School to contact students affected by audit

BEIJING - Officials from a university in North Dakota, United States, suspected to be a diploma mill that awarded hundreds of unearned degrees to international students, said the university will not release a student list but will contact individuals who have been affected.

The Dickinson State University has been under fire ever since an audit on Feb 10 suggested the university handed out fraudulent degrees to more than 500 students, mostly from China, in the university's international program.

The audit revealed that lax record- keeping and oversight resulted in degrees being granted to students who didn't finish their course work. It also showed that the university's recruitment of overseas students was problematic as some weren't fluent in English or hadn't achieved the "C" average normally required for admission.

Marie Moe, director of University Relations for the university, said the school's staff will be contacting students involved in the case.

"We will be notifying them individually; we will not be releasing any lists. Each student situation is completely different, and we will be working with each individual to help them understand how they are affected and what steps they need to take so that their academic file is in order and all requirements for degrees are submitted and verified," Moe told China National Radio in an e-mail interview on Thursday.

Moe said DSU had agreements with several agencies in China to recruit students for study programs.

"As a result of the audit, DSU has given notice to each of these agents that we do not intend to continue using their services."

The webpage of DSU China Center, one of DSU's agencies, could not be opened on Friday.

A teacher surnamed Yi from Chongqing-based Sichuan International Studies University told China Daily on Friday that DSU did not rely on agents for recruiting during their cooperation.

Yi, who is close to the program, said her school conducts the program without agents or an intermediary and collects students' application forms, language skill certificates and academic records and then directly hands them over to Dickinson.

"It is Dickinson that determines if applicants are eligible or not," she said.

The Chinese university had sent 100 students to DSU as of 2009, according to a notice posted on the school's website.

Yi said her school did not send any students to Dickinson in 2010 and 2011.

The school posted enrollment notices of the Dickinson program on its website in 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009. But for 2010 and 2011, there were no notices.

Yi attributed the lack of participants in the program to her school's intensified collaboration with many other overseas universities.

"Students have become much more choosy and prudent when picking overseas universities because they have access to more schools that have better ranking status," she said.

But her school is still cooperating with Dickinson, Yi said.

Wang Ying (not her real name) participated in the program in 2005 and studied business administration at Dickinson. The one-year program in the US cost more than 100,000 yuan ($15,900).

Through a cooperative program, a junior from a Chinese school can acquire a bachelor's degree from Dickinson after a one-year study in the US.

"I and 11 other students from my school took classes in Dickinson that year. We completed all compulsory courses as well as winter and summer sessions, just like other students in Dickinson. We all passed our exams and had our dissertations qualified," said the 26-year-old graduate from Sichuan International Studies University

"I hope the scandal is properly addressed, or it might impact both my work and future academic study," said Wang, who received a bachelor's degree at DSU.

The audit on DSU has led to three administrators' resignations including Marshall Melbye, the former director of Student Recruitment and Jon Brudvig, who was vice-president of Academic Affairs, US media reported.

Dickinson State University President D.C. Coston said on Thursday that students who could be potentially affected by the audit are only the ones in special international programs, according to a news release on the school's website.

Coston said the World Evaluation Services and the Office of Multicultural Affairs will carefully evaluate the files of current students involved in special international programs.

He also pledged to provide quality education to international students and regarded the latter as "a treasure" to his university.

Xu Mei, spokeswomen for the Ministry of Education, said the ministry has asked the Education Section of the Chinese Embassy in the US to probe the case, Xinhua reported on Thursday.

China should establish an evaluation mechanism on the educational quality of international programs to provide reliable guidance for domestic students, said Xiong Bingqi, deputy director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, a private, nonprofit policy-research body.

"Currently, some overseas universities are simply selling diplomas to Chinese students regardless of their academic performance, so China should start a thorough check on universities nationwide that have joint teaching programs with foreign academies and evaluate these programs in a regular basis," Xiong said on Friday.

Luo Wangshu contributed to this story.

Controversial cases

Case #1:

Tang Jun, former president of Microsoft China Co Ltd from 2002 to 2004, received public criticism in 2010 for lying about his educational background. Tang claimed in his biography and LinkedIn profile that he earned a doctoral degree in computer science from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). However, it was found that his name and dissertation were not in the university's alumni library.

Following the revelations, Tang asserted that he received his doctoral degree from Pacific Western University and only did research in Caltech. However, netizens soon found that the school had been confirmed as a diploma mill by US authorities in 2004. Tang later admitted that he bought his degree for $3,000.

Netizens also posted a portion of the school's alumni list, revealing that more than 1,000 Chinese professionals had also purchased their diplomas.

Case #2:

An investigation by the Dongsheng Police Station of Haiding district in Beijing revealed in March that a diploma mill sold US doctoral diplomas for 190,000 yuan ($30,159) each.

At the time of the investigation, more than 30 "students" were enrolled in the diploma mill, and four to five "graduates" had already received their degrees.

The head of the diploma mill, surnamed Li, said that he entered the "diploma production" business in 2003 and portrayed his company as the Chinese branch of various American universities.

Authorities found several fake diplomas with signatures, blank diplomas and printers in the mill. The main suspects were arrested.

Case #3:

It was discovered in July that Le Jia, the host of a popular Chinese TV dating game show, received his MBA diploma from Armstrong University, a notorious diploma mill in the United States.

Le Jia responded in his blog that he never claimed to be a MBA graduate, but gained a degree from a vocational school and received a bachelor's degree in business administration after completing a one-year program in Shanghai.

Le admitted that he completed the program in Shanghai and not in the US.