CPU
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CPU's 1995 request for re-approval was denied on the basis that CPU was unable to satisfy the new regulations for approved institutions. CPU's institutional appeal was denied in 1997 and CPU was ordered to close. On the advice of its attorney, Columbia Pacific University chose to continue functioning while appealing in the higher courts. The state court appeals were unsuccessful. CPU was ordered to close permanently in October 2000 by the State of California. Bias Those, like Alan Contreras of Oregon's Office of Degree Authorization and Stephan Barret of Quackwatch, who like to splash Columbia Pacific University closed down by CPPVE in bold face give no space at all to the fact that the California Council for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education was closed down shortly thereafter by Governor Pete Wilson for pattern of "reprisals and vindictiveness" against private post-secondary institutions who dared to experiment with distance learning —something that is commonplace today. Columbia Pacific University was never given the chance to redress its grievances even though CPPVE's egregious behavior was the basis for shutting it down. To my ear this rings not of justice, not of protecting the public or the students, but of circling the wagons to protect the bureaucrats — truth and justice be damned.
The fact is: most CPU degrees are legal, valid, and equal to accredited While the State of California admits (in unbolded print, of course) that the CPU degrees awarded to about 7,500 graduates between 1978 and 1997 remain legal and valid, the court did specifically invalidate some 30 degrees conferred after 1997 and insisted that the recipients be refunded their tuition. A large number of those 7,500 had the second-tier approval granted by the State of California after inspection by a visiting committee. The certificate issued by the State attested that this approval should be taken to signify that degrees granted by Columbia Pacific University were equivalent to those issued by nationally and regionally accredited institutions. Unless there is evidence to the contrary, the usual custom in these situations is to assume that those degrees earned prior would have been approved as well. In other words, the presumption is in favor of the degree holder. Yet Alan Contreras of Oregon's Office of Degree Authorization felt free to post that there was no evidence of Columbia Pacific University ever being a legitimate provider of educational services. Stephan Barret, a "psychiatrist" (who failed the psychiatry board exams) and a self-appointed "expert" on all things fraudulent (who continued to offer his "services" as an "expert witness" after he failed the board exams) likes to poke fun at CPU graduates by putting their degree titles in quotation marks. Others feel free to come right out and call CPU a diploma mill. John Bear, the "sainted" distance learning expert helped start Columbia Pacific University and gave it rave reviews in his famous guide to distance learning but now proclaims it a degree mill and points his finger at everyone who listened to him and proclaims them scam artists one and all. A lot of of us asked the same simple question: What the hell is going on here? One obvious answer is that anyone can wave the red cape after the bull is dead. In other words, you can really strut your stuff when you know no one will fight back. |
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If anyone involved in this mess had actually been concerned about education or the students or the graduates of Columbia Pacific University, there could have been far more acceptable outcomes. CPU was a fine school at one time and I'm sure most students were still doing fine work even unto the end, though I believe CPU was admitting less qualified students and, in some cases, too generous with life experience credits and dissertations. The contention among some critics —and parroted by the uninformed — that there never were any CPU master's theses or doctoral dissertations is misleading and patently absurd. Just visit the dissertations page on this site for a small sample of the Columbia Pacific University dissertations that have been cited in the work of others. Just how would these be cited by others if they never existed? The fact is, a lot of these dissertations were discarded because the law only required the owners to hold on to them for five years. I, for one, destroyed my 500 page tome in a fit of dispair when I read what had become of CPU and what people were saying about the school and its graduates. Now that CPU is making a comeback, I am frantically digging through old floppy disks hoping to find it. Unfortunately, it appears that the faculty endorsed copies are gone forever. Didn't anyone even care about the students? The intelligent and the generous thing would have been to convert to a nonprofit, then bow out and hand the entire operation over to a qualified board of directors that was unencumbered by history. The board of directors could have asked for an extension based on change of ownership and management. That would have stolen much of the steam from CPU detractors and the CPPVE. If CPPVE had any real interest in the integrity of education and the protection of students, as it claimed, it would have negotiated a similar deal rather than being so intent on shutting down CPU at all costs. Although hindsight is certainly easier to come by than foresight, I believe no one engaged in this battle had the future of CPU and its graduates at heart; rather, they had their own agenda and their own axe to grind. Consequently, those who paid most dearly for this battle of wills was—and continues to be—those who sincerely and diligently worked their way through to a degree that was transformed, with a swift fall of the gavel, from a symbol of pride and accomplishment to the object of scorn and a source of shame. I personally talked to people who were left suicidal by these events. One man told me that this degree program was his last chance to make something of himself. Only weeks before the news broke, he had all of his business cards and stationery changed (using borrowed money) to reflect his achievement and his new status. His family and friends held a big celebration when he graduated. Now, he said, he felt like a fraud. He could hardly get up in the morning or look members of the family in the face. He was a laughing stock at his place of work. Was this his fault? Was he suffering the just rewards of his own shenanigans and malfeasance? I don't think so. I believe he was sincere and did what he was asked to earn himself a better place in life. I think this man was suffering not because he deserved it but because he was "collateral damage" in a finger pointing campaign and a pathetic little pissing contest.
Shame on you! Shame on you all !
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A CPU Chronology
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