Harvard Extension School Students Rally for Degree Name Change

[crimsonhairless]

I recently graduated from HES this past month and I have literally never once used the guidelines they have on the website, even when applying to stuff on campus. Most people I’ve encountered at Harvard don’t care about the “in Extension Studies” thing and will usually just go by field of study I.e History. I do believe that the official listing guidelines should be altered, but it’s honestly not a big deal if you just say “Masters of Liberal Arts in FIELD.” Even Dean Coleman and Mrs.Spreadbury were referring to degrees in this way. The only time I felt this was a big issue was before I signed up for my degree and thought I would looked at as ‘inferior’ on campus, rest assured friends, it truly is “One Harvard” and you will not be treated as a fraud if you choose to sign up.

[FireMedic_Philosopher]

I recently graduated from HES this past month and I have literally never once used the guidelines they have on the website, even when applying to stuff on campus. Most people I’ve encountered at Harvard don’t care about the “in Extension Studies” thing and will usually just go by field of study I.e History. I do believe that the official listing guidelines should be altered, but it’s honestly not a big deal if you just say “Masters of Liberal Arts in FIELD.” Even Dean Coleman and Mrs.Spreadbury were referring to degrees in this way. The only time I felt this was a big issue was before I signed up for my degree and thought I would looked at as ‘inferior’ on campus, rest assured friends, it truly is “One Harvard” and you will not be treated as a fraud if you choose to sign up.

So if even the Dean doesn't care and is preaching "one Harvard" why the pushback or feet dragging on the name change?

[crimsonhairless]

I recently graduated from HES this past month and I have literally never once used the guidelines they have on the website, even when applying to stuff on campus. Most people I’ve encountered at Harvard don’t care about the “in Extension Studies” thing and will usually just go by field of study I.e History. I do believe that the official listing guidelines should be altered, but it’s honestly not a big deal if you just say “Masters of Liberal Arts in FIELD.” Even Dean Coleman and Mrs.Spreadbury were referring to degrees in this way. The only time I felt this was a big issue was before I signed up for my degree and thought I would looked at as ‘inferior’ on campus, rest assured friends, it truly is “One Harvard” and you will not be treated as a fraud if you choose to sign up.

So if even the Dean doesn't care and is preaching "one Harvard" why the pushback or feet dragging on the name change?

To be clear, Dean Coleman is the dean of the Continuing Education division. Harvard has deans for all their other schools/divisions i.e Public Health, Divinity, Etc. AFAIK she does not have the power to unilaterally make the decision to alter the degree names, although she may be supportive of it. That decision remains up to the Board of Governors, and perhaps other parties and/or stakeholders who are less friendly to that decision. I believe with time, and the growth of the Extension School (which produces more Harvard graduates that the other schools) this will change as the power dynamic shifts.

[SophiaPrincess]

HES students should pursue a class action. Harvard is mislabeling their degrees by claiming the degrees are in extension studies which is false. Many of the professors teach in other Harvard colleges as well.

[collegecareerstudent]

The decision starts with the faculty of arts and sciences council putting it on the agenda to bring it to a vote for the name change. All of HES administration claims to be supportive of it, but to quote Coleman in my final meeting with her as HESA President, she said she would not go before the FAS Council because she thought it would "hurt our cause" whatever that means, and that there are proper channels and other avenues to pursue this. I asked her why she allowed me to send over 10,000 postcards on my dime (HESA budgets can't be used for protest efforts which means the president usually befalls any costs of one) to the Board Of Overseers, FAS Council, and Harvard Corporation if she knew it would be ineffective (which I don't think it was), and what the proper channels would be- she ignored that in person question and multiple follow up emails (2) about the matter. We need more HES grads on the Board of Overseers and in it for the long haul to really take this out, but with the recent election drama I feel that HES administration is not too pleased about how hard I fought for this among other things. They have delayed the election during which I was meant to be replaced in May, until October, shut down our summer events despite being informed we'd be holding them, and have seemed against us from my perspective. They are now doing a Roundtable and painting HESA as having been some bad entity, when unlike the other schools, they don't even recognize us as the official student government. It's frustrating.

