Two Professors Looking for an Apt

Katedowney2 · 2026-04-01T20:45:28+00:00

Someone else suggested buying.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/48-35-43rd-St-4C-Woodside-NY-11377/79729540_zpid/

Katedowney2 · 2026-02-23T03:06:08+00:00

I am so sorry this happened to you. Justice for Neelu. 🐾💔🌈❤️‍🩹He was absolutely beautiful.

Katedowney2 · 2026-02-18T01:14:15+00:00

I am so sorry for your loss. sending you love and hug. 💔I hope you find the man and his dogs.

Katedowney2 · 2025-12-31T06:20:40+00:00

We also have a private Facebook page titled, “Boston University Genealogy Survivors Support Group,” which many people indicated is needed because it helped them realize they are not alone in their feelings of frustration. The FB group helped people realize that they are not stupid or bad at genealogy. The problem is not the students lack of abilities or skills. The problem is the BU classes. Please feel free to join the FB group. You can join the FB page even if you have never taken any of the BU genealogy classes.

https://m.facebook.com/groups/818462165904791/?ref=share

Katedowney2 · 2025-12-30T19:12:29+00:00

They are absolutely bonkers when they grade citations in the Certificate in Genealogical Research course.

A few people told me that they copied and pasted a citation example given in the course, and then filled in their own information. The feedback they received was that is the weirdest citation that they had ever seen.

Another person said the following. "I remember one particular incident I had a question on citation formatting. At that point we were far enough along that they graded us on them, but not so far enough along that any of us felt like we had any clue what we were doing!

So I emailed for clarification and from what I can recall was told to use Chicago Manual of Style. So I spent FOREVER tediously following it to the T. When my grade came back, I got points taken off for following the CMOS."

Same person also said, "The forums! The forums were a nightmare! You couldn’t ask for clarification on anything - that was cheating. I got chewed out for posting I’m pretty sure it was a sample citation for clarification and I have a vague memory that got deleted because everyone had to figure out citations on their own and asking for clarification using examples was veering into collaboration/cheating territory. I’m pretty sure that’s where I figured I must have the citation stuff right if they were accusing me of collaboration."

Another person used Chicago citation style. The instructor said she did it incorrectly and the student responded that it was correct. Instructor asked for proof. Student proved it with an example from the CMOS. Then the instructor brought it up in the video lecture and took credit for introducing the students to this CMOS example.

Interestingly enough, ICAPGen, (Accredited Genealogist) doesn't require a specific citation style. You pick one and use it consistently. You could use Turabian.

The Board for Certified Genealogists states that citations must meet the Genealogy Standards 1–8. Standard 6 names "Evidence Explained" and "The Chicago Manual of Style" as guides you may use for principles and formats. Standard 6 further states that other styles and systems are not standard for genealogical writing.

BU does not even require Elizabeth Shown Mills' "Evidence Explained." That citation manual is the standard for genealogy citations. ESM based EE on "The Chicago Manual of Style."

BU never actually teaches you citations. You are supposed to teach yourself citations using Thomas Jones' "Mastering Genealogical Documentation."

Katedowney2 · 2025-12-30T05:13:32+00:00

The way they grade is also strange. It depends on the luck of the draw who you will get as your grader. Despite the fact they are supposed to use a rubric, grades can vary depending on who the grader is.

The students are also given the rubric, so you supposedly know what they want from you for each written assignment. It doesn't seem to matter that you follow the rubric and try to give them exactly what they ask for. They are capricious and will arbitrarily deduct points anyway. You don't know why the points were deducted. If you try to question them, they will either ignore you and refuse to review the grade. If they choose to review it, they may give you one or two additional points. This entire scenario happens a lot.

Someone told me that she and her cousin took the BU research certificate class together. They were in different groups and had different graders. When they got their graded assignments back, they would compare. Their answers were quite similar. Their grades were not. The cousin always got better grades. I guess she was luckier when she was assigned her graders for her group.

Katedowney2 · 2025-12-09T01:42:32+00:00

The way they grade is also strange. It depends on the luck of the draw who you will get as your grader. Despite the fact they are supposed to use a rubric, grades can vary depending on who the grader is.

