Yesterday, the New Ulm Journal reported that the head of Minnesotans Seeking Immigration Reform Ruthie Hendrycks throws her hat in Republican 21B ring. The article took due stock of her credentials:
a licensed dental hygienist, a mother of three children who are now adults, and she is president and founder of Minnesotans Seeking Immigration Reform, a group that supports Gov. Pawlenty’s stance on the immigration issue. . . .
. . .A past volunteer of the Bernadotte 4-H Club, religious instructor for the Church of St. Mary in New Ulm, and Daisy Girl Scout leader as well as member of the New Ulm Chamber of Commerce, the Minnesota Dental Hygiene Association, the Gun Owners of America and the Republican Party, Hendrycks has also volunteered with the American Red Cross.
She lived in California for six years and Utah for one year before she and her family returned to Minnesota.
Aside from her training as a dental hygienist, which she received at Minnesota State University Mankato, she also has a bachelor’s degree in family mediation dispute resolution from LaCrosse University. She is a graduate of Nicollet High School.
We were curious about LaCrosse University, which we assumed from its name might be a nice liberal arts college in Wisconsin, a bastion of the private sector educating young people in the shadow of the University of Wisconsin behemoth at LaCrosse.
Not so, we learned. It's an online learning institution. Online learning programs are great--we have friends who are enrolled in health care programs at Walden University and Rasmussen College. One is able to work as a nurse while getting his masters, and another is training to be a pharmacy tech while she raises her first child, due in a couple of weeks.
But those programs and institutions are accredited by groups recognized by the U.S. Department of Education and licensed and registered to grant degrees in our state by the Minnesota Office of Higher Education.
LaCrosse University's situation is--or was--drastically different. The school, which grants degrees for flat fees and gives credit for "life experience," was based first in Louisiana. Then, according to a October 15, 2002 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Louisiana Board of Regents Shuts Down 4 Distance-Learning Institutions:
The board voted in September not to renew the operating licenses of Bienville, Columbus, Glenford, and Lacrosse Universities. Their licenses expired in Louisiana on October 1, but students who were already enrolled in the institutions have until March to finish their work, said Lawrence J. Tremblay, associate commissioner of the Board of Regents, the state agency that oversees higher education.
"Louisiana has become quite serious about protecting its citizens," he said. "Any institution that would call Louisiana home has to exhibit some standards of quality, and the board decided early on that that standard would be accreditation."
LaCrosse University then moved on to a strip mall in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Frustrated with their state's growing reputation as a harbor for non-accredited online learning programs, Mississippi's lawmakers took action in 2006, according to a short article in the Chronicle of Higher Education:
Mississippi officials now have a new weapon with which to crack down on the state’s large population of diploma mills. According to the Associated Press, Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, last month signed into law a bill that gives the Mississippi Commission on College Accreditation the power to go to court to shut down issuers of unapproved postsecondary degrees.
The legislation stemmed from complaints by higher-education officials who said that “not only were the diploma mills harmful to higher education, but they also perpetuated negative perceptions of Mississippi,” according to a 2005 report by the state’s College Board cited by the AP.
A number of diploma mills have apparently moved to Mississippi since states like Hawaii, Louisiana, and Wyoming—previously known for their own diploma-mill industries—passed legislation similar to Mississippi’s. A special report in The Chronicle in 2004, Degrees of Suspicion, outlined the scale of the industry.
Empowered by the new law, the Mississippi Commission on College Accreditation refused to renew its approval of LaCrosse University. Since then, the non-approved entity was dissolved in Mississippi, as it could not legally do business any longer in that state.
We haven't been able to determine if it is still in operation--or where. When we called the Mississippi Commission on College Accreditation today, we were most emphatically informed that LaCrosse University was no longer authorized to operate in the state of Mississippi. The LU website says that the school has "reached its limit on accepting new students."
In short, LaCrosse University is--or was--a diploma mill. Indeed, it was one of the more notorious diploma mills named in a 2004 GAO investigation (prompted by Congress) about federal employees with bogus degrees.
It's quite possible that Ms. Hendrycks is simply a victim here who didn't understand what she wasn't getting when she purchased a degree from LaCrosse University. However, the resume item does call her judgment into question.
Given that Republicans have other choices in this race-- Sleepy Eye veterinarian Greg Bartz (University of Minnesota) and farmer Paul Torkelson--we'd hope they'll use a little common sense when selecting a candidate who might get anywhere near setting policy for Minnesota's public post-secondary institutions.
Note: A couple of readers have asked whether the New Ulm Journal might have mistaken UWisc-LaCrosse for LaCrosse University ; apparently not, as the same credential appears in the newsletter of the Twin Cities Republican Association (see page 1).
Online programs are great for those who have not enough time to get full-fledged education.
Ollie Ox: We see from your IP address that you're coming into this site from Minsk, and you tried to link to your site, which looks like a diploma mill from this distance. As a service to our readers, we're not publishing the URL to the site, at which one can buy a high school diploma for $225, guaranteed.
Like Ruthie herself, you're trying to obscure the issue: whether the diploma was earned at a school accredited by a reputable group and recognized by state licensing agencies. (While diploma mill degrees aren't a crime in Minnesota, they are in twelve states).
But then, you're a "Diploma Owner," not a graduate. That, not online education in and of itself, is the problem. There are wonderful online programs run by accredited schools and we hope our readers who seek online degrees earn them at legitimate schools.
Posted by: Diploma owner | March 24, 2008 at 11:47 AM