Every year the idea of a lawsuit comes up, but I don't think we have enough on HES to bring a case, Additionally, people tend to graduate and let this issue go, other people burn out, some folks are ignorant to the naming conventions and others don't care. Add the fact that any attorney I get would go up against Harvard attorneys, we can't legally fundraise according to the charter, whoever would be president would have to pay for all of this. The odds are stacked against us.

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I don't know what the alternative is- but I'm proud of what I was able to do this year and the exposure we got for HESA and my protest efforts. I don't intend to give up any time soon, but to say it's been an exhausting and interesting/special year is putting it mildly. I did everything I could- and I need to be satisfied with that. Sorry for any typos.

[newdegree]

Sorry to hear you are going through this but you knew the type of degree you signed up for which was a Harvard Extension School degree which was clearly outlined as a Master of Liberal Arts (ALM) in Extension Studies , Field: XXX. People can’t play the victim when they knew what they signed up for , you as the student / customer had a choice to choose a different university if you didn’t like the degree or how the degree name sounded. There are so much other choices in education to select from. People attend Harvard Extension School to try to gain a back door to Harvard university and gain the prestige that is associated with it. Since the a university doesn’t not wish to acknowledge the degree as equivalent to their much harder schools to get into at the university people always want to say they are being discriminated against or treated different due to the degree they agreed to study with no strings attached. We all know Harvard extension school is the easiest Harvard school to get accepted to which has an open door policy for new students. They typically will allow students to be conditionally accepted and require them to take a few classes with an average of a B to gain full acceptance. Compared to the other schools at the university they have a competitive application process which vets out candidates in an intense selection process only allowing the best of the best to study at Harvard University. While it is great all the effort , time , and money you have put into rallying against Harvard , a class action lawsuit would never work even if you got a lawyer because it was originally clearly outlined under Your Harvard University Degree section on the website as well as multiple other sources. It is going to be hard to prove a case to any judge unfortunately and as you mentioned you will be going up against Harvards best lawyers which will probably not end well. Best of luck to you but in all reality it’s a topic you may want to move forward from. If you are unhappy with your degree you can always go study another one at a more respected university program.

[Jonathan Whatley]

Sorry to hear you are going through this but you knew the type of degree you signed up for which was a Harvard Extension School degree which was clearly outlined as a Master of Liberal Arts (ALM) in Extension Studies , Field: XXX. People can’t play the victim when they knew what they signed up for , you as the student / customer had a choice to choose a different university if you didn’t like the degree or how the degree name sounded.

"play the victim" is needlessly loaded language.

The fact that HES students accepted a condition doesn't disqualify them from arguing for a change to the condition, especially for future students who will come after them. Indeed, although it means they're not impartial, it suggests they have some insight about the condition and its consequences.

People attend Harvard Extension School to try to gain a back door to Harvard university and gain the prestige that is associated with it. 

I spent years at Harvard Extension as an on-campus student in a non-degree program. I saw hundreds of fellow non-degree students attend for the quality of the courses, mostly in science, and their credential value on a transcript without seeking a degree. Most of my classmates were nontraditional-age adult post-baccalaureate pre-med and other pre-health students. (I served with and was eventually president of our pre-health student society, where we organized extra-curricular programming including med school visits and other academic, social, and volunteering events and activities.)

Harvard Extension also offers a number of programs with no direct and sometimes even no close counterpart in other Harvard schools. For example, the only master's in journalism at Harvard is the Master of Liberal Arts with field of study in Journalism at Harvard Extension.

We all know Harvard extension school is the easiest Harvard school to get accepted to which has an open door policy for new students. They typically will allow students to be conditionally accepted and require them to take a few classes with an average of a B to gain full acceptance. Compared to the other schools at the university they have a competitive application process which vets out candidates in an intense selection process only allowing the best of the best to study at Harvard University.

Harvard Extension pre-admission courses are more intense and selective than many university selection processes!

It's true and significant that students at other Harvard graduate schools are just about uniformly stellar.

Most students at Harvard College, the traditional undergraduate program, are also stellar. There is a lower end there worth acknowledging.

