[TIMSCAR20]

My Masters Certificate in Project Management from Villanova is highly respected. Online Education seems to get more love in the work place today than even 5 years ago.

[Blessed1]

My Masters Certificate in Project Management from Villanova is highly respected. Online Education seems to get more love in the work place today than even 5 years ago.

First off, congrats SCAR on your achievements! I want to clear up what I said earlier. A certificate from a college is not a bad thing, especially if its in a subject or field that's in high demand. I tend to disagree with high-priced certificates if you can get a degree around the same price instead. However, some places would be satisfied with a certificate. Others may prefer your have a degree. Every place is different and everyone's situation is different.

[LUaddict]

Very few online programs have proctored tests anymore. There are too many other ways to do things, and way too many other options for assessment. In my last four online classes, I never took an exam. We wrote, we did projects, we created presentations, but we didn't take tests, so proctors weren't needed at all.

Within 5 years, online education will be respected nationally, and major public universities will be offering undergraduate degrees online. Liberty is ahead of the curve because of the vision of our founder waaaaay back in the ancient days when he started LUSLLL (I still have some of the course notes and video cassettes from the old days).

That's actually not factual! There many online programs, certificate or degree, that do require you to have proctors exams.

What makes a certificate or degree that carries
value and prestige; is if the institution was already prestigious and respected prior to offering an online program. Lets know forget the course content being relevant to the current field and the rigor of the program.

In Scar's case, he made a good choice with Villanova. Villanova is a respected and prestigious institution, it has name brand recognition. It will look good on his résumé, and anyone else's by that matter. Liberty's name brand recognition needs a lot of work from an academic perspective, at least to outside world. This can be woth compromising the institutions beliefs and still be respected. Might just might be able to gain acceptance as peer institution by others that scoff at us. What a novel idea!

People flock to liberty online because is affordable, accessible, and Christian for some people. Not everyone that attends LUonline is Christian, I know many graduates that are far from being Christian. Just my 2 cents.

p.s. I am an LU online alum and I chose Liberty for many reasons. I chose it because it was a convient online format, it was accessible, and because I felt that it has a decent academic reputation. I feel that the degree would help me in the workplace. I also wanted to be part of an exciting university with Div I sports and a winnin football program that wants to be FBS.
I feel that it is difficult to gain a outsider's acceptance, I feel that will happen soon enough.

[bluedevilflame]

I received a grad certificate from Duke in paralegal studies and haven't even interviewed for a job as a paralegal, but that name Duke did almost as much for me as my degrees from Liberty I believe when I got my job. Not to mention all work was done online. If you can get one from a good school, it could be worth the gamble price wise and like my dad used to always say to me, they can never take it away from you.

[rogers3]

I was able to get a job instructing at a local liberal arts college (not Liberty) with an online Master in a business specialty from an AACSB certified University. The UNC system has a fair number of these types of programs and they are more affordable than Liberty. I don't think all online programs are viewed equally, but in the next 5 years, I think it will be mainstream.

[Blessed1]

I think some people feel that academics does not play a part in conference realignment. I beg to differ. Liberty is ranked in the "regional" universities section instead of the "national" section of the US World & News section, but I think Liberty is doing a great job with improving its academic reputation.

I remember when I was an online student (in 2009) at Liberty. I was taking classes to earn a B.Sc. in Business Mgt. After reading about business accreditation (not regional), decided to I
call to inquire if Liberty was going to pursue AACSB accreditation. The representative I spoke with said that Dr. Bell told them that Liberty was not going to seek it because they didn't need to. I guess they figured that just regional accreditation was good enough.

Today, things have total changed. I saw on an online education message board that Liberty is under consideration (a candidate) for ACBSP accreditation for its business programs. I guess my voice along with the voice of others was finally heard.

I wish other conferences could see the progress Liberty had made academically and think about where the school is going to be in the future. Frankly speaking, this is exactly what Louisville did with the ACC commish and presidents. They knew they were not a "world beater" academically and the ACC frowned on such things, but through constant persistence and dedication, they finally made it to their dream conference.

I pray Liberty can have a similar type of story of how its athletics and academics (hand-and-hand) made a difference in changing the mindset of conference presidents. After all, it's those "fat cats" that make the decision in conference expansion.

[LUalumfromnc]

I chose CAA, but hopefully this will never matter. IF it does then hopefully we will not have to pay the exit fee. Any rumors and sources please put them on the conference realignment thread though!!!!