This is from the Foreign Policy magazine website so the perspective is international studies, but no doubt applicable to many other fields as well. As a wise man once said, all you need is love.

Quote:Should You Get a Ph.D.?
Only if you're crazy or crazy about your subject.
BY DANIEL DREZNER | APRIL 15, 2013

Dear potential Ph.D. students in international studies,

Congratulations on getting accepted into our prestigious/competitive/up-and-coming doctoral degree program! We hope that you will consider our program seriously, and look at the attached ample/competitive/look-we-are-at-least-paying-your-tuition funding package. Unfortunately, due to the enhanced power that accrues to recipients of Outstanding Achievement in International Studies (OAIS) Weblogging Awards, we are required under International Studies Association rules to permit the following message from some Foreign Policy blogger. Feel free to disregard the advice below, and please, please, please accept our offer of admission!

For you, the possible entrants into Ph.D. programs in international studies, it is the best of times and the worst of times. Obviously, it's the best of times because some program somewhere accepted you, and hey, that's great. It's not easy to get into a doctoral program, but if someone accepted you, and offered you money no less, well, take a moment to savor it. You're going to get paid to get a Ph.D.! You'll get to tramp around some geographical area of interest, learn a new language or master econometrics. You'll get to do this without acquiring the obscene debt loads of law, medical, or business school graduates! It can't get better than that, right?

Well, now we arrive at the worst of times. I write to you as a full professor at a great school. I have moderate teaching obligations, a healthy research account, thoughtful students, and interesting and fun projects. In theory all you need to achieve this is drive, intelligence, and that pesky Ph.D. In practice, the odds are a hell of a lot longer than that.

Here's the truth about getting a Ph.D., in the plainest possible terms:

It takes a long time, and there's a decent chance you won't even finish. The numbers aren't pretty. If you're getting a Ph.D. in the social sciences, there's only a 41 percent chance you will finish in seven years. For political science, there's only a 44 percent chance you will finish after 10 years. Ten years! The reasons for this are variegated and mildly depressing. I've been on enough Ph.D. admissions committees to know that the correlation between the quality of an application and performance in the program are not all that strong. The Ph.D. can be a soul-crushing experience, draining a person of all the passion they felt about a topic and replacing it with fury at something called "methods." If you finish, great. If you don't, well, the waters of bitterness can run very deep

The socialization pressures are immense. Why do you want to get a Ph.D.? On second thought, it doesn't really matter. By the time you are a few years into your program, you'll have forgotten why you started and instead you'll be brainwashed into the belief that the only thing to do with a Ph.D. is to become a tenure-track professor. The socialization that takes place in a Ph.D. program is both totalizing and powerful. I've known people who got great private-sector jobs out of grad school, jobs that paid four times the salary of a typical academic position, and yet feel like they've let everyone down. That's pretty f***ed up. It also leads to the next reason:

The job market is brutal. The academic job market has been abysmal for as long as I can remember, but things have only gotten worse recently. Just click here and make sure that there are no children in the room, because the numbers are so horrific they should be rated NC-17. If you're not going to a top 20 school in your field, well, those numbers are even worse.

Now, to be sure, one advantage of the international studies disciplines is that they're not the humanities. There are government, NGO, and private sector jobs available. That's the good news. The bad news is that these sectors are going to get squeezed as well. The defense sequester is going to hit both Pentagon and private contractor hiring hard. And the push for austerity will inevitably impact the civilian side of this equation as well. The Coburn amendment to the latest appropriations bill, which proposed eliminating National Science Foundation funding for political science, might well be the canary in the coal mine for all of international studies. Opponents of the amendment succeeded in watering it down before it was passed in March, but the amendment still limits federal funding to projects that "promote national security or the economic interests of the United States." Political science is likely just the harbinger of other cuts to the rest of the social sciences.

Long-term trends do not bode well for the modern university. You might think that the hiring drought in the academy is just a temporary lull. And that might be true. But go read Nathan Harden's essay on the future of the university in The American Interest. It's likely an exaggeration, but there is certainly some truth in his Schumpeterian assertion that "the Internet is a great destroyer of any traditional business that relies on the sale of information." The great hope for universities to bolster sagging graduate programs is to encourage more foreign students -- but now even the Chinese influx of cash cows full-tuition-paying students has slowed down. So academia, that bastion of stability, might suddenly find itself on shakier ground at exactly the moment you arrive on the scene.

Foreign governments might spy on you. For reals.

