Nosy Reporter

NEWPORT INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Hi Mead,
You have nont included the above university. Have they got accreditation. Who is currently the owner of the university. Is it owned by Hong Kong or Malaysian owners. It is a university which needs to be also included. What do you think

 

Re: NEWPORT INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

It is not accredited.

 

NPU

Tony Yap I speculate that the owners could be a combination of what you have said. Many so called Western institutions are owned by Asian counterparts but since Asian consumers presumably students are in awe of Western qualifications this set up works presumably for some who want a Western oriented qualification.

 

Hi Salami and Douglas
Thank you. You may be right about the ownership. NIU is one of the oldest game players. I believe they started from California but for some reasons switched to Wyoming. I wonder why our Nosy Reporter did not enlist information about them. Probably they may be a good entity. Cheers

 

WHERE IS THE NOSY REPORTER

Where is Mead Gruver the nosy reporter. Is he missing in action or have gone to Abu Ghraib to interview some prisoners

 

Thanks Mead,
The website is related to a Hong Kong entity do they have any entity in Wyoming. I missed your story. Please send it to me.
Cheers.
Tony

 

Re: WHERE IS THE NOSY REPORTER

Having signed-up simply to ask the question, he got what he needed to know and moved on.

 

Honestly we would like to hear more from him. Specially about Newport International University which is in this game much longer than anyone else

 

He's a reporter. He doesn't give a whit about any of these other than what he needed to do his job. You wanna' hear more from him? Go find and read his article. That's how reporters are.

 

Do you work for NIU? We would like to hear more about the diploma mills in Wyoming. May be you could give us some insights

 

No.

We? Whatd'you got a mouse in your pocket?

I got a better idea. How 'bout you just cut to the chase and tell us that there are no mills in Wyoming. I mean, ultimately, isn't that pretty much what this little dance you're doin' is warmin' up to? Save us all alot of time and just spill it, already.

 

Your philosophy is good and the dance you are playing is becoming hot. Why dont we take the truth out. It may be someone somewhere is hiding it. May be you could do that as I like your philosophy

 

Greg D. is right on here and is being quite kind. These people don't give a s#@t about the topic they are reseaching or for that matter the truth. It is not about getting "the" story but rather "a" story. Now "a" story may be one that is manifest in their own mind or it may be one that is "a" story according to their own personal (political) agenda but in the real word of intellectual honestly and debate it is not journalism. As a matter of fact, these people have gotten so lazy that rather than rely on hard research they rely on opinions (such as those that are provided here from time to time) gleaned from the comfort of their computer screens.

 

Though I like being agreed with, I'm afraid your dissertation does not reflect my opinion. I think a great deal more of reporters than that. While it is true that the bad ones tend to stop at "a" story rather than "the" story, generally speaking they do a good and important job.

It's not unusual for reporters to come to places like this to get leads and to help give the story some color or direction; nor is there anything wrong with that. No good reporter would rely on mere opinions from a place like this. But this place is known for its accurate information about diploma mills; so there was nothing wrong with him coming here and soliciting information.

What I meant by "that's how reporters are" is that any good reporter knows to ask but not answer; to leave the answers for his story. That he posted here, asking, and never came back is expected and was the right thing to do. The only second or successive posts he should have made would have been to ask more questions or to clarify things... but never to opine -- at least, not while still wearing his reporter's hat.

Obviously there are people here who take issue with the angle the reporter was taking on the story: That there are diploma mills in Wyoming. Please, those of you who believe there aren't, don't paint me as one of you. (Ugh. I'm just imagining the shower it would take to get that kind of stink off me.)

There most certainly are diploma mills in Wyoming... starting with Kennedy-Western "University," just to name one; and no mill shills and/or trolls such as those who have revived this thread and are now trying to make an argument where there is none will ever change that!

 

mead gruver

I searched for Mr. Gruver and found a number of online articles he has written. One dated 3-11-2005 on the billingsgazette.com site discusses degree mills and school licensing in Wyoming.

 

Re: mead gruver

Mr. Gruver writes for the Associated Press, not any one newspaper. So his stories appear in newspapers across the country. If his byline is in the Billings Gazette, it's because they picked-up the story.

Unfortunately, the March 11th story, to which you refer, is probably not the one that resulted from anything Gruver learned, or anyone he met, here. The story Mr. Gruver wrote that included any information which he might have gleaned from this thread (or from anyone he met here) is most likely the one that appeared in U.S. newspapers at the end of the first week of February -- around the 8th or 9th, in most newspapers -- to wit:

• Alleged "diploma mills" flocking to Wyoming
  
  By Mead Gruver
  The Associated Press
  
  CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — The campus of American Capital University has no tree-shaded quadrangle, no stately old buildings or libraries, no classrooms, no fraternity houses — not even a student curled up with a book in a quiet corner.
  
