Ph.D. in Visionary Practice and Regenerative Leadership

[Sagan]

So here's a surprising one I didn't see coming, but, I'm sure there will be some interest in it. Ph.D. in Visionary Practice and Regenerative Leadership. Accredited by Higher Learning Commission, previously regional (there's no such thing as regional "legally" anymore). 

I disagree. While the Department of Education dropped that distinction, it is still used by CHEA. 

In the US, higher education is largely self-regulating. The states, to varying degrees of efficacy, license schools to operate. Other than that, schools self-regulate through accrediting agencies. These agencies are, in turn, grouped under an organization now known as the Council on Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). 

The role the federal government plays is that they're required by law to maintain a list of accrediting agencies whose accredited schools can participate in Title IV funding (student financial aid). For whatever reason, the Department decided to drop the distinction between regional and national accreditation, referring to it as "institutional accreditation" (to distinguish it from programmatic accreditation). However, since this has no bearing on the Department's student aid mission, and the Department has no other role in higher education, and because CHEA still distinguishes between regional accreditors and others, it is a distinction without a difference. And it certainly is NOT a "legal" matter since, again, higher education is self regulating. It's CHEA's call to make.

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I'm really trying to avoid residencies.

Consider not doing that. Residencies are incredibly valuable experiences. They immerse you in the doctoral process--one so utterly different from degrees at lower levels. They allow you to focus on your studies. They allow you to meet and get to know your peers and instructors/advisors. They give depth to the learning process. And they connect you to the university in qualitative ways.

Some schools have crazy residency requirements.

Not crazy. Short-residency doctoral programs were incredibly rare until the popularization and availability of the World Wide Web in the late 1990s. Nonresidential doctoral programs are even newer than that, popping up with any real frequency fewer than two decades ago.

What adult can spend 8 weeks every summer away from their family and work?

And yet, people attend these programs. 

Just another perspective.

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And in addition to CIIS, there's also Sophia University, which has a lot of spiritual stuff in their curriculum, and Maharishi University (located in Iowa) which is an institutionally (regionally) accredited school that has a *very* unusual curriculum deeply rooted in spirituality.

And Saybrook.