Abdulah K. Dunbar vouches for Saint Regis

The Liberian Embassy is now vouching for Saint Regis: see http://saintregis.edu.lr/news.htm for the various statements concerning this. The SRU site shows a letter listing 27 "recognized higher education institutions of Liberia" which includes six "distance learning program on the internet" entries. These six comprise

• Saint Regis University
• Adam Smith University
• Robertstown University
• Virtual University
• James Monroe University
• Continental University.

One might suspect that the Embassy is not aware of

• Web site "liberianembassy.com"
• Correspondence claiming to be from the Liberian Emabssy which wasn't
• Provision of accreditation by NBOE with the $50,000 fee guaranteeing acceptance
• Offer of sale of AA credentials to those returning a 21% score on a simple multiple choice exam, underscoring 75% of those who would guess randomly.

It is useful to collect facts, document practices, and post the information. Eventually this will get sorted out properly.

G

 

Continental University? Is that the same school that was established by John Craparo? I hope that it is a different school.

 

I beleive this is the "official retraction"

http://saintregis.edu.lr/official_retraction_1.JPG

 

this Continental University

Continental University: http://continental.edu.lr/content/index.php. IP: 211.43.212.22 (in Korea, I think). The "Continental University" sign on the building shown in their web site looks to have been added with a photo editor. In particular, the shield seems not to have been transformed properly to handle perspective and vanishing point issues.

Virtual University: alma mater of SRU Professor Peter Sulan Dolo, but I haven't spotted a web site for it.

G

 

My favorite item on St. Regis’ Web site continues to be the following statement.

• ”St. Regis University degrees have been evaluated as equivalent to US Regionally Accredited degrees by recognized degree evaluation agencies which are Members of AACROA and NAFSA.”

I have preserved the links as they are in the original statement, and will refrain from commentary as to not facilitate the job of those affiliated with St. Regis (we know they read this forum). I am willing to wager however, that this will be changed within 48 hours.

 

That's funny. Abdulah Dunbar told me Adam Smith was not accredited because it was not part of NBOE. (It's a separate, um, enterprise.)

 

For uncle janko

That's funny. Abdulah Dunbar told me Adam Smith was not accredited because it was not part of NBOE. (It's a separate, um, enterprise.)

Abdulah Dunbar told you about St. Regis accreditation ??

 

John's Continental University is here. Sadly it appears to have died on the vine.

 

I noticed that John's Continental has its address in Lemmon, South Dakota. A very small town not far from the North Dakota border. I remember our North Dakota team playing Lemmon teams in High School.

John

 

Isaac Roland's contact information can be found here:
http://www.unesco.org/education/efa/db/index_cordinators_country.shtml

 

You cannot quote--or read--properly, amolkom. What did I say? Did I mention St Regis? No. I asked Dunbar about "Adam Smith University". We did not discuss St Regis. He did not return my subsequent phone calls. This was before the fall of Charles Taylor. Before you ask, Dunbar did not return my calls--not Charles Taylor, or Adam Smith the economist, let alone St Regis the actual saint.

 

I beleive this is the "official retraction"

http://saintregis.edu.lr/official_retraction_1.JPG


__________________
Mike Albrecht

It's not the 'retraction' that is of interest to me, but what the document goes on to say! My simple mind seems to understand it to say that the Liberian government recognizes St Regis as a full recognized and accredited school!

And this is post-revolution!

 

Ok, then why do they need to attach heads to different bodies for their "Faculty"? Also, Dunbar was also signing documents during the old regime as well. The current Ministry of Education is the same person as when Taylor was in charge as well. On top of all this, are any of the B&M schools in Liberia even functioning any more? I can not, and will not believe that this letter is actually from the governement. If and when UNESCO accepts SRU and AACRAO and NAFSA say this school should be considered RA equiv I will finally accept them as a legitimate school. Of course this will probably happen sometime around 12th of never.

 

> I can not, and will not believe that this letter is actually from
> the government.

I believe it. Remember, the current Minister of Education is a holdover from the Taylor regime (under which Liberian education disintegrated), re-appointed over the objections of the vast majority of Liberian educators.
http://www.theperspective.org/inquirer/moreconfusion.html

 

is the letter fake?

Another DegreeInfo member (more observant than I, and deserving of all the credit) noticed the fax number visible at the top of the letter: (202) 291-0302. (See the attached enlarged image.)

