Re: Distance Education

I would like to take this opportunity to explain the current situation with

accreditation at our University. UNM has a strong holistic bent, that

standard education does not offer to their students. So most of the

traditional/conventional colleges/universities cannot accept our

institution’s courses, which results in no crossing-over of degrees or

course credits by them. However, UNM very often allows those institutions’

courses to have credit-value at UNM. Our University works beautifully as a

compliment to most traditional school degrees, though. We have doctors,

nurses, teachers who have the conventional

degrees, but wish to enhance their choices and their degrees with UNM.

We are fully licensed by the New Mexico

Commission on Higher Education Post-Secondary Board of Education. In order

to meet these criteria and requirements we had to meet very strict standards

for our BS, MS, MA, ND, NMD & PhD programs. Each year we are evaluated for

licensure by the Commission and have never failed to succeed in this

endeavor for the seven years that we have been in operation. We also are

proud of the fact that we have candidate accreditation status with the

American Naturopathic Medical Accreditation Board (ANMAB) out of Nevada

(702) 897-4915.

At present we are in the process of evaluating application for federal

accreditation through a Department of Education approved regional

accrediting body. This can be a long road and we cannot by law represent

ourselves as being accredited in the future, as this could be misleading and

deceptive.

The majority of our programs are very eclectic and non-conventional as I

mentioned. As

such there is no licensing for these programs and accreditation is not a

factor.

However, if someone is interested in our Naturopathic doctorate

program there are 11 states at present that would not approve of credentials

from our program. This is due to these 11 states having established

Naturopathic Physician

laws that do not allow graduates from other programs that offer any

independent study to be recognized or licensed in those states. The

majority of other states have either no licensing or a Freedom of Health

Practice Act that protects the practitioner of natural medicine disciplines

in their respective states.

The eleven states that I mentioned above are Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii,

Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Utah, Arizona, Vermont, Connecticut, & Montana.

In the other states except for Florida it is generally acceptable to

practice as long as one is no treating disease or practicing medicine. A

graduate of our program can obtain a license from the District of Columbia

which many of our ND graduates do. There is supposedly some reciprocation

with this license with other states, but that is not verified, as no one to

my knowledge has ever tested it for legality. There is a Freedom of Health

Practice Act in several states which protects the practitioner as well.

It is important to be cautious of schools that advertise themselves as being

accredited by institutions or associations that do not have Department of

Education approval or recognition. The majority of correspondence schools

are doing this which by law is misleading and fraud. We have chosen not to

go this route in order to maintain our integrity and reputation.

If you have any further questions regarding our licensure, accreditation or

vocational opportunities with our programs please do not hesitate to contact

us. The Chancellor and Dean, Dr. Mark Smith, email address is [email protected]

would be happy to answer any specific questions you might have.

Thank you for your interest in the University of Natural Medicine!

Sincerely,

Sharon Long

University Administrator

P.O. Box 3356

San Dimas, California 91773

USA

Sharon A. Long

University Administrator

800-893-3367

Hpoe that tthe above infor will be useful to you in making a good decision. God Bless!

jervin