If you're a little distressed now, well, you should be. Does this mean you shouldn't get a Ph.D.? Well, if you really do want to get a job either teaching or practicing something to do with international affairs, then getting a Ph.D. is the absolute worst choice you can make -- until you consider the alternatives. Other professional degrees cost much more upfront and it's not like the job prospects for those degrees are any better. According to Beltway insiders, a Ph.D. gives you an advantage working for the government or for think tanks, and it's certainly true that the credential still counts for something.

There's one last criterion to determine whether you should enroll in that Ph.D. program, and it might be a little cornball, but it's nevertheless valid: love. You can grind out a professional degree -- an MA, JD, or MBA -- with discipline and intelligence. Not so with a Ph.D. There are hard-headed reasons that point toward getting a Ph.D., but they're meaningless unless you care deeply about your subject matter. Without love for your subject, you will never finish your doctorate, never tolerate the criticism you'll receive during the writing process, never tolerate the penury while your peers move on in life. If you don't love what you study, the burnout will be painful... and inevitable.

I wish you the very best of luck in making your decision about pursuing a doctorate. The process can be rewarding for the mentally tough and soul-crushing for everyone else. And to paraphrase The Princess Bride, anyone who tells you that it will get easier for Ph.D.s in the future is selling you something.

Was anyone getting a betting pool together on which third world cesspool the latest bombing maniac would hail from? Sorry to spoil your fun, but you can still guess which Regionally Accredited Gold Standard university this piece of camel crap was attending. RA = bombs away!

Quote:CBS News senior correspondent John Miller said there is “an individual in custody,” a Saudi national who was near the scene of the blast.

Quote:There is no suspect in custody, authorities say, but some people are being questioned, including some with injuries who were taken to Boston hospitals. One of those, a person in whom there is some interest, is a young person who was here on a student visa," NBC reports.

Quote:Authorities ID suspect as Saudi national in marathon bombings, under guard at Boston hospital
Last Updated: 6:35 PM, April 15, 2013
Posted: 4:28 PM, April 15, 2013

Investigators have a suspect — a Saudi Arabian national — in the horrific Boston Marathon bombings, The Post has learned.

Law enforcement sources said the 20-year-old suspect was under guard at an undisclosed Boston hospital.

Fox News reported that the suspect suffered severe burns.

It was not immediately clear why the man was hospitalized and whether he was injured in the attack or in his apprehension.

The man was caught less than two hours after the 2:50 p.m. bombing on the finish line of the race, in the heart of Boston.

In addition, Boston police have surveillance video of someone bringing multiple backpacks to the blast site, according to CBS News.

Police also confirmed that there was a third explosion, at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. It was not immediately clear how much damage was done or whether it was related to the bombings at the marathon finish line.

The library bombing occurred about 4:30 p.m. and more than a mile from the marathon.

A law enforcement source confirmed to The Post that 12 people were killed and nearly 50 were injured in today's blast.

Do you say it "wiser" or "whizzer"? WISR is the Western Institute for Social Research, an unaccredited but California approved operation in Berkeley. Aren't all unaccredited schools death on wheels? No, just the ones that compete with John Bear's unaccredited schools.

John Bear Wrote:After writing favorably about WISR for 30+ years, and being regularly asked, I agreed last week to join their Board of Directors. Earlier this year, they surveyed all their PhD students to see whether they would prefer the WISR Ph.D., or a DETC-accredited D.Ed. or D.Psy. The vote was 26 to 0 in favor of the Ph.D.

Quote:John Bear, PhD is WISR’s newest Board member. He is widely regarded as one of the foremost experts on nontraditional higher education and distance learning. He is an actively involved critic of diploma mills, and a supporter, and co-founder, of many legitimate and solid nontraditional programs of higher learning. He received his BA in Psychology (1959) and his M.J. in Journalism (1960) from the University of California at Berkeley; his PhD in Communications (1966) is from Michigan State. He is the author of 35 books with major publishers—on higher education, computers, travel, US history, cooking, publishing and consumerism. He is especially well known in the higher education community for his numerous guides to nontraditional higher education and distance learning. He was the Head of New Business Development or the Financial Times division of Pearson PLC, which is the world’s largest educational publisher. Years ago, he was a tenured Associate Professor of Journalism at the University of Iowa and head of the Senior Honors Program there.

Oh no! Faculty unions are worried! There's a surprise. Time for the old reactionaries to sink or swim!

Quote:Taking on Accreditors and Faculty
April 11, 2013
By Ry Rivard

Florida lawmakers advanced a bill this week intended to upend the American college accreditation system.

