Note to colleges/institutes considering membership: we welcome your inquiry. All types - government, independent - will be considered. For past and some present worldwide members, see the various editions of the Canadian Government National Guide to College and University Programmes
The aggregate-learning degree process described in this document applies to both 'on-campus' and 'external' students.
You may be closer than you thought to achieving a relatively inexpensive and credible certificate or degree - undergraduate or graduate - in General Studies or a more specific subject matter. An aggregation degree (aggregate-learning degree) is a consolidation of prior (and further, if needed) studies. Another way of describing it is 'enhanced prior learing assessment'. Tell us what you have accomplished with respect to components A-D below and your appropriate degree could possibly be concluded in weeks, months, or years - depending upon your past studies, any required further work, and the clarity and comprehensiveness of your initial application. More learning and/or research may be needed, depending upon what scope and depth of learning you now want to establish, and for what reason.
You may secure your degree substantially by in-transfer of prior studies and other learning (see B below), and/or by examination. You may only need to document your previous studies and professional work, or for completions write an equivalency or external examination such as CLEP, PEP, DANTES, GRE, etc - or ours - proctored in the office of a doctor, lawyer, minister or other nearby professional. Or you may need to continue with considerable further studies.
Our primary generic degree categories are Applied Science, Arts (various disciplines, including Languages), Comparative Religion (Peace Studies/Theology), Business Administration, Education, General Studies, and Technology (see application form).
The university and member colleges also develop specially-structured programs (e.g., Architecture, Financial Practition, Health Services, etc), specifically accepted in a local jurisdiction (country, province, etc), or by a particular professional organization, for which the outcome degree is likewise awarded by the university. Examples include the BC Early Childhood Education programs conducted by BC Montesori Teachers College in Vancouver BC, and the Financial Practitioners programs conducted by CPPD-IFPAS, Singapore. Contact member colleges directly about programs approved in their particular jurisdictions. On the topic of organizationally-structured programs, see further below.
Where your portfolio substantially encompasses various categories, the General Studies degree is most appropriate. Within a primary degree category [ but with present limitations in the sciences], you may also secure a special mention (North American "major", British "reading"). General Studies (open learning) is an acceptable designation in upper-levels bachelor and even master degree context. Thus our master degree may reflect either a traditional concentration (e.g., post-graduate courses in political science after concentrating on political science for the bachelor) - or instead, the accumulation of six years (or five with thesis) in a wider variety of post-secondary learning. Our tradition in this respect (if thirty years is time enough to constitute a tradition) is based on the supposition that a wide-spectrum learning preparation (and polymathy) conveys a benefit to many individuals and to society, just as does an intense concentration of studies for others.
Special Mention (major) designations reflect (a) programs, courses, and field experiences offered at Vancouver University Worldwide constituent, affiliate, and collaborating colleges around the world, and (b) those requested by interested entities which then provide ongoing consultation in the sponsorship of the particular designation. Such entities include otherwise-unaffiliated colleges, professional associations, corporations, government offices, etc. Some such designations may be collateral - there being considerable commonality in programs like criminal justice and law enforcement, dietary management and nutrition studies, etc. We reflect such variations of terminology when appropriate and appropriately requested.
A particular special mention may be relevant in more than one degree category. Our General Studies or Business Administration degree transcript might thus, for example, include a special mention of ECE admininistration, health-related management, hotel management, public law and administration, or tourism management, etc.
In our process, as mentioned above, a particular degree or special mention may be structured ( 'constructed' ) to match a reasonable need - so long as the outcome is credible and substantial. If we are staff/affiliate equipped to address the subject matter, and/or further expertise is provided by the requesting entity, we then determine the appropriate courses, examinations, research reports etc - to ensure a credible outcome. The 'construction' may include on-line courses along with those based in a campus, workplace, or field setting. Thus our long-standing public law and administration specialization was structured in response to initiatives from particular government offices and police departments. Another example is the MBA program conducted in Singapore in collaboration with the Insurance and Financial Practitioners Association (IFPAS).