Harvard College also has the limitation of consisting of materially 100% traditional-age students. Harvard College simply will not admit materially any applicant who doesn't enter directly from high school at a traditional age. Under 1% of students are transfer students, and most of those started college at a traditional age and are still traditional-age. Every year there are also approximately 100 students admitted to Harvard College from high school who defer for one gap year, with a smaller number deferring for two years for reasons like military or religious service if Harvard College approves.

[collegecareerstudent]

Sorry to hear you are going through this but you knew the type of degree you signed up for which was a Harvard Extension School degree which was clearly outlined as a Master of Liberal Arts (ALM) in Extension Studies , Field: XXX. People can’t play the victim when they knew what they signed up for , you as the student / customer had a choice to choose a different university if you didn’t like the degree or how the degree name sounded. There are so much other choices in education to select from. People attend Harvard Extension School to try to gain a back door to Harvard university and gain the prestige that is associated with it. Since the a university doesn’t not wish to acknowledge the degree as equivalent to their much harder schools to get into at the university people always want to say they are being discriminated against or treated different due to the degree they agreed to study with no strings attached. We all know Harvard extension school is the easiest Harvard school to get accepted to which has an open door policy for new students. They typically will allow students to be conditionally accepted and require them to take a few classes with an average of a B to gain full acceptance. Compared to the other schools at the university they have a competitive application process which vets out candidates in an intense selection process only allowing the best of the best to study at Harvard University. While it is great all the effort , time , and money you have put into rallying against Harvard , a class action lawsuit would never work even if you got a lawyer because it was originally clearly outlined under Your Harvard University Degree section on the website as well as multiple other sources. It is going to be hard to prove a case to any judge unfortunately and as you mentioned you will be going up against Harvards best lawyers which will probably not end well. Best of luck to you but in all reality it’s a topic you may want to move forward from. If you are unhappy with your degree you can always go study another one at a more respected university program.

I feel like you're making a lot of assumptions in your post, not only about me, but also who exactly is attending HES. It's a very diverse student body. Multiple people on this forum have asked for an insider's perspective on this situation. That's what I'm doing here. While it is true, that I personally knew what I was getting into, HES has been my dream school because of what it represents. There's no shame in studying at the working class ivy school, which, in my opinion, is the superior school. I've been following the school and its mission since I was about 14 years old. So, for some of us, it was our dream school and I made it a point to know everything I could about the school before enrolling. That being said, HES has engaged in what I would consider some deceptive marketing practices and advertisements. There have been times where again, like I just said, students had no idea they were getting a degree in Extension Studies. The problem is you're getting a degree in something you didn't study and when you ask for clarification or help from administrators to make sure your degree is marketed correctly toward employers, they have every right to say even though your field is in English, your degree is in Extension Stuies, therefore,you don't have an English degree. That makes no sense and has serious implications particularly in the line of work I am in which is academia. There shouldn't be all this hoopla and a brouhaha over what was studied and where; it's simply a matter of making the degree make sense. 

This degree was my fifth, and I'm already in other programs at O.P. Jindal University, Golden Gate University, and Georgetown. The point remains no matter the school, in student government, it's my job to find where issues are and advocate for correcting them. None of the other schools I've ever attended had such convoluted naming conventions and nomenclature that made no sense. It is literally my JOB to fight for what the student body wants, and the biggest issue year after year is the nonsensical "Extension Studies" label.

People attend HES for a variety of reasons, namely to learn from the best and network with others to aid them in the future. I'd say HES is an intelligent choice. Also, I think your facts are incorrect about the level of difficulty in getting into some of the other schools. Sure, many folks are rejected, but the admission numbers are much higher than the college by a longshot and not all of the schools are created equal. The unique admissions system does not make HES a non-challenging school. It's a challenge to pay for the courses to get in and finish them, and attendance is mandatory, then meet the on campus requirements, and eventually graduating is the hardest of all. There is no hand-holding at HES, though at smaller cohorts at other schools, there often is.