The measure would allow Florida officials to accredit individual courses on their own -- including classes offered by unaccredited for-profit providers.

“We’re saying the monopoly of the accrediting system is not designed for the world of MOOCs or other individual courses,” said Republican State Senator Jeff Brandes, the bill’s sponsor. MOOCs are massive open online courses, the generally free online classes offered by a handful of groups, including some of the most elite universities in the world and for-profit companies.

The Florida plan is similar to a high-profile California bill. Both would force public colleges and universities under some circumstances to award credit for work done by students in online programs unaffiliated with their colleges.

With less than a month left in the Florida legislative session, the bill’s fate is unclear. But its critics and supporters both take the effort seriously even though the bill has remained below the radar nationally compared to the California plan, even within higher education circles in Florida.

Tom Auxter, the president of the 7,000-member United Faculty of Florida, was on his way to Tallahassee on Wednesday to lobby against the bill, which is known as the Florida Accredited Courses and Tests Initiative, or FACTs.

“What we’re trying to do is mobilize faculty to contact their legislators to say just how bad this is,” Auxter said.

The bill is part of a national effort to use technology to change higher ed.

“Now you see the nation being squeezed by California and now in Florida,” Dean Florez, a former California state senator who leads the Twenty Million Minds Foundation and generally supports the bills in both states.

Brandes won approval for the bill from the Senate’s powerful rules committee on Tuesday morning, clearing a major hurdle that allows the bill to be considered by the full Senate.

The bill does two main things.

First, it would create “Florida-accredited courses.” According to the bill, anyone – “any individual, institution, entity or organization,” it says – could create a course and seek “Florida-accredited” status. The vagueness of the language worries faculty unions and other state lawmakers, including a Republican senator who warned during the committee meeting Tuesday that Florida was inviting "scam artists."

During testimony to the rules committee Tuesday and in an interview Wednesday, Brandes made clear his bill is intended to shake up the way things are done in higher ed. He said the current accrediting model, which looks at a whole institution, fails to look at the rigor of individual courses. He said this means a college might be good over all, but a course wouldn’t be.

Under his plan, the head of the state’s public school system and the chancellor of the university system would together certify which courses among those not offered by accredited institutions deserve to be “Florida-accredited.” (Currently, all public higher ed institutions in Florida are accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.)

Auxter called that plan dangerous and prone to political influence.

“It takes away decision making on the curriculum from faculties, universities and colleges and it gives it to officials in Tallahassee,” Auxter said. “Then all lobbyists have to do is argue with two officials, who are both political appointees, that their vendor contract to produce a high-quality – so-called – online course should be adopted."

The second major part of the bill is a new regime of statewide tests for K-12 and undergraduate college students to get credit for certain general education requirements based on their knowledge rather than for taking any specific course. The tests would be similar to Advanced Placement, ​International Baccalaureate and College Level Examination Program, or CLEP, exams. These for-credit exams would be tailored to Florida but designed and administered by contractors. ​Many colleges and universities will award credit or waive some requirements for students with certain scores on the AP or other exams, but these decisions have historically been made by colleges, and some institutions opt not to award such credit.

Florida International University Provost Douglas Wartzok said both key parts of the bill are “certainly concerning” because they take the university out of the picture: faculty would not offer the instruction, faculty would not design the tests and faculty would not administer the test.

“This approach takes it one more step away from the individual universities’ overview and allows commercial organizations to do the evaluations,” Wartzok said.

Florez criticized academic resistance.

“I think every professor in the nation starts with, ‘I think online education is going to ruin higher education,’ " he said. "What I think every professor is saying is, ‘Online learning is going to significantly disrupt the way I’ve been doing things.'"

Bob Schaeffer, spokesman for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, which criticizes standardized tests, said the legislation was troubling. “It is designed so that the test is the curriculum, so that students will gain credit if they pass the test, even if they don’t do anything else and that certainly will encourage test prep and not deeper learning,” he said.

Even though Brandes is pushing tests that would grant students credit for doing well, Brandes said "for the most part" students should still take some kind of course -- whether it be traditional courses or MOOCs -- in order to learn.

“What we’re saying here is students have to pass an exam at the end, so they have to pass to attain the knowledge,” he said. The arguments against it would be there’s something magical about how you attain that knowledge. For the most part, the knowledge is the commodity. So what we’re saying is, ‘How are we going to get this commodity into your head?’ ”

Brandes -- using a comparison attributed to Stanford University President John Hennessy -- said technology is a tsunami and it’s up to education policy makers to sink or swim.