Note also that throughout academia, the content of special mentions (majors) often substantially overlap - e.g., there may be no significant difference between programs identified as "law enforcement" as compared with "criminal justice", yet employment criteria might insist upon one rather than the other. In such cases, our flexibility is appropriate and helpful to deserving individuals and organizations.
In the past we were not infrastructured for 'laboratory' science subjects, but new member colleges are now providing such option. We have also long welcomed external degree applications in 'soft' sciences - topics which bridge the social and physical sciences in such disciplines as anthropology, geography, neurology, psychology, etc.
We encourage experiential learning and will grant a generous measure of academic credit for innovative research, including when conducted by undergraduates. Thus, for example, undergraduate degrees in history, government, or the geographies, may encompass a project thesis relating to a specific person, place, or event. In the geographies (cultural/physical) we also recognize learning-targetted travel and field courses. This process is not primarily about further study. It is mostly about the 'assembling' and credentialing - by the issuance of degree and formal transcript - what you have already accomplished. In this present program:
A. For an undergraduate certificate (1 year) and for all degrees, your foundation is at least 1 year (2 semesters or 3 quarters) or more of courses (or equivalent examination) in one of the degree subjects listed above. For certificates (other than history and government), approximately half of the courses could be B2 experientals. After our review of the courses or examinations you have already taken in a subject, we may require you to fill gaps - and suggest various options to you.
The Government of Canada l994 National Guide to College and University Programmes, by a special international distribution that year, publicized this program outside Canada in a particular context. We have since extended the scope and context to serve a wider community.
If - for our standard format - there are gaps in your portfolio, we will require that you take one or more make-up courses at a suitable institution in your home community, or by distance learning, or take external or equivalency examinations near your community. If particular licencing authorities, or other institutions, want you to meet certain requirements for further work - then ensure that you now will take the additional courses, examinations, practicums etc so as to meet their requirement. In some licencing contexts, our regular degree may be considered inadequate - and in other contexts, excessive! Match your additional courses to whatever may be required of you.
For example, Early Childhood Education degree candidates lacking a course or examination in developmental psychology would be advised about the relevant distance learning courses available from various institutions including Athabasca, Louisiana State, Minnesota, Washington, and Wisconsin universities - as well as ours. [Contacts are provided in table-of-contents document E98].
B. You also secure credit for special components B1, B2. C. The B1/B2 emphasis varies by degree subject, and these categories may overlap. Degrees in backcountry recreation leadership require extensive field expedition courses. In Early Childhood Education, practicums (internship) usually precede licenced employment.
Prior Learning Assessment (PLA): B1 is relevant work (whether paid or volunteer) directly related to your degree subject and accompanied by verified continuing education. (B2 below provides examples of continuing education). 2.5 years of such employment may be granted one year of academic credit equivalency towards either the associate or bachelor degree. 5 such experience years may permit the holder of an associate degree to proceed directly into master degree candidacy. Instructors of adults may also receive credit in our Teaching to Adults Presumption. TAP recognizes that teaching necessarily requires an instructor to learn (whether formal, informally mentored, or self-directed) considerably more about a subject than the content level at which it is then taught. In addition to our own (above) conservative PLA, we will also recognize Prior Learning (or Life-Experience) Assessments conducted at other colleges and universities, when the other college or university itself grants academic equivalency credit and documents it in their own official transcript.
B2 is experiential and self-paced learning - workplace based courses, workshop courses, field courses, field expeditions, stage and studio work, practicums, internships, etc. Reflecting American Council on Education (ACE) guidelines, each fifteen hours of experiential learning provides one full credit of academic transfer equivalency. For most of our degrees, if you have no B1 credit you are encouraged to secure credit for "off-campus" experiential learning. For degrees in history, government, and geography a special project - about a person, place or event - is an alternative. For degrees in geography - cultural and/or physical - some study travel and/or field courses may be required.
C. Routine vocational courses - such as nursing aide, etc - may be granted up to 50% course transfer credit if directly relevant to a degree application, or for credit transfer into our Associate or Bachelor of General Stuidies, or Technology or Applied Science. An example would be the credentialing of a secondary school teacher of vocational subjects, in which vocational education is an appropriate special mention within an Education degree. [The "vocational" category is not to be confused with technological courses as defined in category D].
