heritage Dictionary defines "diploma mill" as "An unaccredited institution of higher education that grants degrees without ensuring that students are properly qualified." Vancouver University Worldwide meets that definition. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:47, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

It is not "bashing" to cite an unaccredited "school" as such or that it has been mentioned by USA Today as selling illegal degrees. Arbusto 03:43, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help needed/offered

At m:Talk:Wikiversity#Collaboration, a Raymond Rodgers offered to collaborate on Wikiversity, provided this page was cleaned up. There doesn't seem to be much information here so can't this be simply rectified? (Invitations to anyone from the university to help out here.) I'm not sure on who is actively contributing to the article at the moment - there seems to be some activity allright though.. Cormaggio ^@ 00:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Dr. Raymond Rodgers appears to be president of Vancouver University Worldwide according to this profile of him. their website refers to "our Office of President and University-affiliates Services - OPUS. The president is Raymond Rodgers - BA Concordia [SGWC] (Montreal), Ext. Dipl. in Geography (U. of London), MIA and PhD (Columbia, NY)." Dpbsmith (talk) 01:03, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

He gets a single hit in Google Scholar, to a paper "The Capacity of States of the Union to Conclude International Agreements: The Background and Some Recent Developments; Raymond Rodgers, American Journal of International Law, Vol. 61, No. 4 (Oct., 1967) , pp. 1021-1028" Dpbsmith (talk) 01:05, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Why on earth would you be tempted by such an "offer"? Why should someone who has claimed to be "president of Vancouver University" dictate Wikipedia's content on that subject? Efforts to distort the content of articles by insisting that a minority viewpoint prevail are doomed to failure, in any case. - Nunh-huh 01:07, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

No, no, I definitely don't want to "distort" the article - but I was hoping we could bring it to a neutral point. I hadn't read up much on the university (I'm a bit more enlightened now), but I was just passing on the above information. Cormaggio ^@ 17:46, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

A dozen or so hits on "Raymond Rodgers" in a www.a9.com book search. One I find interesting is this one [2]. Hope that link works. If it doesn't, go to www.a9.com , check only "books" for the search, search on "Raymond Rodgers" in quotes, and look for "The Cajuns: Americanization of a People by Shane K. Bernard (April, 2003) - University Press of Mississippi." Dpbsmith (talk) 01:12, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah. This profile of him in an online Encyclopedia of Cajun Cultures indeed calls him "President of Vancouver University." Dpbsmith (talk) 01:12, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

John Bear, author of at least one book on distance learning, doesn't think much of Vancouver University Worldwide. This USENET thread mentions that "You may have noticed in the BC newspapers that officials there have moved to close down Vancouver University Worldwide," apparently without success. Bear noted that "Vancouver University Worldwide sued my publisher, Ten Speed Press, and their Canadian distributor last year, because they didn't like what I said about them in my 13th edition. As I understand it, the small claims court in BC does not accept suits involving alleged libel or slander, so that was that." Dpbsmith (talk) 01:17, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

That is very interesting and should be added to the article. Arbusto 03:44, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nonprofit, charity status

Anyone know where to go to fact-check the statement that it is "it is a registered non-profit registered charity in both the United States and Canada?" Their main page says they are a registered charity but doesn't seem to link to documentation. I had put in a ^{[citation needed]} tag, but instead of doing that I think I'm going to take it out just ascribe this to them rather than stating it as a fact. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:17, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure it actually says in so many words that it is nonprofit. I don't quite know what to make of the following language:

"Until now, member colleges of Canada-based universities have been non-profit. Vancouver University - with registered charity status in both Canada and the United States - is now accepting a limited proportion of profit entities into membership, along with its other non-profit independent and public-institution affiliates. See further information about membership below. No money is to flow from VUW to any profit-making affiliates. Flow will go the other way to provide support for less affluent programs such as Early Childhood Education.

