Akamai University NOT spurious

Members of DegreeInfo.Com:

The New Straits Times did in fact cite the fact that ..."in one letter, the PSD also stated that Akamai University was recognised by the Government." Reasonable individuals would understand that this was an unintentional error on the part of PSD.

The defamation that appeared in the local press is yet another misrepresentation of the integrity of our institution. The cumulative effect of these misconceptions continues to be damaging to our spirits as educators, and our motivations as professionals serving the advancement of the human community.

Yesterday, I communicated with the Editor-in-Chief of the New Straits Times and also a member of the Malaysia Legislature to seek clarification and favorable resolution to this situation. Following are statements similar to what was sent to these honorable gentlemen.

It appears to us that Akamai University is being involved in this issue in an unfair and suspicious manner. We have an institutional mission in service to the advancement of the human condition that forbids us to intentionally operate in any manner unethical. Due to this news article, we are worried that our UNESCO affiliates and our transnational associates will be offended or defamed by their association with Akamai University. We pray that this does not happen.

Akamai University has been extremely cautious not to offend the governments wherein reside our distance learning students. While we would be greatly honored should the government of Malaysia formally recognize our graduate degrees, the fact is that we have not yet petitioned for such recognition. In fact, we have never claimed our degrees to be recognized by the national government of Malaysia, nor would be act in such an unethical manner.

By this time, it must be clear to any reasonable individual the Akamai University is NOT a bogus or spurious institution. We were fortunate to receive our charter in 2002 and presently operate legally and in good standing as an international degree granting institution from the USA. As a young institution, we are firmly committed to do all things in a quality and ethical manner. At this time, we have no negative legal marks on our record as an organization, but we fear that this erroneous international media publicity might unjustly raise questions about the quality and integrity of Akamai University.

Akamai, in all promotional activities, is committed to providing full public notice stating for all potential student applicants the facts of our legal operation in the USA and our present unaccredited status. As you know, in the USA, all new schools MUST operate as unaccredited for a time, to permit the community of higher education to observe the quality and integrity of its operation. When the new institution has had graduates in its educational programs, it may become eligible in the USA to make application for accreditation reviews. The history of our new institution will be carefully examined as an element of this accreditation review. Why would we risk our future with such foolishness?

Akamai University offers a special and very liberal (60-day) full tuition refund to all students that enroll from Asia. This is to assure that none of our students will misunderstand our status or our intentions and find themselves unfairly barred from obtaining a refund of their tuition investment.

Akamai continues to operate in compliance with the laws and regulations of all countries wherein we have students. To the very best of our abilities we have sought to avoid conflicts and misunderstandings. We have implemented strict policies to avoid unethical business conduct in the operation of our distance learning programs. When we have made errors we have responded with corrections and have renewed our policies to avoid future occurrences. We have refrained from combat with competitors as a matter of policy and have sought instead to form alliances for the betterment of higher education. Our students in Malaysia are involved in the highest quality programs and it is our full intention that they will benefit from our mentorship, so they may later contribute at a quality level within their business firms and the Malaysia community, in general.

It is our hope that this matter will have a valid resolution.

I am available for communication with any reputable individual that wish to examine this matter more closely.

Kindest regards,
Douglass Capogrossi, Ph.D.
President
Akamai University

 

Welcome aboard, Douglass!

I quite agree.

Whether I am either reasonable or reputable is a matter of dispute in some circles, however, but I agree thoroughly that Akamai is a reputable unaccredited start-up school. I am underwhelmed by the source of some faculty credentials, but I am not ready to throw out this baby because I dislike its choice of bubble bath. The "New Age" tenor of the place is at the farthest remove from my own views--suum cuique--but I am confident in the integrity of Capogrossi, Maranto, and at least two other faculty members of whom I have some personal knowledge.

Of course, the liars, wackos, and Untermenschen who jabber about Degreeinfo being "RA or no way" will wish to deny this affirmation. (Douglass, that is not your problem, nor mine.) So here's the disclaimer, again: I have no affiliation of any kind, past or present, with Akamai University, nor do I anticipate an affiliation with it at any time in the future.

 

Douglass:

What does that mean? I have no opinion one way or the other and wish you well.

Dan

 

outwardly similar or corresponding to something without having its genuine qualities : FALSE

Unaccredited schools flirt with being spurious simply by their nature. Yours is no exception.

When the expected forms of recognition are absent, schools have to demonstrate their genuine qualities (assuming that they have any) in some alternative way.