D. You receive credit for all university or other degree-standard courses (campus or distance - by correspondence, telecourses, on-line etc) you have taken, or the equivalency examinations for any of them. [Contact GRE 212-966-5853, CLEP 609-951-6106, and others, to ask about examinations and and testing locations for common course subjects if you need such]. Degree-standard courses include a wide variety of software certification and other technological subjects - the distinction between them and vocational training (prior category C) being the emphasis of "logic" (conceptual analysis, prerequisite mathematics where required, necessity for understanding sophisticated terminology, etc). In this context, a wide range of off-campus classroom or workplace-based courses recommended by the American Council on Education are granted full transfer credit. On-line courses are available from various directories. First search TeleCampus, including free courses. See also Course-finder, the Globewide Network Academy (we joined GNA in its early days in 1993), and particularly the World Lecture Hall. For graduate courses, enter the word "graduate" in Search WLH.
Correspondence courses in developmental psychology are available from a number of universities including Athabasca (800-788-9041), Louisiana State [least expensive] (800-234-5046), Washington [senior level] (800-543-2320), and Wisconsin (800-442-6460), and others. We also - particularly for elementary and secondary teachers - suggest you consider a Minnesota course in comparative education.E. If you lack one or more A-D components, and none of the above external exams exactly cover a gap for you, we can arrange for proctored examination of course-equivalents or years-equivalent of learning. Our external examination must be proctored in the office of a professional person - doctor, lawyer, minister etc - sent and returned directly and with a committment that the examination was completed with integrity.
VUW has awarded its Commonwealth customarily-designated degrees since 1984 (and the American-originating associate degree since 1970). VUW is a registered non-profit, federally tax-exempt, in both Canada and the USA.
Whetham College, the oldest constituent college, was chartered by the BC Legislature in 1893. Vancouver [previously New Summits] was granted authority to conduct university work in 1983, and full university context in 1992. Before 1983, when the Vancouver Institute for Postsecondary Studies and companion Point Roberts Institute, we offered certificate and associate degree programs - at a time when associate degrees were not elsewhere utilized in Canada.
Institutional affiliation is by formal membership in the VUC Society and/or Memorandum of Agreement. A provision of the Whetham College Act (BC c.67 of 1893) enables the Whetham Trustees and the Society to establish professional and technical preparatory schools, affirming university context status and designation of appropriate constituent institutions.
VUW constituent, affiliate and other collaborating institutions - in various locations in Canada, the United States, and other countries - were long listed in the official Federal Government of Canada National Guide to College and University Programmes.. Until May 2002, all applicants registering as a degree candidate received a copy of the National Guide - and thus copies are located at households and libraries around the world. [The Guide is no longer published, officially because of the expense but more because a provincial government objected that its publication intruded upon provincial jurisdiction].
Because of transnational scope, affiliated VUW programs are subject to various national, provincial, state and other laws, including under s. 54(3) of the Alberta Universities Act in university context. In Canada it is government, and the judicial mediation of academic freedom and custom, which maintains the credibility of universities - not the American system of accreditation (see details further below).
VUW students have included aboriginals admitted with adult basic education equivalency, and an Australian Consul General who studied intensive Japanese with us and has since been a member of our Board of Governors throughout the decade. Our graduates - whether by classroom or experiential courses, and those externally credentialed - have secured professional positions in many countries. Graduates able to attend Convocations receive their degree parchment bestowed by a guest of honour. These have included former BC premiers Mike Harcourt and Rita Johnston and other similarly distinguished persons. We were proud runner-up in the American Association of University Administrators' 1997 Khaladjan Award competition for innovation in higher education [winner USNY]. In its notice, the AAUA letter affirms "The judges admired the [VUW] collaborative, experiential model of higher education..."
We could also be recognized - critically or positively - for our conservatism in certain aspects of academic custom. For example, in the past decade we bestowed only three honorary doctorates: to a chancellor and Canada's first woman Premier, and to two long-serving board chairpersons. In degree credentialing component B1, we are cautious with respect to credit for life-experience portfolios, while generous with transfer credit for outcome-measured experiential learning and proctored examinations. [And while a snazzy new downtown Vancouver BC public institute of technology facility has no library, we will keep and expand ours - donations of e-books particularly welcomed!]