  There's just a middle-age man who sits at a computer in a tiny, undecorated, windowless office in the basement of a downtown building.
  
  But in a sense, this fellow — Bill Allen, American Capital University's chief academic officer — has lots of company: Wyoming licenses 10 other online schools that are not accredited by any mainstream organization and maintain only a token physical presence in the state.
  
  Defenders of such schools say Wyoming is forward-thinking for accepting a relatively inexpensive way for working adults to get degrees in their spare time through mail and Internet courses. But others say the state has become a haven for diploma mills.
  
  "People start to giggle if you say 'Wyoming-licensed school,' if you know about accreditation," said George Gollin, a University of Illinois physics professor and crusader against diploma mills, schools that offer degrees for little or no academic work.
  
  Because of loose state requirements, more online schools are popping up in Wyoming than anywhere else, said Steven Crow, executive director of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, the regional school-accreditation agency.
  
  "Most other states have enough rigor in how they determine who can operate as a college and grant degrees that it's not as easy for places to get started," he said.
  
  Cheyenne alone is home to six distance-learning schools. A typical example is Paramount University of Technology, with a couple of basement offices in a downtown mall. Nearby, American City University occupies a couple of rooms in a building that once housed a brothel.
  
  Another school, Kennedy-Western University, was the focus of a U.S. Senate Governmental Affairs Committee investigation last year. At the school, only an open-book, multiple-choice test with 100 questions was required in a course on hazardous-waste management; the same with environmental law and regulatory compliance.
  
  "With just 16 hours of study, I had completed 40 percent of the course requirements for a master's degree," said Claudia Gelzer, a committee staffer.
  
  Kennedy-Western spokesman David Gering said the committee did not invite the school to defend itself and did not note that Kennedy-Western requires final papers, theses and dissertations of 100 to 200 pages. Moreover, 80 percent of Kennedy-Western's professors hold doctorates from accredited universities, while the rest have master's degrees from accredited schools, he said.
  
  Wyoming's private-school licensing laws say all faculty members must have a bachelor's degree from an accredited school and at least half must have at least a master's degree from an accredited school. The schools must maintain an office in the state, pay a $10,000 licensing fee and post a $100,000 performance bond.
  
  In December, state lawmakers abandoned a bill that would have required private schools to be accredited by 2010.
  
  Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press

I'm pretty sure that that's the article we're talking about, here.

 

I agree with the views that some reporters are not interested in facts but in sensationalism and self glory. Mr. Gruver instead of depending his stories on this forum and those who has agenda must be objective, truthful and thorough in his analaysis. He must not twist facts and he must not hide facts. There are schools such as Newport, Preston, American Global in Wyoming that most of us would like to know. For example NIU is reported to be in violation of state laws. However he has written nothing about them. Is he working for them or is NIU a sacred cow which should not be touched. Please also mind your language in this forum we are supposed to be talking about education and should not spit dirt from our mouths

 

Gliember has written good and I would specifically solicit his views. What do you think buddy?

 

AP reporter strikes again!

Yet another terrific article by AP writer Mead. Gruver... further evidencing that he completely gets it!


Clone school pops up on Internet

By MEAD GRUVER
Associated Press writer

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

CHEYENNE, WY (AP) -- Correspondence, records and finances for online school Richardson University -- an apparent clone of another online school, Hamilton University -- are being handled in Evanston.

Like Hamilton, Richardson hasn't sought a license from the state Department of Education, in spite of a requirement that it do so.

An attorney for both Hamilton and Richardson, Tim Kingston of Cheyenne, said Tuesday that Richardson didn't need a Wyoming license because its academic work is handled through the Bahamas, not Wyoming.

Yet the school's Web site provides no Bahamas address, nor any other address besides one in Evanston, and at least one Richardson Ph.D. graduate seems to have been under the impression that the school is in Evanston.

Moreover, directory assistance had no listing for a Richardson University in the Bahamas, and Bahamian education officials said they'd never heard of the school.

"It's not on our list," said Orlene Rodgers, with the Ministry of Education.

Kingston did not provide Richardson's Bahamas address, saying that information might be protected by attorney-client confidentiality.

"If it's a university," wondered Rodgers, "why would they want to withhold information on a university? That should be public knowledge."

Messages left at the two numbers on Richardson's Web site were not returned. One was toll-free; the other had a Seattle area code.

Kingston pointed out that the only address on the Richardson site -- Hamilton's former address in a former Evanston motel -- is actually for a separate company called the Official Records Service Center LLC, which is incorporated in Nevada.

