 |
| Título de la Maestría (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Barbarians at the Gates
CONTROVERSY
BY JAMES OTTAVIO CASTAGNERA
WANT A COLLEGE DIPLOMA WITHOUT EVER ENDURING THE
inconvenience and cost of attending a college? Plenty of pro-
viders are out there, ready to oblige.For example, there’s BackAlleyPress.com. Its spiel? “Our nov-
elty diplomas are designed to look 100% authentic! We produce
over 1,000 replica novelty degrees, diplomas, and transcripts from
universities all around the world. Our de-signers have gone through painstaking
efforts to try to make each of our docu-ments look as exact as possible. Each
document is customized and printed in-dividually to your specifications, includ-
ing degree, major, and school.” Last yeara reporter wrote of obtaining a Harvard
diploma and transcript from BackAlley’sThailand office. Printing, the reporter
said, was done by the Shun Luen Com-pany of Shenzhen, China. A check of the
internet as this was written found Back-Alley still alive and kicking.
Lest some potential customers are toodumb or ignorant to track down a website on their own, the fraud
merchants are reaching out on e-mail. This writer received thefollowing exclamation-laden e-mail message in early summer:
GET YOUR UNIVERSITY DIPLOMA
Do you want a prosperous future,
increased earning power, more
money, and the respect of all?
Call this number:
1-309-404-0999 (24 hours)
There are no required tests, classes,
books, or interviews!
Get a Bachelors, Masters, MBA, and
Doctorate (PhD) diploma!
Receive the benefits and admiration
that comes with a diploma!
No one is turned down!
Other e-mails arrived at about the same time, each bearing substan-tially the same message but with differing phone numbers. My associatecalled two of these numbers. Dialing the first, despite the promise of
“24 hours” availability, resulted in a recorded message that the numberwas no longer in service. The second number led her into a voicemailbox, requesting her name and number and promising a return call. The
call came about a week later.The caller identified himself as representing “Haywood University”
in London. He offered my associate a “beautiful diploma” for $2,000,
with a $500 discount if she “signed up right now.” The diploma wouldbe delivered within 10 days of receipt of payment.
How could she qualify for this “beautiful diploma?” she inquired.
The degree would be based upon her work experience. “You create thecredentials.” But what sort of degree would it be? What field of ex-
pertise should she claim? “Are you a reporter?” he asked at this point.The discussion was ended soon afterthat.
A search of the name “HaywoodUniversity” produced two “Sponsored
Sites.” Both “www.e-degrees.org”
and “www.internetcolleges.org” werecompilations of online higher-educa-
tion organizations, organized by thestates where their services are avail-
able. The first of these sites says, “Ifyou are interested in attending an
online college you have come to theright place. We have identified the
best ones in each state.” The list of“Featured Schools” didn’t include a
Haywood University. And, in fact, a Netscape search of “English Uni-
versities” also failed to turn up a Haywood University. A Google search
came back with the query, “Did you mean ‘hayward university’?”
In short, if a Haywood University exists outside of cyberspace
and the telephone lines, we couldn’t find it.Backalley.com and Haywood U. are only the most brazen of the
barbarians massing at the gates of higher education’s ivory towers.
Unaccredited schools at all levels of legitimacy—or illegitimacy—comprise the less menacing bulk of this barbarian horde. They are
rampaging not only on the internet, but in nations such as India,where regulation of higher education is weak or nonexistent.
In a world teeming with billions of “Spare Parts and BrokenHearts,” to borrow a Bruce Springsteen tune title, the desperately
unqualified will turn to these diploma mills for their sheepskinequivalents of the emperor’s new clothes. When they do, they are
not the only victims of such scams.Cristovam Buarque, Brazil’s minister of education, recently said,“In the face of [global] upheavals, the university still representsthe intellectual heritage [that makes it] the most appropriate and
prepared place to guide the future of humanity.” Stirring words, but
true only if the global network of legitimate colleges and universi-ties protects and defends its integrity and reputation against the
barbarians at our gates.
No comments:
Post a Comment