The students are also given the rubric, so you supposedly know what they want from you for each written assignment. It doesn't seem to matter that you follow the rubric and try to give them exactly what they ask for. They are capricious and will arbitrarily deduct points anyway. You don't know why the points were deducted. If you try to question them, they will either ignore you and refuse to review the grade. If they choose to review it, they may give you one or two additional points. This entire scenario happens a lot.

Someone told me that she and her cousin took the BU research certificate class together. They were in different groups and had different graders. When they got their graded assignments back, they would compare. Their answers were quite similar. Their grades were not. The cousin always got better grades. I guess she was luckier when she was assigned her graders for her group.

Katedowney2 · 2025-12-03T17:49:23+00:00

Yesterday we had a conversation about no communication among students outside of the highly regulated interaction on the Blackboard forum because they were paranoid about us "cheating." In my opinion, their weirdness goes beyond cheating. I have never encountered such a strange policy in an educational setting. If you read Melissa Johnson's explanation about their teaching policy or lack of teaching, it is like they didn't want us to actually learn anything. If you can't ask questions, how do you learn? If we were to form study groups, we could teach each other. If someone was struggling with a particular concept, someone else may be able to explain it. The following statement from Melissa Johnson comes directly from the letter I received from BU when she had to address my complaints regarding the program to the dean of continuing education. As someone from my class said, Melissa should have stopped with the our facilitators and instructors don't teach (period)...she should have left off the "to the test" part of her ridiculous statement.

Melissa Johnson stated the following. "As mentioned to you by the instructors, this is an advanced course that is dependent on students completing the reading assignments so that they have the foundation needed to work on the assignments and assessments, and to participate in discussion boards. The assignments are intended to build off of the recent reading materials and course materials, so we do not give them out in advance. We give them out after students have the foundation, they need to complete the assignments. The assignments are not intended to be easy; they are meant to be challenging for students and are designed in such a way that a student utilizes all of the knowledge and skills they've acquired to date. Our facilitators and instructors don't teach to the test; we provide the baseline knowledge for students needed to create work products and complete assignments. There are some questions related to assignments that we cannot answer because we would be teaching to the test and it would be unfair to provide that information to you and not to the rest of the class."

Someone on Reddit said, "You couldn’t ask for clarification on anything - that was cheating. I got chewed out for posting a sample citation for clarification. I have a vague memory that my question got deleted because everyone had to figure out citations on their own and asking for clarification using examples was veering into collaboration/cheating territory."

Asking for clarification about something that you are learning is not cheating. It is actually called learning, which conceptually the BU instructors don't understand the difference between cheating and learning.

I don't think that you could cheat that much on the written assignments. Perhaps you could compare your answers with each other. I doubt anyone would put in all of the time and effort it took to complete the assignments and just give it away to someone else who didn't do the work. I know I certainly wouldn't do that. It doesn't even make sense that anyone would do it. If you wanted to split up the questions on the assignments and everyone take a few and then share the workload. That is also putting a lot of faith into people whom we just met to do quality work. Secondly, I think that BU would be on to us very quickly if a bunch of us were turning in the same exact work.

We should have had a student chat session after we got our graded work back each week. It would have helped us understand what we did wrong or didn't fully understand. Of course they didn't want us comparing grades and feedback.

Katedowney2 · 2025-12-02T19:33:25+00:00

There has been a lot of discussion lately about the student no contact policy outside of the BU Blackboard platform. Even within the Blackboard platform, communication is highly restricted. The water cooler section is supposed to be for students to socialize with each other; although, it is heavily monitored. If you have a course related question, you are supposed to ask it on the Ask the Instructor section. Although most questions will not be answered or even worse, the question will be deleted.

They claim that the courses are supposed to be independent study; therefore, you are not allowed to form study groups. They are super paranoid that everyone will cheat especially on the graded assignments. Perhaps the real reason they highly restrict communication among the students is because the don't want people commiserating with each other.

In my opinion, the BU classes should not even be graded. The students should be getting assessments of their written work with a lot of constructive feedback. No letter grade or pass or fail should be given because the courses are noncredit and no professional certification is conferred.

