User talk:A. B./Draft Articles

Hi. This looks like a great start, and I encourage you to keep it up. Rummaging around, I note that Pacific Western University is listed by Texas as a "fraudulent or substandard" institution  and are mentioned in a GAO report on bogus degrees.

I also note a 1994 NYT article on a California crackdown that includes this:


 * 7 Closings Are Ordered


 * The reviewers use 16 criteria, including fiscal stability, admission standards, curriculum and faculty and scholastic regulations. Seven of the 47 institutions reviewed so far have been told to shut down. Most have appealed the decisions to the council, which is essentially seeking a second review; some have filed lawsuits challenging the council's authority.


 * Pacific Western University in Los Angeles was told to shut its operations on Aug. 3 after 18 years of operating a correspondence school, awarding bachelor's, master's and doctorates in a variety of fields, including business and psychology. The university, which says it has 1,000 students in this country and abroad, has appealed the decision, said Dr. David Burke, the academic dean. Meantime, it has moved its headquarters to Hawaii.



I hope that helps! William Pietri 00:49, 1 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the encouragement. William, if you're an admin and you're comfortable with what's there, by all means add in the above material and then replace protected article with the revised article. I don't have any particular plans to do more work on this; I just stumbled across a controversy and a stub and decided to take it a little further. I felt prospective students referring to Wikipedia needed to be aware that there were some issues. I felt like the stub article did more harm than good, POV-wise; it meant the school's supporters had succeeded in silencing adverse edits whether bogus or encyclopedic. Especially, it obscured the school's lack of accreditation.
 * --A. B. 03:52, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I am not an admin, but having just spent quite a while on an article where legal threats were used to remove negative information, I'm keenly sensitive to the issue, and believe it's important to handle these sensitively but with determination that NPOV be honored. Let me know if I can be of further help. William Pietri 06:16, 1 October 2006 (UTC)


 * This looks like good work; thanks for doing it. I am an janitor(admin), but before I copy it over, I'd want to verify in detail that everything there is cited (I'm sort of focused on that), and I'm in hiatus at the moment; but, "good work", and if it doens't get moved in a few weeks, I'll see if I can get it done. Thanks again. JesseW, the juggling janitor 07:54, 1 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I'm not keen to keep working on it -- I have other priorities -- but I did feel that, without more of the story, the stub was actually POV. I'm sure there's more that can be added by others, but this is, I think, a decent, neutral, encyclopedic start. I'm glad it will move forward.
 * --A. B. 16:50, 1 October 2006 (UTC)