Auxter said this line of thinking spells the end of higher ed as it’s known. He said college professors would soon begin to teach to tests, a criticism leveled frequently now at K-12 teachers.

“Would you like to have university courses taught like that? Would you like to have colleges taught like that?” Auxter said. "Well, notice what’s in this bill.”

While the bill has fallen off some Florida higher ed officials' radar, Brandes said it is alive and he plans to amend the legislation into a House bill that is in the Senate and then send the amended version back to the House. Both Florida chambers have Republican majorities. Florida Gov. Rick Scott is also a Republican who has challenged public universities to offer low-cost alternatives to traditional programs.

Senator Bill Montford, a Democrat, voted for the bill during the rules committee meeting this week despite some outstanding questions.

“We’ve had terrible experience with good ideas before,” he said during the meeting. “I want some assurance that the Department of Education and the school districts will have the ability to make the decisions that we will not subject our children to less than the very best in those courses and instruction.”

I'm shocked I tell you--shocked!--to learn the crazed student was NOT a physics major! Chalk up one for the accountants this time. An accountant with a talking sock monkey puppet. Nothing weird about that, is there?

It's time we had a national conversation on X-acto knives. If you’re an American who wants to do something to prevent more families from knowing the immeasurable anguish that these families here have known, then we have to act. Background checks for all X-acto knife owners.

Quote:Lone Star College stabbing suspect charged with aggravated assault
by Michelle Homer / KHOU.com
Posted on April 9, 2013 at 11:33 AM
Updated today at 9:24 PM

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas— Twelve people were rushed to area hospitals after an attack on the campus of [regionally accredited] Lone Star College Cy-Fair in northwest Harris County. Two other people were treated for minor wounds at the scene in the 9900 block of Barker Cypress.

Witnesses said a suspect ran down a hallway randomly stabbing students in the Health and Science Center.

"Male on the loose, stabbing people," was the call the sheriff's department received at 11:12 a.m. Tuesday.

Melody Vinton was leaving her chemistry class when the attacker ran past her. She saw him stabbing people, one after another, always aiming for the neck or face.

"I turned around and there was just blood. Just blood dripping down the stairs, all over the floor, all over everyone’s towels on their necks, just a lot of blood," Vinton said. "There’s no humanity in that. Just to see another human being do that was more traumatic than anything."

Vinton and other students in the science building rushed to help the victims until emergency crews arrived.

"They had a girl and she still had a blade sticking out of her cheek," said Michael Chalfan, another witness. "It was a box cutter to be exact, it was an X-acto knife."

More victims were reportedly stabbed in the technology building.

A male suspect was tackled on the campus and taken into custody.

He has been identified as 20-year-old Dylan Quick.

"Students and faculty were actively responding to subdue this individual," said Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia. "So we're proud of those folks."

Chalfan said Quick was running toward him when he was taken down.

"He had a sinister look on his face, kind of like a smile and a satisfaction grin after doing it," Chalfan said.

A former student said he was in the same holding room with Quick after he was arrested for trespassing. He said he asked Quick what he was doing and the suspect replied, "I was going on a killing spree until my blade broke."

Quick is a student at [regionally accredited] Lone Star College Cy-Fair. He was charged with three counts of aggravated assault Tuesday night. Bond was set at $100,000 for each count.

Six victims were taken to Memorial Hermann Texas Trauma Institute — four by Life Flight helicopters and two by ambulance. Two of them were in critical condition and three were in good condition, at last check. One patient was discharged after treatment.

North Cypress Medical Center confirms that they received six patients, but all were treated and released.

Several parents rushed to the campus after hearing about the stabbings.

"Basically, I’m frantic. I’m scared out of my mind," said one mother whose daughter was locked in a classroom. "Even though she’s 21, she’s still my baby. As soon as she gets out, I’m going to give her a hug and kiss."

Another mother named Janice was relieved to hear from her son.

"They won’t allow them out of the classroom and they’ve assured them that no one can get into the classroom without a key," she said. "They are just sitting and waiting while the police collect the evidence and try to calm everyone else in the classroom."

"He was praying and he knew that the Lord was protecting him," said the student’s father.

Lone Star officials said the campus was immediately placed on lockdown and students were alerted by text message within minutes after the stabbings began.

"Seek shelter now. If away, stay away," the text said.

Loud speaker announcements were also used to warn everyone inside campus buildings.

Five children were inside a day care in the science building when the stabbings happened.