This is undoubtedly the phone number of the sender of the fax. It can be found on the web at http://www.pepco.com/hm_pay_globalex.htm where it is ascribed to

Pro Bono Enterprises, Inc.
5403 Georgia Avenue NW
Washington DC 20011
202-291-0302.
(Pepco is "Potomac Electric Power Company"; the Pro Bono location can be used to pay Pepco's electric bills.)

"Pro Bono Enterprises" is mentioned here: http://www.nigeriawhispers.com/_wsn/page5.html as a place to pick up a copy of "Whispers Magazine," a publication of interest to Nigerian expatriates. The (non-fax) phone number for Pro Bono given there is (202) 291-6166.

This address also appears twice:
http://www.yellowpageswashingtondc.com/business/29361/3932/Grocers-Retail-11.html
and
http://www.yellowpageswashingtondc.com/business/29361/3932/Grocers-Retail-8.html
in a list of grocers in the Washington area, as well as here:
http://www.dckeno.com/locations/northwest.html
as a Keno (gambling, run by the Washington DC lottery I believe) site.

It seems that the fax machine used to send the accreditation information to SRU was not in the Liberian embassy, and not in Monrovia, Liberia but instead in a convenience store on Georgia Avenue in Washington, DC.

The location of the fax machine is a fifteen minute walk from the location of the Liberian Embassy.

Since the Liberian Embassy has a fax machine, why was the fax sent to SRU from a convenience store a short walk from the embassy, especially if the embassy had received a legitimate order from Monrovia to support SRU? It doesn't make much sense.

This is speculation, but here is a model for what may have taken place. Perhaps someone in Washington, DC wrote the March 18 letter and faxed it to both the embassy (so that it might be taken to be legitimate, and to have come from abroad) and also to the office described in Bill Morlin's article which may handle SRU-related matters.

If this is what took place, then the letter is of US, not Liberian, origin.

The letter almost certainly had to travel from its original author by fax: it is dated March 18, and the fax which arrived at the SRU office was received around 2pm that day. If Morlin is right, that would be 2pm pacific standard time. Converting to GMT puts the fax in the SRU office at 10pm GMT. The document is moving around much too rapidly to have been written in Monrovia on the same day it was received by SRU unless it traveled electronically.

Interestingly, in the "Online Learning Directory" discussion board, "Doc" posted an announcement concerning the letter approximately 3 hours later: 3/19 at 1:04am GMT. The speed with which SRU adapted its web site and caused its supporter to post the information would suggest that SRU knew in advance that the letter was being written.

G

 

I'm in awe, Galanga. Your work is amazing.

Somewhere, Shad Tubman is smiling.

 

...and here's "Virtual University"

Ah, thank you, but someone else spotted the fax number, dug around and concluded it was probably located in a convenience store, and sent me a message about it. So really, I can't take credit for it. I just added a little to what was already uncovered.

I have some (amusing) info about the Virtual University, which is on the list of purportedly Liberian-recognized entities faxed from that convenience store.

Its web site is here: http://www.thevirtual-university.org/.

On its degrees page it explains how to get help with the writing of a thesis:

Clicking on the link to speedypapers opens a page which informs the visitor

That might tempt a V.U. student to get a little too much help!

Oh yeah-- I forgot-- who runs VU? Its site says this:

The following constitute the Board of Directors of the Virtual University:

1 eminent person in the community
1 member from the business community
the Minister of Education as ex-officio who shall not be appointed or elected to any office of the Board
1 member from the House of Representatives
1 member from the House of Senate
2 members from the National Commission of Higher Education
the president of the Virtual University Online Education Organisation.

Location of the Virtual University:

The Virtual University
14th Street, Sinkor
P.O.Box 5222
Monrovia, Liberia

However, I can't find any names anywhere. Just job titles.

It really is a shame to see a list which includes real schools like the University of Liberia (which is trying to rebuild, I imagine) also holding the names of not-at-all-wonderful enterprises.

G

 

I guess I shouldn't be surprised...

... about the provenance of purportedly Liberian correspondence: if sometimes embassy email isn't really from the embassy and sometimes the embassy web site isn't really the embassy web site, and the Official Transcript Archive Center lives in a metal box, why shouldn't a document describing university accreditation by Liberia be sent to who-knows-where from a fax machine in a convenience store?

G