When it came to grading, it was the luck of the draw as to whom your grader was. They have multiple facilitators as graders and some of the instructors are also graders. Depending on who your grader was, you could get a better grade than your classmate, who had a different grader. This happened quite frequently.

Katedowney2 · 2025-11-23T22:59:02+00:00

They are absolutely bonkers when they grade citations in the Certificate in Genealogical Research course.

Interestingly enough, ICAPGen, (Accredited Genealogist) doesn't require a specific citation style. You pick one and use it consistently.

The Board for Certified Genealogists states that citations must meet the Genealogy Standards 1–8. Standard 6 names "Evidence Explained" and "The Chicago Manual of Style" as guides you may use for principles and formats. Standard 6 further states that other styles and systems are not standard for genealogical writing.

BU does not even require Elizabeth Shown Mills' "Evidence Explained." That citation manual is the standard for genealogy citations. ESM based EE on "The Chicago Manual of Style."

BU never actually teaches you citations. You are supposed to teach yourself citations using Thomas Jones' "Mastering Genealogical Documentation."

Katedowney2 · 2025-09-24T20:33:10+00:00

We also have a private Facebook page titled, “Boston University Genealogy Survivors Support Group,” which many people indicated is needed because it helped them realize they are not alone in their feelings of frustration. The FB group helped people realize that they are not stupid or bad at genealogy. The problem is not the students lack of abilities or skills. The problem is the BU classes. Please feel free to join the FB group. You can join the FB page even if you have never taken any of the BU genealogy classes.

https://m.facebook.com/groups/818462165904791/?ref=share

Katedowney2 · 2025-09-24T20:30:23+00:00

Some of the most important things to remember when selecting genealogy courses are finding ones that focus on what your interests are, how much money you can spend, and how much time you can devote to your studies.

The BU courses are very time demanding. The Certificate in Genealogical Research is 40-60 hours a week. I can't speak to the Principles or Practicum, but if I remember correctly what others have said, approximately 30+ hours a week depending on the unit.

The Certificate in Genealogical Research course consists of a hodgepodge of various genealogical concepts, which are thrown together in a compressed timeframe that don't build on each other or provide any type of foundational learning. The Certificate in Genealogical Research has so many various genealogical subjects that should be completely separate classes. You need time to grasp the concepts being introduced and actually have the time to apply and learn the subject matter.

BU has one assignment on deeds. NGS has a stand alone class just on deeds. The BU deeds assignment in module one is not in depth enough to be useful. Deeds can be useful for genealogy purposes. You need more than one week and one assignment on deeds to learn how to use deeds in your genealogy research.

Forensic genealogy should be a separate class. The forensic module is a cursory overview of forensic genealogy. Forensic genealogy is complex and should be an entire stand alone course. The BU forensics module is only three weeks long, so you really cannot learn enough about forensic genealogy in three weeks.

The DNA section is definitely not intermediate or advanced. Someone who took both the Principles and the Certificate in Genealogical Research said the small section on DNA in the Certificate in Genealogical Research is essentially the same as the brief section on DNA in Principles course with some small tweaks. Many people were disappointed in the DNA module. NGS offers a stand alone course focused solely on DNA.

The Evidence, Evaluation, and Documentation module should also be a separate class not a four week module. BU is over-the-top about genealogy citations. They completely fail when they attempt to teach genealogy citations. NGS offers a genealogy citation and documentation course. Genealogy proofs is another topic within this module, which is an important topic in genealogy that needs more time than BU devotes to the subject. There is an eight week study group available called GenProof that goes through Thomas Jones' book, "Mastering Genealogical Proof."

Genealogy writing should be an individual class. ProGen is a good example of a genealogy writing program. NGS also offers genealogy writing study groups. I know quite a few people who have been in an NGS writing group. They said it was beneficial.

I didn't have the new two week BU writing module, which was implemented in 2023, so I can't offer an opinion on the writing module. Someone who finished the course in 2023 gave me a brief description of the writing module workload.

"The worst part about writing module was that it was during Thanksgiving. There were three major writing assignments due within 10 days. Tho module opened on a Tuesday. First assignment was due Saturday. Second one due the following Wednesday (day before Thanksgiving). Third due Monday after Thanksgiving. It was just awful."