"As the incident occurred, the doors were locked and the lights were turned off. Children were kept calm and were under the protection of the caretakers," according to a statement from YMCA Director of Communications Taryn Baranowski . "All the kids are safe and have since been picked up by parents."

Lone Star students and employees were later allowed to leave the campus, which will remain closed for the rest of the day. Vehicles were searched at all of the exits.

The following Cy-Fair ISD schools were placed on lockdown as a precaution: Birkes; Holmsley; Rennell; Fiest; Postma; Jowell; Copeland; Aragon; and The Berry Center.

Quote:Witness: Suspect in Lone Star College stabbing was 'on a killing spree'
by Courtney Zubowski / KHOU.com & KHOU.com staff
Posted on April 9, 2013 at 5:09 PM
Updated today at 6:00 PM

HOUSTON – The Lone Star College student who allegedly stabbed 14 people Tuesday was on a "killing spree" until his knife broke, according to a witness who said he spoke with him in a holding cell.

Dylan Quick, 20, was tackled by students and taken into custody shortly after the victims were stabbed on the Cy-Fair campus. He had not been charged at last check.

Quick was well-known on campus because he often carried a sock monkey puppet. Michael Chalfan said Quick would ask the puppet questions, then answer them. Chalfan said other students made fun of Quick and said he looked like the comedian Carrot Top.

Just last week, Quick was featured in a student spotlight blog about how far he had come and "the battles he fought and won."

The KHOU 11 News I-Team dug up the blog called, "I came, I saw, I conquered."

The article about Quick, 20, said he was born deaf and received a cochlear implant at seven years old. The implant was visible as he was escorted into the Harris County Jail Tuesday afternoon.

Quick had a long association with Lone Star College and enrolled in the school libraries teen activities when he was 12, according to the blog. Quick’s mom enrolled him in the program to help him learn English. Quick was shy at first and didn’t’ want to participate, but eventually turned into a studious reader.

The blog reveals Quick had decided to pursue a career in accounting and would be transferring to the [regionally accredited] University of Houston if he received his associate degree from [regionally accredited] Lone Star College Cy-Fair.

He has a love for math and a love for reading with more than 1,000 books in his collection.

Quick planned to build and host an online international book club in the future, the blogger wrote.

Quick’s future now has taken a much different direction.

Thousands of illiterate third worlders stroll across the US border daily. The government does nothing to stop them, and in fact rewards the successful with food stamps and free prizes. But when homeschoolers flee their oppressive regime the feds have unlimited resources available to stem the flow of freedom. The government fears unapproved doctrine at all levels, from grade school to higher ed.

Quote:Ron Paul
April 8, 2013

Homeschooling: The Future of Liberty

A common feature of authoritarian regimes is the criminalization of alternatives to government-controlled education. Dictators recognize the danger that free thought poses to their rule, and few things promote the thinking of “unapproved” thoughts like an education controlled by parents instead of the state. That is why the National Socialist (Nazi) government of Germany outlawed homeschooling in 1938.

Sadly, these Nazi-era restrictions on parental rights remain the law in Germany, leaving parents who wish greater control over their children’s education without options. That is why in 2006 Uwe and Hannalore Romeike, a German couple who wanted to homeschool their three children for religious reasons, sought asylum in the United States. Immigration judge Lawrence Burman upheld their application for asylum, recognizing that the freedom of parents to homeschool was a “basic human right.”

Unfortunately, the current US administration does not see it that way, and has announced that it is appealing Judge Burman's decision. If the administration is successful, the Romeikes could be sent back to Germany where they will be forced to send their children to schools whose teaching violates their religious beliefs. If they refuse, they face huge fines, jail time, or even the loss of custody of their children!

The Administration’s appeal claims that the federal government has the constitutional authority to ban homeschooling in all fifty states. The truth is, the Constitution gives the federal government no power to control any aspect of education. Furthermore, parents who, like the Romeikes, have a religious motivation for homeschooling should be protected by the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.

The federal government’s hostility to homeschooling is shared by officials at all levels of government. Despite the movement’s success in legalizing homeschooling in every state, many families are still subjected to harassment by local officials. The harassment ranges from “home visits" by child protective agencies to criminal prosecution for violating truancy laws.

Every American who values liberty should support the homeschoolers’ cause. If the government can usurp parental authority over something as fundamental as the education of their children, there is almost no area of parenthood off limits to government interference.

Homeschooling has proven to be an effective means of education. We are all familiar with the remarkable academic achievements, including in national spelling bees and other competitions, by homeshcooled children. In addition, homeschooled students generally fare better than their public school educated peers on all measures of academic performance.

