Last week, the campaign of candidate for lieutenant governor Nicole Wadsworth, the wife of state Rep. Tim Wadsworth, R-Arley, sent out a strange email asking that media outlets exclusively refer to Wadsworth as “Dr. Nicole Wadsworth.”
The email forthrightly stated that “Dr. Nicole Wadsworth has earned her academic and professional titles and should be addressed accordingly in all future correspondence and press materials.” The AP Stylebook, which many outlets, including APR, use, dictates that the title of “Dr.” should only be used to refer to people who hold specific medical degrees, such as an MD or DDS.
Wadsworth’s campaign manager, Hunter Weathers, told AL.com last week that Wadsworth “has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Alabama.” He also said she had a PhD from the University of Alabama in a written statement to at least one other news outlet.
Rep. Tim Wadsworth reportedly told yet another news site that his wife had a “PhD in Economics.”
However, APR proved unable to find Nicole Wadsworth in the University of Alabama’s regularly published lists of graduating students, or identify any dissertation she had written in the University’s database or the ProQuest dissertation database.
In an attempt to verify whether Wadsworth had in fact received a PhD from the University of Alabama, APR emailed and called Weathers on Monday and Tuesday.
On Wednesday morning, Weathers sent an email to members of the press explaining he had made an error in describing Wadsworth’s academic credentials. Around 1 p.m. the same day, a University of Alabama spokesperson confirmed to APR that they do “not have any record of Nicole Jones Wadsworth obtaining a degree at our institution.”
“In an earlier communication, our campaign made a mistype, specifically the institution that conferred her Ph.D,” Weathers wrote. “It was mentioned that she completed her Ph.D. at the University of Alabama; however, she has her undergraduate degree from the University of Alabama in Huntsville.”
“She began graduate level coursework at the University of Alabama, then transferred to the Florida Institute of Technology – Huntsville campus and earned a Master of Business Administration (MBA) and a Master of Science in Acquisition and Contract Management,” he stated. “She completed her Ph.D. at North Central Theological Seminary, with research focused on how economic theory can be applied to understand the role of nonprofits, including faith-based organizations, in revitalizing economically distressed towns.”
Based in St. Petersburg, Florida, North Central Theological Seminary has not been officially accredited by any organizations recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation or the U.S. Department of Education. Its website prominently states that the school is “approved to offer its religious educational programs under Section 1005.06(1)(f).”
Section 1005.06(1)(f) is a legal exemption from licensure requirements in Florida that allows religious colleges to “operate without governmental oversight.” However, schools that benefit from the exemption are supposed to only provide “educational programs that prepare students for religious vocations” and issue degrees with titles that “cannot be confused with secular degree titles.”
A representative of Florida’s Commission for Independent Education, the organization responsible for issuing the formal letters of exemption, told APR that North Central Theological Seminary’s last letter expired in March and they have not renewed it.
Before North Central Theological Seminary moved to Florida, it was based out of Minnesota, a fact seemingly still reflected in the URL of the school’s website: nctsmn.org. One 2016 article in the Minnesota Star Tribune stated that the state Office of Higher Education had begun “investigating the seminary to see whether it should still be exempt from registration because it’s a religious school.”
The Minnesota Office of Higher Education confirmed to APR that they could not renew the school’s exempt status because the proprietor failed to provide needed information, including curricula. “It looks like Philip Jegede sought an appeal of the denial of their exemption on April 7th 2020, but by June of 2020 they had dissolved their location/presence in Minnesota,” a spokesperson said.
In an email to APR, a representative of North Central Theological Seminary wrote that “Our records don’t show a degree being received by Nicole Wadsworth, unless there has been a last name change that isn’t updated by her on our records.”
However, they did say that the school awarded a PhD in Christian theology to a “Nicole Jones,” Wadsworth’s maiden name, in 2019. “Rather than writing a dissertation, she took comprehensive testing instead,” the representative wrote. “She passed the testing.”
The school’s website does not mention that comprehensive testing can be an alternative to a dissertation. The site maintains that in order to complete the 25 credit hour requirement for dissertations, students must “submit a minimum 80 page them [sic] to the Thesis committer [sic] for review.”
“Depending on the circumstances of a student, each institution has the right to grant special exemptions,” the school representative explained. “As a result of the reasons she provided us, we made an exception for her.”
The coursework required by North Central Theological Seminary for a PhD in Christian theology does not appear to include any readings on economics or nonprofits, instead mainly focusing on hermeneutics, apologetics and the New Testament. Given that Wadsworth seemingly did not complete a dissertation, it is unclear when she may have conducted the research on economic theory and nonprofits Weathers described.
In addition to repeatedly referring to “Dr. Nicole Wadsworth” without mentioning where Wadsworth received her degrees, Wadsworth’s campaign biography originally claimed “Troy University established the Nicole Jones Student Excellence Award in Economics in her honor — a tribute to her leadership and dedication to students.”
A spokesperson for Troy University explained though that the award was named after her in 2018 because her business helped fund that year’s luncheon. The “Nicole Jones Student Excellence Award in Economics” appears to have only been awarded in that one year, although students at Troy have received the “Student Excellence Award in Economics” more recently.
“Nicole Jones Development was one of several businesses and individuals who made financial contributions to the 2018 Sorrell College of Business Awards Luncheon, which recognized outstanding undergraduate and graduate students,” the Troy spokesperson told APR. “Sponsors for the event were acknowledged in the official program, and those who supported specific awards had the opportunity to have the award named in their honor.”
After APR reached out to the campaign, the biography was changed to say “in 2018, Troy University developed the Nicole Jones Student Excellence Award in Economics, awarded to an Economics major chosen by faculty who demonstrates academic excellence as well as leadership.”
Wadsworth’s campaign did not respond to the repeated requests for comment sent by APR yesterday.
