Two diploma mill news stories

One is from FCW.COM, the other from the New York Post.

The Post staff did a commendable amount of digging for their story. Named in it are Barrington University, Columbia State University, Kensington University, "Adam Smith University of America," InterAmerican University, "American University of Asturias, Spain," Pacific Western University, and Harrington University.

Here are excerpts:

No place for bogus degrees, Kay Coles James (director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management), FCW.COM, June 7, 2004.

Fee for Certificate, Christopher Byron, New York Post (online edition), June 7, 2004.

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Good to see some public notice for "Adam Smith." Grunewald, a very smooth talker (DBA Harvard) who has actually been a professor at a couple of real universities and has published a couple of books with the Edwin Mellen Press, claims a "charter" from the Northern Mariana Islands for "Adam Smith". Two problems: he doesn't have one, and such an instrument does not exist. The NMI authorities never heard of his "school". He also will receive "university" mail at his home in Connecticut, providing there is no mention of "Adam Smith" on the envelope; he cites persecution by Connecticut educational authorities. The Connecticut state bureaucrat my staff spoke to was unimpressed and unmoved. Like many similar organizations, "Adam Smith" will permit a student to do a dissertation or transfer in courses. Why? If a few, um, clients can be cited as doing some actual work, that helps create the aura of legitimacy for the rest. (Let the suckers labor. Why not?) The "school" also has the famous 29,000 book library which nobody seems to be able to locate. "Adam Smith" did create consternation on the part of the estimable Mr Dunbar of something called the Liberian embassy, since "Adam Smith" has a detente with something at one point called the Liberian government independent of Mr Dunbar's NBOE.

Who could ask for anything more?