A Google search for "akamai university" site:.edu produced three hits. Two weren't even about your school and the third was some Australian thing that isn't a university. Akamai offers doctorates in numerous subjects, but no American university seems to have even noticed it.

If it wants to dispel the suspicion that there's really nothing there, Akamai probably needs to act a little more like a normal university and graduate school.

 

Re: Re: Akamai University NOT spurious

What he said.

 

Akamai University is unaccredited. I keep hearing uncomplimentary things about the school. Eventually after so much smoke, one must conclude there's some fire somewhere. Dr. Capogrossi talks about accreditation. Yet they offer doctorates as an early early start up. I'm not impressed. What kind of accreditation might you be considering for Akamai? As we all know on this forum, DETC won't accredit a school offering doctorates. Three years of operation is a long time for there not to be any substantial evidence that accreditation is being pursued. Operating legally is not proof that Akamai University is not a diploma mill. In the USA there are many diploma mills that appear to be operating legally. It is sounding more like diploma mill babble than real talk of accreditation or justification for bad press, at least to me. I'm not saying that Akamai is a diploma mill only that Dr. Capogrossi's post did little to convince me that Akamai is on the right track.

 

__________________________________________________

Our students in Malaysia are involved in the highest quality programs and it is our full intention that they will benefit from our mentorship.

__________________________________________________


Is this guy kidding????

What mentors, what quality?? in simple words.

Rubbish in + Rubbish processed with trash = Rubbish DBA/PhD in one year by Akamai.

 

Hi Douglass:

I hope you will respond to the issues raised by the Bills and Gregg. As you know, they are serious people with a profound commitment to distance learning.

I hope you will also take with a grain of salt the latest invective by Mr Salleh. This is an old thing: really nasty invective from countries in SE Asia with thoroughly unpleasant (communist, anti-semitic) governments, always along the lines of the poor innocent locals and the evil, wily Americans.

I trust you will also distinguish this from concerns raised by our serious and respected Malaysian posters such as Peter Chin, Mohd Ali, Salami, and others.

There does seem to be a problem with a number of schools and their subcontracted (local) agents in certain countries. Obviously, no school should employ crooks; when there is a culture of crookedness, however, I'm not sure how one sorts out honorable from crooked people from a great cultural and physical remove. Are such agents really necessary? Are students looking for a quick fix in a title-mad culture an asset? Might it not be better to forgo the income from students in countries where local agents have a dismal track record, and the governments are not exactly souls of iron integrity?

Best wishes,
Janko Preotul

 

What he and he said.

(Wow. Posting is much easier when you just rubber-stamp other people's stuff.)

 

OK I now have an opinion and like what Bill's Dayson & Huffman have said! I also like what DesElms said even though he didn't say anything!

As far as unaccredited schools go for me it does not matter if they are sincere or not.
Until they get accredited their utility is far too limiting to be of any value.

Dan

 

I think that unaccredited schools can have tremendous value. (Most of the schools where I'm currently interested in taking classes aren't accredited.)

But unacredited schools probably have their greatest utility for students who don't have a degree or certification objective. If they do grant degrees, those degrees will probably be most useful in specialized situations.

My concerns about Akamai largely revolve around two issues:

First, unaccredited schools are probably better off emphasizing the educational opportunities they provide than the unrecognized degrees and certifications that they grant. But that suggests that there probably needs to be additional evidence that there's really some kind of intellectual life at Akamai.

Second, Akamai reportedly is marketing itself heavily to students in Asia as a source of American university degrees. My concern is that those students could be seriously harmed if they don't fully understand Akamai's status and the limitations of the degrees that they earn.

Akamai probably needs to decide whether it wants to be a slightly shady international education business, a 60's-ish non-traditional school teaching "alternative" things, an activist institution promoting international development and environmental protection issues, or maybe something else. Then it needs to focus on its chosen mission (excluding opting for the dark side of course) and do things credibly and right.

Right now Akamai seems to be kind of an umbrella, offering an institutional affiliation and degree-granting authority to a whole variety of independent scholars and educational entrepeneours, some of whose activities and ideals seem to have little in common.

Obviously these impressions of Akamai might be totally mistaken, but that would suggest that the school probably needs to explain itself better than it has so far.

 

Douglass, I think that's your cue from friendly critics and friends of Akamai.
Vos sogstu?

 

This may be fine for hobby or fun non career oriented stuff but isn't most DL diploma/career driven? I have also taken several non career diploma DL courses and I still think accredidation matters.I still wanted some assurance that this experience mattered,it was a real school and that there was some justification for the awarding of a diploma.Otherwise I could of just read a book or taken a free online course.

