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trademark. Individuals and organizations that abused the CDP designa-
tion, either by claiming to have received a CDP when in reality they had
not or instituting their own CDP programs, received only ineffective
warning letters. No legal action appears to have been taken.
63
According
to SCDP president Kenniston Lord, the inability of the profession to
regulate its own activities justifi ed drastic action in regard to state licens-
ing: “One does not truly have a profession until one has the ability,
legally, to challenge a practitioner and when proven guilty, to see that
he is separated from the practice. . . . This is one problem that the SCDP
bill will solve.”
64
The lack of ability and willingness of the DPMA to equip its certifi ca-
tion program with teeth was not the only reason why the CDP failed to
achieve widespread industry acceptance, however. The program had
other shortcomings as well. From almost the beginning, the examinations
had been tainted by accusations of fraud and incompetent administra-
tion. In 1966 several individuals reported receiving offers from an exist-
ing CDP holder to take their examinations for them for a fee.
65
A copy
of the 1965 exam was stolen from a locked storage cabinet at California
State College, and its disappearance was covered up by the DPMA
Committee for Certifi cation.
66
Complaints about testing conditions and
locations were frequent and vociferous. For example, at one examination
site at the University of Minnesota, the noise caused by a nearby drama
club rehearsal of a sword fi ght scene “was so severe as to shower the
room with particles of plaster.”
67
Other examinees suggested that poorly
trained proctors (“the little old lady who passed out the papers”) were
not only unable to answer even basic questions about content and pro-
cedure but also in some cases switched rooms without notice, started
sessions early for personal convenience, and misplaced completed exami-
nation booklets.
68
Although such administrative snafus were hardly
unique to the CDP program, they undermined public confi dence in the
ability of the DPMA to adequately represent the profession.
Another reason why the DPMA was unable to push through its certi-
fi cation initiative was a lack of support from other professional associa-
tions. An article in 1968 on certifi cation and accreditation in the
Communications of the ACM
failed to mention the CDP program. This
conspicuous neglect of the most successful certifi cation program then
available refl ects a growing tension between the two competing profes-
sional associations. The ACM recognized that a successful certifi cation
program required a strong controlling organization. The organization
that controlled certifi cation would effectively control the profession.
