Today, more cardboard boxes quietly made their way past the cubicles today in a pantomime version of the mass layoffs of January and July. No official email was sent, but the effect was the same: layoffs. We were all shuttled into another round of mass meetings where we were handed down the official/unofficial news. Troubling indeed.
Nevertheless, I do take offense that certain people care to call the school a "diploma mill" in the sense that unless they are employed at this school in academics, they don't know that a large percentage of students simply do not pass. Class is accredited, real, and full of assignments and deliverables that unless done, will earn you a failing grade. Try taking 10-40 classes without the aid of a lecturer where you have to absorb the material and synthesize it into points on assignments. And the aggregate student population enrolled simply cannot manage to complete this type of program, where only a self-starter could hope to finish. There might be instances of "skating by" or plagiarism, but the odds of finishing 40 classes with this tactic are slim to none. At least it's not like UOP where a significant portion of the grade comes from a team project and without doing anything at all, you could sponge off the "team" for your passing grade. The class is yours alone to fail.
Objectively though, the EDMC business model and the student population enrolled are a conflict of interest. That's hard enough without the slurs to the company or the personal attacks on employees. Pittsburgh aside, many of the jobs are in Phoenix. Have you been to Phoenix? There's not a lot of jobs or opportunities here in academia. If you don't work for UOP or EDMC, I guarantee you will be working in a school set up just like it with the same employee pool. Just what are we supposed to do?
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Nevertheless, I do take offense that certain people care to call the school a "diploma mill" in the sense that unless they are employed at this school in academics, they don't know that a large percentage of students simply do not pass. Class is accredited, real, and full of assignments and deliverables that unless done, will earn you a failing grade. Try taking 10-40 classes without the aid of a lecturer where you have to absorb the material and synthesize it into points on assignments. And the aggregate student population enrolled simply cannot manage to complete this type of program, where only a self-starter could hope to finish. There might be instances of "skating by" or plagiarism, but the odds of finishing 40 classes with this tactic are slim to none. At least it's not like UOP where a significant portion of the grade comes from a team project and without doing anything at all, you could sponge off the "team" for your passing grade. The class is yours alone to fail.
Objectively though, the EDMC business model and the student population enrolled are a conflict of interest. That's hard enough without the slurs to the company or the personal attacks on employees. Pittsburgh aside, many of the jobs are in Phoenix. Have you been to Phoenix? There's not a lot of jobs or opportunities here in academia. If you don't work for UOP or EDMC, I guarantee you will be working in a school set up just like it with the same employee pool. Just what are we supposed to do?