 

Many here -- and elsewhere -- argue that I never do.

Hmm. Utility, value and legitimacy. It seems to me that those are the issues with unaccredited institutions. The institution's sincerity may very well make it both personally valuable and objectively legitimate. But I agree that, with the exception of professional degree programs that are unaccredited but, nevertheless, prepare one for state licensure or the equivalent, only accreditation brings utility. So I like what FWD said... and he actually did say something.

Oh... I see that I typed my above before I read what Bill wrote before me. So, then... I guess I could have gotten away, yet again, with "what he said." I'm tellin' ya', there's something to this rubber stamping thing. It's so efficient. And look: In not one but two places in this very thread I got partial -- or at least empathetic -- credit for stuff I didn't even write. I love this.

Exactly! That's, in part, why the DETC-accredited Taft, for example, might be a better choice for a DL JD, even though Northwestern California University School of Law is probably a better school overall.

 

Akamai, I saw,I conquered

DesElms:"Hmm. Utility, value and legitimacy. It seems to me that those are the issues with unaccredited institutions. "

Right you are Gregg. And to the DL student it is impossible to uncover the intentions of an unaccredited DL school to make that determination no matter what the school might say.Accredidation is the only thing it seems that forces out the truth of their endeavor. Without it they can basically come up with whatever lame program they want and call it a degree.

Douglass:
"We have an institutional mission in service to the advancement of the human condition that forbids us to intentionally operate in any manner unethical."

I guess I'll comment since I did not get an answer on the above. Such a self serving statement to me is absurd with all due respect to the Dr. Is this better than accredidation? Is this similar to the "We answer to a higher power" line?

 

It is just another form of the diploma mill "babble" that says, "These are valid degrees because we promise that they are valid degrees."

Perhaps I should pull together a list of diploma mill statements? Then we can critique posts as two number threes, a number 7, and a number 12.

 

I wrote: "unaccredited schools probably have their greatest utility for students who don't have a degree or certification objective."

I'm not sure that personal interests and career interests need to be disjoint sets.

But more importantly, I think that knowledge, understanding and skills are important both to personal and to career interests. That's what education is all about, ultimately. Degrees and certifications only verify to other people that a prescribed body of knowledge and skills has been transmitted and appropriate understanding has been displayed.

But if an unaccredited university is an unknown mystery, then the degrees and certifications that it grants don't really succeed in their public verification function. They could mean anything or perhaps nothing at all. There's no reason for individuals unfamiliar with the school or with its graduates to trust what the degree seems to be saying to them.

But accredited or not, the university might have succeeded in teaching the student valuable things. He or she is probably the best judge of that. And if the student employs the knowledge and skills acquired at an unaccredited school in subsequent vocational or avocational work, then that's perfectly fine with me.

Put another way, studying at an unaccredited university is kind of like reading books at the library. Whatever value there is in the exercise consists in what you get out of it. And there's obviously nothing preventing people from going to the library and reading about things that are useful in their jobs.

I do too. Even if a student doesn't have a degree objective, accreditation is an indication that the classes and programs offered are worth his or her time.

But there might be all kinds of alternative indicators of that. The scholarly work the school is putting out, the people teaching there, the school's collaborations, the respect that it receives from other academic and professional entities.

Individual classes and more elaborate non-degree programs are an aspect of DL that diploma-mad Degreeinfo seems to have very little interest in. Nevertheless it's huge and very important. It's also where my own interests are currently directed.

 

Bill:

Unfortunately most of the unaccredited DL schools fall into this category. I will agree though that most any learning experience has value even if at UA school. But a classroom/online credit course/testing etc. learning experience generally is more purpose driven and carries with it a need to apply it somehow to a work or school situation. And unaccredited DL learning just doesn't go nearly as far in those scenarios and seems a waste of time to me.

I'm actually a big fan of self study and have done so extensively for my career.I have never felt the need to turn everything into college credit or a diploma so I'm with you on that and often study things(as many do) for the fun of it.

Dan

 

You know sometimes I wonder if unaccredited DL schools think we are complete idiots who will believe anything.

 

Perhaps I'm being unreasonable (gasp!) but I'm just a bit disturbed by the fact that Dr. Capogrossi started this thread but hasn't followed it. He raised the initial issue but hasn't responded to issues/questions raised by others. In America, where perception is everything, this just looks bad. I hope for more follow-up in the future.
Jack