It makes sense that children do better when their education is controlled by those who know their unique needs best, rather than by a federal bureaucrat. A strong homeschooling movement may also improve other forms of education. If competition improves goods and services in other areas of life, why wouldn't competition improve education? A large and growing homeschooling movement could inspire public and private schools to innovate and improve.

When the government interferes with a parent's ability to choose the type of education that is best for their child, it is acting immorally and in manner inconsistent with a free society. A government that infringes on the rights of homeschooling will eventually infringe on the rights of all parents. Homeschooled children are more likely to embrace the philosophy of freedom, and to join the efforts to restore liberty. In fact, I would not be surprised if the future leaders of the liberty movement where homeschooled.

I believe so strongly in the homeschooling movement that I have just announced my own curriculum for homeschooling families. Please visit this revolutionary new project at http://www.ronpaulcurriculum.com.

Taking a page from the Crackpot George Gollin playbook, self-proclaimed Asian hooker expert Gregg DesElms is now a self-proclaimed accreditation expert too.

In case you were wondering where Elmer had been storing all that keyboard diarrhea, the answer is that he now has his own commentary site at newsvine.com. If you are a glutton for punishment, or need some long, boring, self-absorbed rants on meaningless topics to help you sleep, check it out: http://gregg-deselms.newsvine.com/

Here's an excerpt from one his recent gems, a long, boring, etc., etc., rant on somebody's fake degree:

Quote:The person asking the question should first prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the boss's degree is fake. If s/he doesn't know how, that s/he needs to find an expert, like me (and, incidentally, I'd happily do it for free, just to help out). Once it is proved, positively, that the boss's degree is fake, then someone (not necessarily the employee who asked the question here) needs to report it to Human Resources, with a copy to the head of the company). The reason that perhaps the employee who has discovered it, and who asked the question, here, should not do the reporting is because no matter how in-the-right s/he may be, there can sometimes be weird and unexpected consequences later on. HR people are just people; and if the HR person is young, and wasn't raised right, and didn't grasp the message of the ethics courses s/he took in college, s/he (the HR person) may have the "don't be a snitch" mentality and may somehow hold that against the employee who rats-out the fake-degree-holding boss.

That's part of the reason why I, as part of what my consulting firm does, am happy to do the reporting for the employee, on my consulting firm's letterhead, out in the open, honestly and honorably, where I can stand behind what I write because as an activist I have the courage to so do. So if the person who asked the question, here -- the one who has the fake-degree-holding boss -- would like to contact me, I will be happy to help him/her completelly for free, and completely in confidence. I will first verify (in a manner far more comprehensive and accurate than s/he could likely do) that the boss's degree is, in fact, "fake." If it is, then I will then report him to both the company's president, and the HR department, on my letterhead, with a copy to the fake-degree-holding boss. Said boss would never, then, know which, if any, of his employees "ratted him out," as I'm sure he'd see it.

I've done this many times. I've stopped political candidates from obtaining office. I've stopped elected candidates from continuing in office. I've helped to shut down degree/diploma mills, and put their owners/operators in prison. And I've helped to put in prison those who've obtained fake degrees, then sworn they were real on applications for public office or state-issued professional licensure. I'm not afraid to do it. It's an honorable and important thing to do. I do it all the time, and I do it well.

And if the boss in this scenario really has a "fake" degree, then I'll be only too happy to do it to him. For free. In fact, whenever I do this sort of thing, I always do it for free... as part of my activism.

Only one student had the balls to stand up against this? The libtards don't like seeing rams among the sheep.

PhD from Howard? What, Moe Howard?

Quote:Professor Makes Students “Stomp on Jesus”
Todd Starnes
Mar 22, 2013

A [regionally accredited] Florida Atlantic University student said he was suspended from class after he refused a professor’s directive to stomp on a piece of paper with the word “Jesus” written on it.

“I’m not going to be sitting in a class having my religious rights desecrated,” student Ryan Rotela told television station WPEC. “I truly see this as I’m being punished.”

Rotela, who is a devout Mormon, said the instructor in his Intercultural Communications class told the students to write the name “Jesus” on a sheet of paper. Then, they were told to put the paper on the floor.

“He had us all stand up and he said ‘Stomp on it,’” Rotela said. “I picked up the paper from the floor and put it right back on the table.

The young college student told the instructor, Deandre Poole, that the assignment was insulting and offensive.

