accreditation means everything

For anyone who works in higher education, you know that accreditation means everything. A university could have all the Nobel laureates in the world, but if it's not accredited, any degree the university grants is basically worthless.

A little over a week ago, in my continuous job search, I came across a position for an Education Development Director. It said almost nothing about the job, but the title seemed pretty cool, something that might combine my education background and my MBA. I sent off my CV, not really expecting to hear back, because I don't have much of a "director" background, but what the hell.

I heard back from them the next day, via email, asking me if I could come in for an interview the day after that. I was excited, wondering what the job would entail. I immediately wrote back saying I would be there at the designated time.

I few hours later, I heard back from them, asking me to look at their web page in preparation for the interview. They worked for 2 groups/clubs and the role of the EDD would be to keep help organize group meetings, help the groups grow, and generally, keep the group members happy. I was asked to be able to be prepared to talk about an initial strategy on how to do this. At this point, the job didn't seem as cool as I had thought - it sounded more like a glorified secretary - but the title still sounded cool, so I started looking at their website.

The first thing that struck me was the annoying music on their website. I have a thing about business-type websites that play music; if you're not in the entertainment business, I don't need to hear music on your website.

I decided to look into the education group first. It is a group made up of university presidents (rectors). When I looked at the list of members, I recognized none of the universities (or higher places of learning) these rectors represented. Many of them were from Eastern Europe and Central Asia, so I just thought it was because I don't know those regions very well.

Then, I saw one member from North America, Vancouver University. I'd never heard of Vancouver University; I'd heard of UBC, in Vancouver, UVIC, kind of, but not exactly, close to Vancouver. So I went to Wikipedia.

Vancouver University was closed in 2007, after the president (who was listed as being a member of the Club of Rectors) died. It also mentioned that the university was not accredited. That's when a red flag went up. How many of these universities are accredited???

I then looked up the university of the president of this club, International University of Vienna. Again, according to Wikipedia, it was not accredited in Austria, where it is based. Some more research revealed that the university has accreditation in Alabama. A little bit more research revealed that a lot of these diploma mills set up shop in Alabama because of lax, or unenforced accreditation laws. The degrees from these schools are of no value to anyone other than the schools themselves. I found several lists from other states in the US that do not recognize a degree from the International University of Vienna.

At that point, I decided this was not a job I wanted, but would go to the interview anyway; I wanted to tell the company what I found out, because, after all, it was their suggestion that I research the groups.

The interview lasted 15 minutes.

I went to the designated location and was told it would be a Skype interview - which was great, because I wouldn't have to shake anyone's hands after I told them off.

The interviewer (who I think owns/runs the company) didn't even have the title of the position right, calling it "director of development", forgetting the word "education" and reversing the words "development" and "director".

I told him they needed to clean up the inside before they could get new members, mentioning that a member had been dead for over 2 years. I also said they needed more "brand name" universities, if they really wanted to grow - he said they were hoping to get more American universities (I laughed on the inside - no legitimate American university would join this group).

I asked him to tell me more about who could join the business group the company worked with.

He said, "Any business, as long as it is legal, of course".

I jumped in at this point, "Speaking of legal...."

I told him what I had found out about the president of the Club of Rectors. He responded by saying that the school is accredited in Alabama. I told him that being in Alabama doesn't make the school's accreditation valid anywhere else. He didn't seem to have an answer to that.

I explained that if a student got a degree from that school and wanted to go somewhere else for grad school, it wouldn't happen; they might probably even have problems getting a job, if that school were on their CV. I told him that it would be virtually impossible to get any legitimate American universities involved, as long as the group's president was from an unaccredited school.

At some point in here, I told him I had no interest in the job. He said several times that he would have to bring up this accreditation issue with the president of the club - I doubt he ever will.

I've considered contacting the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce, to let them know that one of their members works with a somewhat shady group, but I don't really think that would be worth my time.

After I told him I had no interest in the job, I told him that I had worked in education my entire career, and will probably work in education again, and because I've worked in higher education, I know that accreditation means everything.