07-18-2009, 01:43 AM
Vice Wrote:Is it the assertion true that Union Institute is known for light-weight doctorates where Levicoff graduated from? Do you know whether the oral defense of doctoral theses is included in the graduation requirements at Union Institute? Seems that Levicoff "bought" a favour
from them.
According to Dr. Levicoff, when he was a doctoral student with Union he had a real doctoral committee and a permanent graduate faculty member as his doctoral advisor. I don't know if he has ever disclosed if there was an oral defense or not. However, I would be inclined to think that there was (though I don't know for sure) since Union required some trips to their campus by graduate students during that time period.
Shortly after Lev received his PhD and before he started driving a truck professionally, Rich Douglas entered a doctoral program at Union. Levicoff has continuously derided Douglas' PhD on the grounds that Union had relaxed their standards, to wit they allowed Douglas to select a non-academic (John Bear) to be on his doctoral committee and permitted him to continue on using research he had conducted for a dissertation elsewhere. Levicoff claims that this arrangement is highly unusual and he probably has a point there.