“I said to the professor, ‘With all due respect to your authority as a professor, I do not believe what you told us to do was appropriate,’” Rotela said. ‘I believe it was unprofessional and I was deeply offended by what you told me to do.’”

Rotela took his concerns to Poole’s supervisor – where he was promptly suspended from the class.

Poole did not return calls seeking comment. According to his university profile, he has a PhD from Howard University and is authoring a book titled, “Obamamania: The Rise of a Mythical Hero.”

A university spokesperson told they could not comment about Rotela’s case due to student privacy laws.

However, the university is defending the instructor’s assignment to stomp on the name of Jesus.

“As with any academic lesson, the exercise was meant to encourage students to view issues from many perspectives, in direct relation with the course objectives,” said Noemi Marin, the university’s director of the school of communication and multimedia studies.

“While at times the topics discussed may be sensitive, a university environment is a venue for such dialogue and debate,” Marin added.

The lesson on bashing the name of Christ is included in a textbook titled, “Intercultural Communication: A Contextual Approach, 5th Edition.”

Fox News obtained a synopsis of the lesson that got Rotela in trouble.

“Have the students write the name JESUS in big letters on a piece of paper,” the lesson reads. “Ask the students to stand up and put the paper on the floor in front of them with the name facing up. Ask the students to think about it for a moment. After a brief period of silence instruct them to step on the paper. Most will hesitate. Ask why they can’t step on the paper. Discuss the importance of symbols in culture.”

Paul Kengor, the executive director of the Center for Vision and Values at Grove City College, told Fox News he’s not surprised by the classroom lesson.

“These are the new secular disciples of ‘diversity’ and ‘tolerance’ – empty buzzwords that make liberals and progressives feel good while they often refuse to tolerate and sometimes even assault traditional Christian and conservative beliefs,” Kengor said.

Kengor said classes like the one at Florida Atlantic University demonstrate the contempt many public institutions hold for people of faith.

“It also reflects the rising confidence and aggression of the new secularists and atheists, especially at our sick and surreal modern universities,” he said.

The university did not explain why students were only instructed to write the name of Jesus – and not the name of Mohammed or another religious figure.

“Gee, I wonder if the instructor would dare do this with the name of Mohammed,” Kengor wondered.

Rotela said the idea of stomping on the name of Jesus was beyond his comprehension.

“Any time you stomp on something it shows you believe that it has no value,” he told the television station. “If you were to stomp on the word Jesus – it says the word has no value.”

University of Illinois physics teacher George Gollin has made another amazing scientific breakthrough. After years of searching, he finally has found the elusive Higgs boson particle. It was in his pants all along!!


Diploma mill "expert" George Gollin has found the elusive Higgs boson particle...in his pants!

Oops, my bad, looks like it wasn't George Gollin after all. In fact, George Gollin hasn't really done jack shit in physics since the day his 15 pals wrote his dissertation for him.


While real physicists make exciting discoveries, George Gollin stalks people on the internet

Quote:WE'VE FOUND THE GOD PARTICLE
Mar. 14, 2013, 8:33 AM

GENEVA (AP) — The search is all but over for a subatomic particle that is a crucial building block of the universe.

Physicists announced Thursday they believe they have discovered the subatomic particle predicted nearly a half-century ago, which will go a long way toward explaining what gives electrons and all matter in the universe size and shape.

The elusive particle, called a Higgs boson, was predicted in 1964 to help fill in our understanding of the creation of the universe, which many theorize occurred in a massive explosion known as the Big Bang. The particle was named for Peter Higgs, one of the physicists who proposed its existence, but it later became popularly known as the "God particle."

The discovery would be a strong contender for the Nobel Prize. Last July, scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, announced finding a particle they described as Higgs-like, but they stopped short of saying conclusively that it was the same particle or was some version of it.

Scientists have now finished going through the entire set of data.

"The preliminary results with the full 2012 data set are magnificent and to me it is clear that we are dealing with a Higgs boson, though we still have a long way to go to know what kind of Higgs boson it is," said Joe Incandela, a physicist who heads one of the two main teams at CERN, each involving several thousand scientists.

Whether or not it is a Higgs boson is demonstrated by how it interacts with other particles and its quantum properties, CERN said in the statement. After checking, scientists said the data "strongly indicates that it is a Higgs boson."

The results were announced in a statement by the Geneva-based CERN and released at a physics conference in the Italian Alps.

CERN's atom smasher, the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider that lies beneath the Swiss-French border, has been creating high-energy collisions of protons to investigate how the universe came to be the way it is.

