Northwest FEMA chief with CCU degree

[dhfr]

Criticizing FEMA officials seems to be popular these days.

From the Seattle Times: Local FEMA chief had little disaster experience (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002484649_pennington10m.html)

[mcdirector]

Criticizing anyone and everyone seems to be the American way.

[Dennis Ruhl]

I like the part where CCU sold degrees for a flat fee. Harvard sells degrees for an annual fee. Do we think the reporter is trying to create an expose where there is none?

[Hawk]

If the reporter is so smart then maybe take a degree program at CCU and truly see how difficult it really is. Nothing beats first hand experience.

[Redlyne Racer]

Pennington said he knew California Coast was an unaccredited school when he enrolled in 1998 to fulfill a dream of getting a college education.

His parents were too poor to put him through school, he said, and he had to forgo a ROTC scholarship to Vanderbilt in his hometown of Nashville, Tenn., because of illness.

California Coast "fit my needs," Pennington said. "I've got a stack 2 feet high of tests and notes and study guides" as proof that he completed course work for his degree.

"I was not looking to build my credentials," he said. "I worked hard to do what was best for me."

This illustrates what is so truly sad about this story. Here's what seems like a hardworking guy of limited means who paid his own way. He is the exact demographic most of us want to see encouraged and protected. He took the only shot available to him. He's not whining about how he never got a chance and wants the government to make it easier to sign up for the dole. He went out and improved himself, and at his own expense. Now, either for political reasons or ignorance, or both, he is being criticised for no good reason.

[dhfr]

From the News Tribune: Northwest crisis response chief defends education, qualifications (http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/northwest/story/5170761p-4701906c.html)

Snippet:In January, California Coast obtained federal accreditation from the Distance Education and Training Council, according to Sally Welch, the council’s assistant director. “It was a pretty questionable school for a lot of years,” she said. “They had to make a lot of changes.”I've never heard a DETC official make such a remark about CCU in the past.

[Dennis Ruhl]

If Sally Welch said such a thing, it is despicable. That's one of her employers she is referring to.

The recurring statement that they sell degrees for a flat fee is troublesome. The university I attended had a flat annual fee for full time students. If you took 3 or more courses up to as many as they would let you you paid the same annual fee. It must obviously been a degree mill with over 30,000 full time students.

When I enrolled in the 12 course MBA program I was given maximum transfer credit - 2 courses out of a possible 7. All MBA students took 10, 11, or 12 courses. At the University of Alberta, that would cost you exactly the same amount of money. Was it a degree mill?

There was also a mechanism to pay on a per course basis, should you not complete the program. They did not force a contract on anyone - you only paid for the courses you took.

The authors of these articles obviously are determined something was amiss but they had no cluewhat they were looking for.