I'm not saying there isn't a case against HES, because I've seen the misrepresentation multiple times. The problem is I don't think the case is strong enough to win for what folks would want to indict for. For that reason, I'm not willing to devote my time or resources to do a lawsuit. That being said, the biggest challenges for me have been explaining the degree to potential employers, and having rivals at other schools try to demean me. In both cases, I've come out on top, and I plan to continue to do so- but not everyone is as fiery and resilient is me, and I don't think the student body I represent should have to be. They completed a strict, rigid class load with some of the top professors in the world. They already earned their stars. BTW I graduated in May.

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Sorry to hear you are going through this but you knew the type of degree you signed up for which was a Harvard Extension School degree which was clearly outlined as a Master of Liberal Arts (ALM) in Extension Studies , Field: XXX. People can’t play the victim when they knew what they signed up for , you as the student / customer had a choice to choose a different university if you didn’t like the degree or how the degree name sounded.

"play the victim" is needlessly loaded language.

The fact that HES students accepted a condition doesn't disqualify them from arguing for a change to the condition, especially for future students who will come after them. Indeed, although it means they're not impartial, it suggests they have some insight about the condition and its consequences.

People attend Harvard Extension School to try to gain a back door to Harvard university and gain the prestige that is associated with it. 

I spent years at Harvard Extension as an on-campus student in a non-degree program. I saw hundreds of fellow non-degree students attend for the quality of the courses, mostly in science, and their credential value on a transcript without seeking a degree. Most of my classmates were nontraditional-age adult post-baccalaureate pre-med and other pre-health students. (I served with and was eventually president of our pre-health student society, where we organized extra-curricular programming including med school visits and other academic, social, and volunteering events and activities.)

Harvard Extension also offers a number of programs with no direct and sometimes even no close counterpart in other Harvard schools. For example, the only master's in journalism at Harvard is the Master of Liberal Arts with field of study in Journalism at Harvard Extension.

We all know Harvard extension school is the easiest Harvard school to get accepted to which has an open door policy for new students. They typically will allow students to be conditionally accepted and require them to take a few classes with an average of a B to gain full acceptance. Compared to the other schools at the university they have a competitive application process which vets out candidates in an intense selection process only allowing the best of the best to study at Harvard University.

Harvard Extension pre-admission courses are more intense and selective than many university selection processes!

It's true and significant that students at other Harvard graduate schools are just about uniformly stellar.

Most students at Harvard College, the traditional undergraduate program, are also stellar. There is a lower end there worth acknowledging.

Harvard College also has the limitation of consisting of materially 100% traditional-age students. Harvard College simply will not admit materially any applicant who doesn't enter directly from high school at a traditional age. Under 1% of students are transfer students, and most of those started college at a traditional age and are still traditional-age. Every year there are also approximately 100 students admitted to Harvard College from high school who defer for one gap year, with a smaller number deferring for two years for reasons like military or religious service if Harvard College approves.

Just a note: The school doesn't allow outside media on school grounds. You literally have to be an enrolled student to challenge anything that the school does in terms of the student body. So "playing the victim" is silly language. No one is playing the victim, maybe playing the hand they were dealt to the best of their ability. I'm not here crying and screaming into the void that my time was wasted- because it was not. If anything, I made the most of my time. I went on campus, I fought for things that mattered in person, and did my thing but the fact remains I had to be an enrolled student to even have a fighting chance of addressing ANYTHING impacting the student body provided I won an election. I just don't ascribe to the belief that HES is an inferior school- but I think the degree we get is nonsensical. Furthermore, speaking of STEM, STEM graduates also get an ALM in Extension Studies, instead of a Master of Science, which is also insane and something I rallied against: change is slow but is bound to happen with time

[sanantone]

In most fields, Harvard University is not the best. There are world-renowned professors at other universities that won't give you a degree in extension studies.

[collegecareerstudent]

In most fields, Harvard University is not the best. There are world-renowned professors at other universities that won't give you a degree in extension studies.

I literally go wherever interests me. HES has always had a special forum lore on here. For our group, I think many of us are interested in HES for the challenge. Anyway, someone created this thread about the rally I led so that's what my responses were always centered on.