The particle's existence helps confirm the theory that objects gain their size and shape when particles interact in an energy field with a key particle, the Higgs boson. The more they attract, so the theory goes, the bigger their mass will be.

Price is right, but there is a catch.  You must promise to do good work with your educaton.  But you were going to do that anyway, right?

Quote:March 11th, 2013
World Education University aims to create an ‘army of humanitarians’
By Sarah Langmead, Assistant Editor, @eCN_Sarah

Long before Scott Hines dreamed up the World Education University, he was a young foster kid growing up in Western Colorado who believed that college was out of his reach. That all changed when he was accepted into the Air Force Academy.

“I was very lucky I got in,” he said. “It’s a completely free, high-caliber education. You pay back your education through service to your country. It set me on a whole other path.”

Hines earned a bachelor’s degree and two master’s degrees while serving more than 10 years of active duty. Yet, as he continued to accumulate higher education honors, he never forgot where he came from.

“It has been a lifelong goal for me to pay it back and inspire other kids like me to reach for the stars,” he said.

In 2010, Hines was elected Mayor of Rancho Mirage, Calif., and he founded World Education University (WEU), a completely free online university where he serves as president and chief operating officer, alongside Curtis Pickering, who serves as CEO.

WEU is unlike most other online universities in that it focuses primarily on training its students to become “an army of humanitarians,” according to Hines.
“Right up front, we require [that students] agree to an ‘I will give back’ pledge,” he said. “It’s very short, simple, and broad, and says you’ll take this gift of free education and agree to do good work with it.”

Hines said that this “pay it forward” mission is ingrained into every course of study.

“We’re pragmatists,” he said. “We really believe that the vast majority [of students] will find a way to pass on the inspiration of WEU and make the people around them better as a result of becoming an educated person.”



WEU was in development for approximately two years before officially opening its virtual doors to students on Feb. 1. Currently, 20 courses are live—and Hines predicts that another 260 courses will be made live by the end of June. WEU has contracted with 130 course developers to write the courses that are taught mostly by adjunct professors, many of whom are “disenchanted with the state of higher education,” according to Hines.

“[Professors] find us—it has been a real phenomenon,” he said. “We have a job board posting that we do on our website, but it’s really through word of mouth and the handful of articles that have been written. Our secret sauce is this amazing mission of WEU—people are drawn to the transformative potential of what WEU can do for the world.”

Hines believes that in the future, traditional brick-and-mortar schools will become to higher education what boarding schools are to K-12 today. He said that many of the world’s most respected schools are elitist and unjustly pride themselves on their exclusivity. “It’s almost like it’s a badge of honor to report how many students you turn away,” he said. But are these universities ignoring perhaps the most obvious problem that comes along with rejecting thousands of students every year? Hines thinks so.

“They’re really not interested in democratizing education,” he said. “Less than 5 percent of the world’s population attends college—[we need to] open up education to the people who most need it in the world. Technology, for the first time in the world’s history, has allowed us to do that. I really stand up and defend the fact that online education is a tool that makes a difference in the vast majority of people’s lives.”

The university is run primarily through revenue from advertisers and through several restricted, proprietary business contracts. Outside of offering various bachelor’s and master’s degree programs, WEU has developed a sexual harassment certificate that covers 95 percent of the information in most companies’ policy manuals. Through these contracts, a company’s employees can take a comprehensive, non-credit online course to gain sexual harassment training certification.
Hines said these contracts are a win-win for both employers and employees. So far, he has observed that many employees come to WEU to take the sexual harassment course and decide to stay and pursue a free higher-ed degree.

WEU is aggressively pursuing regional and national accreditation but is already legally authorized to award degrees. Hines said that a team of Ph.D.s examine WEU’s courses before they go live to ensure proper rigor and credit-worthiness. Students are permitted to complete courses at their own pace, and even finish college degrees that they started at other universities.

WEU primarily promotes andragogy, or learning strategies focused on adults as opposed to more traditional pedagogical tactics, because 60 percent of its student body is older than 30.

“The students are our clients, and our second priority is employers,” said Hines. WEU works closely with career professionals to prepare students for the modern workforce.

Hines said WEU believes the best way to assess students’ concerns and promote successful learning outcomes is to remain in constant communication with them.

“We will be rolling out, by the end of March, a full suite of interactive communications software to be embedded in the systems,” he said. Promoting communication between students is also imperative.

“Peer-to-peer learning is very important,” he said. “This is often a difficult [concept] for higher ed to understand. In our model of supportive independent study, faculty becomes facilitators.”