Saturday, September 1, 2012

Ashford = sinking ship?

My coworkers husband recently got a job offer for a full time faculty position in the online section of Ashford University. My "spidey sense" went off and I did some digging, turns out I did not have to dig to deep as they are up to their eyeballs in trouble. I want to warn said coworker about the accreditation issues but don't want to scare them if it will all go away as they really need the salary. So what are your thoughts? Can Ashford pull their shit together quick enough to keep their HCL accreditation? Can they win their appeal against the WASC? I am woefully uneducated on the politics of non-profits and accreditation so I want to give them good info...

17 comments:

  1. My thoughts:

    1. The school is doomed.

    2. School may become a Krazee Kristian Kollege in the tradition of Bob Jones U. or Pensacola Christian College, which will mean....

    Pay goes down

    Students become more imbecilic.

    *****

    It's like John Capenter's "The Thing"; do you stick around to watch everybody become monsters, or do you flee to the Russian camp 50 clicks away? I would vote Russian camp.

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  2. Regardless of the details of Ashland, you owe it to your friend to simply make them aware of the potential problems. They can use this information as they see fit.

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  3. Why do you assume they don't know what's going on? It's easy to find this information (first page of google results), so presumably your coworker and her husband know about them. They might not have a choice about taking the job, depending on their financial circumstances.
    If they're friends, I think you could casually mention it to them: "What's the feeling on the ground about the accreditation issue?" If this is someone you don't know well, I would leave well enough alone.
    Also, presumably your coworker's husband got the job because they are working to hire more full-time staff for their accreditation appeal. Even if they don't receive WASC accreditation, they could always move the whole ship to another region with a less-discerning accrediting institution.

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  4. Informed opinion:

    Ashford is absolutely doomed. The coursework is terrible, the administration incompetent, the investments shoddy and inconsistent, the student body both imbecilic and being taken advantage of (mostly via taxpayer-backed loans, so all of us are being taken advantage of)

    However.

    Because of online universities like this, I have a balanced, good life. I can throw myself into my research and f2f teaching because I spend 10 hours a week doing online work. Those 10 weekly hours translate into dozens of thousands of dollars. No joke. Ashford is doomed, yes, but if your friend needs the money, this could be a temporary boon to stabilize their finances. It will lose accreditation. It will go under. But that position WILL be filled, and either your friend's husband can take advantage of the flexibility and cash, or someone else will.

    I want to have a genuine discussion about online teaching here -- the good, bad, ugly -- but perhaps in a month or two. For now, let me advise your friend to take this job for the temporary fix it is.

    Make some money. Spend the next two or three years polishing research skills and get ready to move when Ashford dies.

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    1. Monkey -- I'd love to see what you have to say about online teaching, since I know you have extensive experience, and would be happy to contribute my two cents' worth from my much more limited experience to any discussion you start. Whenever you're ready, I'm in.

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    2. And then AdMonk, those of us who actually work at online teaching have to clean up the messes of someone tossing off 10 hrs/wk leave us.

      Yes, just as in on-campus work, there are economies of scale when you have become familiar with a particular course and you have banked a collection of assignments, exams, lecture notes/PowerPoints, etc.

      I'd have to know how many online classes you are teaching to fully assess, but, for several years now, I have had a full-time equivalent course load split between two online universities and I have never had a 10 hr week -- even with most of those courses being standard assignments for me. If you are making "dozens of thousands of dollars" that would suggest that you are working for one of the higher ranked graduate programs where they aren't too keen on people who treat the assignment as a cash cow and phone in the work.

      Not for nothing, but online learning has been around long enough where most professionals know which are the legitimate and which are the Internet diploma mills. Given Ashland's condition -- and dubious reputation beforehand -- having them on your resume may end up being a indelible black mark.

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    3. I, too, spend way more than 10 hrs/wk. on my online classes, but they're ones I designed myself (and are fully equivalent to my face to face and hybrid ones, which also take significant effort, mostly in responding to and generally guiding student work). I'm assuming Monkey's online work is for one of the schools where "instructors" are basically graders for prepackaged courses. In those conditions, I suspect that 10 hrs/wk. is possible. Following someone else's syllabus would drive me crazy, but someone has to do the work, and it may well take only 10 hrs/wk. to do it as well as it can be done (and as well as the students' own level of effort deserves. Whether the whole thing should be set up to demand a higher level of effort from the students is another question, one that can probably best be addressed by, yes, accrediting agencies).

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  5. These are things to consider. I am also this coworkers friend and her husband has a stable but low paying job. I would hate to see him leave his job for four months and then have them lose accreditation and I didn't say anything but I would also hate to say something and then have them get the accreditation and they are out the money. :(.

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    1. This isn't all about you.

      There's nothing wrong with making sure that your friends have enough information to make an informed decision. There's also nothing wrong with giving them your opinion, including any caveats about risks and potential opportunity costs.

      In the end, though, it's them who will have to make the decision, and you need to get over the idea that you will somehow be responsible for the outcome, whether it's good or bad.

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  6. Wow, that's a little harsh! Hope no one has to decide to tell you something...

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    1. Are you asking this because you feel it's your responsibility to make this decision for them, or want them to not accept the job because you think it's also doomed? I didn't think what Defunct said was harsh. I agree that if they are taking a job, they should research it fully (even more than you would) before making a decision for themselves. I'm sure if I were in their position, I'd have researched it more thoroughly than anyone else (given that I'd be the one losing a job if it came down to it). If, in your conversations, it appears they haven't done what anyone else would (i.e. google like crazy), then you could do the friend thing and express your concerns based on what you do know. You can offer an opinion, but no one knows what's ultimately going to happen. And you've done what you could, as a friend, by expressing your concern. It seems the consensus on here is that they're doomed.

      Our campus experience with WASC has been that if we met the conditions set forth for us by the WASC team, we have gotten over hurdles and WASC has accepted long-term plans to improve something, even if immediate plans to change were not possible. If it's clear the school has made no effort or has no means to fulfill a requirement, then they're doomed.

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    2. What do you mean harsh? My aim is to point out that you shouldn't be beating yourself up about this. This shouldn't be some deep moral or existential dilemma for you. Tell them what you know, and trust them to make the decision that is right for them. That's what friends do.

      The information about Ashford's situation is readily available—as Madame Defarge suggests, your friend may already be aware of it—and should be taken into consideration by anyone contemplating taking a position with the university.

      As for people who might be considering telling me something, here's my take on the subject: If the person is a friend, and if the information they have is information that I don't already know, and that might help me make a decision about an important life change, then I would damned well hope that they would be forthcoming. I also like to think that my friends know that I'm an adult who can make my own decisions, rather than a child who needs to be protected from unpleasant information for my own good.

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  7. Perhaps something was lost in translation and I read something that was not your intention, lack of body language to use as visual cues and such.

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  8. And now it looks like he can look in between the posts here to identify possible programs for which to work. This is, I assume, a joke (either that, or we're trying to up the Red Cross contribution in the wake of Isaac).

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  9. Where I work, teaching for an online "University" would be a conflict of interest for full time lecturer or professor. I presume that Academic Monkey discloses this activity to his/her employer?

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    1. I could be wrong, but I believe Monkey is an adjunct everywhere. One of the downsides of that system is, of course, that many people teach far more than a full load, and there's nothing the hiring departments can do to restrain them from doing so.

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  10. I taught a wide variety of course some school whose name rhymes with Ashford -- ended up bailing because:
    - Student culture of relentless plagiarism
    - Administration totally focused on "quality control" and administrivia rather than meaningful education
    - Almost zero flexibility in teaching even when the canned curriculum was asinine.
    - FRP

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