Dpbsmith (talk) 02:19, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, their website is pretty vague. Sorry, I just threw this sentence in quickly last night, quite tired and confused. I'm also ridiculously busy at the moment, so I can't give this article much time, but I appreciate your help - thanks. Cormaggio ^@ 17:28, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't expect it to be listed at CharityNavigator, which covers 5000 charities, but obviously only includes the biggest... and, indeed, it isn't. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:21, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Comment discussion

People responding to the newly-opened Request for Comment, asking "Should the article characterize the institution as a "diploma mill?" Is the article in general accurate?" discuss here.

• Wikipedia is not labeling VUW a diploma mill, it is merely referring to a USA Today article that labels it as such. I am unable to comment on the general accuracy of the article, but the sentence regarding diploma mills appears to be NPOV, verifiable, and appropriate. - Jersyko talk 02:29, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

• Wikipedia is actually rather on the lenient side in using an euphemism such as "unaccredited institution of higher learning" for these fraudulent operations (see List of unaccredited institutions of higher learning and Category:Unaccredited institutions of higher learning). None of them can be described as "institutions of higher learning", and many aren't institutions of any kind of learning, but just mailbox businesses with a fancy webpage with re-used stock photos. The only reason we include articles on them in Wikipedia are in fact because of their notoriety as frauds, because as educational institutions they don't fit any reasonable idea of notability – at least in the U.S., it seems that anybody can operate a diploma mill from their basement and claim that it is a university. I don't know if the term "diploma mill" can under any circumstances be regarded as NPOV, but calling them anything else tends to give them too much credit. u◦p◦p◦l◦a◦n◦d 12:35, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

What's non-neutral about it? "Diploma mill" is in the dictionary, defined as "An unaccredited institution of higher education that grants degrees without ensuring that students are properly qualified." There is a factual question involved--whether or not the institution "ensures that students are properly qualified." If it does not, then "diploma mill" is a neutral description, even if the institution itself would prefer to use some kind of euphemism.

In the case of Vancouver University Worldwide, note the section in the their own FAQ, entitled "Will X recognize your degree?" if you read the paragraph carefully it seems to me that the university says explicitly that it does not assume the burden of "ensuring that students are properly qualified." The language I'm looking at is this: "you still need to make sure that the specific content of your degree from us includes any specifically-required (by the jurisdiction and profession) courses, course-levels, etc. We cannot advise you about such details. You absolutely have to clarify the matter with the people who are going to say yes or no to the outcome." Of course, the wording is ambiguous, and Vancouver would undoubtedly point out that there may well be circumstances under which a teaching degree from Harvard would not qualify you for a teaching position.

Note that it possible that anyone who had assembled a mixture of various courses, work experience, self-study, and so forth, could apply to any position requiring a degree and make the case that they were qualified for the position despite lacking the degree, and depending on their ability to could get past "the temporary receptionist" with the check-off form and reach "the people who are going to say yes or no," how convincing they are, and how open the decision makers are, they might land the position. But they would not need a degree from Vancouver University Worldwide to do this, and the question is whether such a degree would help them much. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:31, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

"What's non-neutral about it?" Wikipedia tends to bend over backwards to be neutral, which is fine in most cases. In the absence of any strict definition of what actually constitutes a university, one could claim that the proprietor of the diploma mill has a legitimate POV in claiming that his business is a "university" and end up with a description such as "Pacific Western University is an unaccredited distance learning university located in Los Angeles, California". One could, I presume, argue that the POV that e.g. the Pacific Western University is a university is a fringe view not worth mentioning in the lead.

Personally I find the unregulated U.S. educational system rather confusing. It is not always easy to tell a fraudulent operation from a legitimate but obscure institution. I looked at the page for California Coast University a while ago, and really couldn't tell if it was real or not – and even if it is real, is it actually a university? I suspect many Americans are similarly confused, which is a reason these diploma mills have a market.

Another problem with the currently used term "unaccredited institution of higher learning" is that it groups pure mailbox operations with religious institutions which may not be taken seriously in academia but are nonetheless real institutions of some kind (like Bob Jones University, although it seems that is accredited by some Christian accreditation agency, for whatever that is worth). u◦p◦p◦l◦a◦n◦d 20:31, 18 January 2006 (UTC)