Two public colleges located on the North American Atlantic seaboard have granted degrees in particular subjects based primarily on in-transferred credits or external examinations: Thomas Edison, and Charter Oaks. These colleges do not operate a traditional classrooms "campus".
From its headquarters on the North American Pacific (BC/WA) coast, private non-profit VUW similarly grants various degrees, usually with also a work-based or other experiential requirement. [For "on-campus" programs, see document M98]. VUW - as then VIPS, and emulating the pioneering of the University of London - modestly commenced issuance of credentials based on external examination and/or extensive in-transfer of credit in l970. In place of a traditional centralized campus, VUW is a network of constituent colleges, affiliated or collaborating institutes, and instructors. [But of course a donor who wants us to also have a traditional campus is very welcome!].
As previously mentioned, preferably our degrees involve a confirmed experiential component, such as credit for work-based or field-based learning. The VUW constituent, affiliate and collaborating institutes - from the American Alpine Institute onwards through the alphabet - provide this component, reflecting guidelines for off-campus extension courses promulgated by the ACE, to which we subscribe.
Our external degrees usually involve extra learning during the credentialing process, and some direct contribution by External Degrees process staff (Registry / LCCB) and/or faculty at affiliate colleges etc in this respect - whether by oral interview, recommended supplementary readings, dissertation guidance, or other, as then indicated in our transcript. There is a learning aspect and tangible relationship with all degree candidates, even those who have taken no on-locations courses with us.
An oral conference (face to face or electronic) will be held with you to discuss how your background components come together in your perception and knowledge. From that, and from evaluation of your file, some suggestion will likely be made for your further exploration - reading a particular author, for example - and your assurance of compliance is part of the degree process. We may, for example, in an appropriate subject, secure assurance that a candidate has located and read, say, Raymond Spencer Rodgers' Man in the Telesphere (l971).
The integrity of a credentialing process - for any degrees awarded by in-transfer of credit or by major external examination - depends ultimately upon the knowledge and integrity of the persons making portfolio evaluations and guiding dissertations, etc. Whether the appropriate professionals are on one physical campus or located at the constituent, affiliate or other collaborating (i.e., consortia) institutions is irrelevant. And neither VUW nor other external degrees programs referred to in the present context grant degrees in all subjects. Our particular focus reflects the specific expertise of staff and faculty at our consortia and collaborating institutions.
Note also that Canada and other countries do not use the system of accreditation particular to the US. This sometimes prompts American reference books to make misleading remarks about Canadian institutions "lacking accreditation", or to provide odd listings of Canadian and other institutions. Oxford and Cambridge universities are not US-accredited! [Peterson's l997 Guide has sixteen Canadian bible colleges (they paid for listing), only one of which is to be found in the Canadian Government National Guide to College and University Programmes, but leaves out significant Canadian degree-granting institutions (which did not pay)]. Similarly Canada and the United States have common human rights concerns - but these are implemented in differing ways. In Canada it is contrary to human rights legislation to document students or faculty by race. VUW does not discriminate on the basis of age, colour, religion, creed, disability, marital status or veteran status, national origin, race, gender or sexual orientation.
Fortunately these various cross-borders peculiarities do not affect the broad acceptance of our degrees. But we make no general assurance that our degree will ensure your acceptance into another university's particular program - because each institution sets its own prerequisites in particular subjects. And similarly we cannot make any general assurance about state/province professional certifications - because jurisdictions vary considerably in their regulations. As suggested above, in order to meet particular licencing or toward-further-study requirements, make sure they are included in your degree by first completing the specified course(s), or proctored examination, or practicum etc. In addition to your degree parchment, you will receive a VUW formal transcript which details the components of your credentialing.
| The Jasper Institute
of the Canadian Rockies PO Box 2337, Jasper AL T0E 1E0 |
North Cascades Institute
2105 State Route 20 Sedro-Woolley WA 98284-9394 |
A98 Application Form (print-out and mail)
| Table of Contents |