The center handles the school's records, finances and correspondence but not, according to Kingston, its academics. "Companies hire other companies to provide services for them all the time. And that's what this is," Kingston said.

Yet one graduate seems to think the school has been in Evanston.

A Texas woman who posted her resume online in January in response to a Texas Education Agency job posting said she received a Ph.D. in philosophy from Richardson in September, earning a perfect grade-point average. The woman asked not to be interviewed, but her resume listed Richardson as being in Evanston.

In addition to sharing the same mailing address, there are several similarities between Richardson University and Hamilton University:

• The universities use the same logo -- only the name on the top is different.
  
• Identical blocks of text are used on both Web sites, and an apparently automated response to e-mail generates a virtually identical reply.
  
• Neither is accredited by a federally approved body, but both claim accreditation by the American Council of Private Colleges and Universities.
  
• Both are members of the Faith in the Order of Nature Fellowship, a group of "theocentric nonprofit educational organizations."

The ACPCU Web site says it is sponsored by FION, which is listed in Nevada's corporations database as the manager of the Official Records Service Center. FION's Web site lists its address as 100 Bear River Drive in Evanston -- the same address used by Hamilton and the Official Records Service Center.

"Typically when diploma mills say they are accredited, the accreditation is through themselves. They accredit their own university," said state Rep. Jeff Wasserburger, R-Gillette, a member of the House Education Committee and cosponsor of legislation that last year required licensing for religious postsecondary schools that offer secular degrees.

Because of the law, Hamilton was supposed to seek a state license or shut down last July. Hamilton's Web site shut down after an Associated Press story last week, and Hamilton has since said -- through a letter from the Official Records Service Center -- that it is no longer accepting enrollments.

Wasserburger said Hamilton consisted only of two secretaries who "typed up" diplomas. "For $4,000, you could buy any degree that you wanted," he said.

Last fall, "60 Minutes" reported that a Department of Homeland Security official had two degrees from Hamilton. But Hamilton began drawing media attention before that, and George Gollin, a University of Illinois physics professor who researches distance education, said Richardson might have emerged as a response to the publicity.

"It certainly made it hard for Hamilton to attract cash from potential customers," Gollin said.

Wasserburger said Wyoming needs a tougher law to bar any diploma mill from the state.

"The way to do that is to one, make it a felony, and two, make it a fine so high that, based on a daily rate, that they can't afford to do it any longer," he said.


Identical on the 'Net

Sections of the Richardson University Web site are identical to passages in the Hamilton University Web site, which was shut down last week after being profiled in an Associated Press article. Hamilton, which was based in Evanston, was required to get state licensing to continue operations after July 1, 2004.

• Richardson University's Web site:
  
  "The mission of Richardson University is to provide a high quality and economical educational forum for adult degree candidates seeking self-improvement and professional growth. The university and its policies shall always reflect our belief that all endeavors, especially education, must encompass the mind, the body and the spirit. The underlying values of the university include a respect for our environment and a faith in the natural order of the universe that we share."
  
• Hamilton University's Web site:
  
  "The mission of Hamilton University is to provide a high quality and economical educational forum for adult degree candidates seeking self-improvement and professional growth. The university and its policies shall always reflect our belief that all endeavors, especially education, must encompass the mind, the body and the spirit. The underlying values of the university include a respect for our environment and a faith in the natural order of the universe that we share."
  
• Richardson University response to e-mail inquiry:
  
  "Thank you for your inquiry.
  
  "Richardson University does not accept enrollments from the general public. Enrollment is by invitation only.
  
  "In order to determine if you qualify for an invitation we suggest that you contact the Academic Resource and Referral Center at infoarrc.org or visit their Web site at

• www.arrc.org. They provide a free preliminary evaluation which may lead to the issuance of an invitation to enroll at Richardson University. The same information found at their Web site is available in printed form. To receive printed materials please send your full name and complete mailing address. There is no cost or obligation connected with their service.
  
  "Again, thank you for your interest in Richardson University."
  
  [*]Hamilton University response to e-mail inquiry:
  
  "Thank you for your inquiry.
  
  "Hamilton University does accept enrollments from the general public. Enrollment is by invitation only.
  
  "In order to determine if you qualify for an invitation we suggest that you contact the Academic Resource and Referral Center at infoarrc.org or visit their web site at www.arrc.org. They provide a free preliminary evaluation which may lead to the issuance of an invitation to enroll at Hamilton University. We are also forwarding your inquiry to ARRC. There is no cost or obligation connected with their service.
  
  "Again, thank you for your interest in Hamilton University."
  
  -- The Associated Press

Nice job, Mr. Gruver!