According to a report at about.com, ISIM University (formerly owned by UNext, parent corporation of Cardean University) has been purchased by the "Higher Education Management Group." Could it be that Cardean extracted what it needed from ISIM (i.e. accelerated accreditation) and is now throwing out the unwanted remains?
That's essentially the message I got from ISIM president Mary Adams when I approached her about the Guerrilla Marketing MBA. She said, 5 or 6 weeks ago, that Cardean/Milken had told them a while back to stop enrolling new students and would be closing them down -- but that there was a possibility that the senior management at ISIM would be offered the opportunity to buy the school, which presumably has happened.
Hi All: John - sorry to contradict you, but that isn't quite how it went. First, Cardean is owned by UNext and the link to Milken, if there is one at this stage has nothing at all to do with the decisions made about ISIM. Everyone should refrain from listing Cardean as John has (with the link to Milken). Personally I think that is a horse long dead and everyone should stop beating it. It is true that UNext made the decision to stop supporting two schools, both DETC accredited and both offering MBA degrees. I can't fault them for that, and frankly, since Cardean has had its own independent accreditation since 2000, they certainly could have made the decision sooner than 2003. One could argue that ISIM was lucky not to have faced this scenario sooner. John is also right that we had a short window in which to locate a buyer, buy the school ourselves, or face closure, which was not optimal and caused me a fair amount of stress and anxiety. I wanted to do what was best for our students. However, that said, it was obviously enough time, since we were successful in completing an acquisition and I might add we were not short of potential buyers. However, to correct one more statement, we were not told to stop enrolling new students at any time during the process. Thanks for the opportunity to correct the misinformation. I have lots to do and am genuinely excited about the opportunities that exist for ISIM so will not take the time to engage in discussions related to this. As for Cardean University, I have a great deal of respect for their program and what they have accomplished. Further, I am confident that they will continue to grow and that people will continue to talk about them. Regards, Mary Adams
I am quite proud of what ISIM is and stands for. I have made it known here (and previously in aed.) a number of times that my resume includes an MS from ISIM. I was able to go on to a regionally accredited doctoral program in large part because, upon close scrutiny, Capella decided ISIM's programs were worthy of acceptance for transfer. ISIM was among the first, regardless of accreditation type, to offer complete degrees online. I was taking my first ISIM class in the winter of 1994 and it was accomplished online in a threaded course room not much different than what is seen today by most accredited online classes. ISIM has been doing the online thing for over eight years, and doing it well with very personal service. I wish ISIM all the best under new ownership.