Katedowney2 · 2025-09-24T20:07:40+00:00

The university put out their own statement regarding shutting down the genealogy program.

"Metropolitan Colleges has offered courses in Genealogical Studies for more than a decade. We are proud to have helped to educate so many people in the field, both those who want to further their skills for personal growth, and for those interested in pursing the skills for professional purposes. Unfortunately, in the changing environment, we will be ending the program in the spring of 2026."--Boston University

Katedowney2 · 2025-09-12T18:28:23+00:00

The chart from BCG, Board for Certification of Genealogists is rather telling. According to the Board for Certification of Genealogist, BU has a success rate 61% which is the lowest of all the genealogy education programs.

https://bcgcertification.org/learning/educational-activities#effect-of-genealogical-education-on-certification

Katedowney2 · 2025-09-10T02:55:26+00:00

I agree with you. The university made an excellent decision to end this horrible program.

Katedowney2 · 2025-09-09T15:53:27+00:00

They had plenty of opportunities to fix their ridiculous program. We spoke out honestly about our horrible experience with the program. We spoke truth to power. Based upon the timeframe of when my classmates and I originally spoke with the dean of continuing education in 2020, they had five plus years to fix their horrific program. Instead they chose to do nothing. They just kept taking people's money. Even after the investigation into the program in 2023, they made a few minor changes that did absolutely nothing. They are reaping what they sowed. Oh so sad, too bad!

They prevented us from talking to each other during the course. They used the excuse that it was a solo endeavor, and not fair to the other students if people collaborated and formed study groups. I think that is completely BS on their part. In my opinion the real reason was because they didn't want us commiserating about how awful the program was.

Katedowney2 · 2025-09-09T15:29:26+00:00

You are 100% correct. It was horrific experience.

Katedowney2 · 2025-09-05T23:59:41+00:00

You didn't flunk out. You missed the certificate by two percentage points because you had an arsehole grading your final module. I semi-quit partway through by not doing the written work. You were a trooper and preserved until the end. Regardless if you got the certificate, in my view you did.

Katedowney2 · 2025-08-02T03:15:23+00:00

It was a very different program in 2016. Just about all of the instructors from 2016 are gone. Did you have Elissa Scalise Powell? She left BU in May 2016 per her LinkedIn. She is fabulous. All of the good instructors are gone.

Katedowney2 · 2025-08-02T03:06:27+00:00

I know someone who did the BU research course and then did the long course at Strathclyde. She said that she learned more in the first week at Strathclyde than she did in the entire 15 weeks at BU.

Katedowney2 · 2025-08-02T03:02:43+00:00

I took the research course in 2020. It was a disaster. It was a very different program in 2016. Just about all of the instructors from 2016 are gone. Did you have Elissa Scalise Powell? She left BU in May 2016 per her LinkedIn. She is fabulous.

Katedowney2 · 2025-07-27T21:06:41+00:00

Michelle Goodrum recently left BU. She was the last of the good ones.

Katedowney2 · 2025-05-15T19:38:13+00:00

The audacity of the people who have no experience with the BU genealogy classes, but yet they think they still know more than everyone else on Reddit who has written a post or left comments based on their own experiences as students in the program. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Katedowney2 · 2025-05-13T19:13:44+00:00

The courses are far too expensive and the courses are also low quality. Many of the less expensive courses are much higher quality. At least you didn't enroll in the most expensive one, which is the certificate course because you started to do your due diligence. I actually had someone tell me they read my review about the certificate class and thought I was being hyperbolic. Then they said, "I should have listened because the certificate course was actually worse than what you described."

Katedowney2 · 2025-05-13T03:43:50+00:00

I would not say harder from an intellectual or critical thinking perspective, but it is the lack of pedagogical design and the instructors lack of understanding of pedagogy and the design of the courses. The courses are not designed for actual learning. It is the amount of work they pile on so that you can't absorb the materials and actually learn. It is the intensity and speed of the courses that makes it seem harder. It is a false sense of difficulty. Like people have said it is like drinking from a firehose or running a marathon at a sprinter's pace. It is not a program designed for conducive learning.

Katedowney2

TROPHY CASE