Where do I start?
I was a student at AIU (to protect myself I will not say which one) and was also worked there. All I can say is that this place is completely F*ED UP (for a lack of better words). Yes, AIU is on probation - in fact all AIUs are on probation. Do you want to know why? Complete imbeciles work there. All the way from the receptionists to the President to the Provost.
They are disorganized, there are no policies in writing, everything is half ass, if it is in writing - it is unclear and ambiguous (like the proof of graduation), the people in management have no clue about higher education, the Admissions Advisors are absolute idiots and cheap car salesmen/women, they hire and promote people who will give the least resistance, they hire and promote people who are unqualified (those that are qualified leave in disgust), CEC created a bogus curriculum that is not working (and I hear they're going to change it again), and finally they simply don't care as long as they get their money.
Let me give you an example of what I mean. The current Academic Dean used to be an Admission Advisor about 2 years ago, moved on to Director of Retention in about 5 months, then to Co-Director of Compliance, and now VP of Academic Affairs.
What experience did she have? She was a "yes" man. The current Director of Retention used to be an Admissions Advisor about 2 years ago and then moved up to Director of Retention in about 4 months. She's been there since - what experience did she have? None. She was a cheerleader and a "yes" man.
The Director of Institutional Effectiveness was a professor, the Associate Director of Institutional Effectiveness used to be temp earlier this year. The VP of Student Affairs was a Department Chair for Interior Design. The ex President (Steve Tartaglini - made famous by an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education) had no educational experience and a complete idiot. The ex VP of Admissions (Amadou) was nothing short of a snake oil salesman (I'll get back to him later).
The HR Director (I think she's now gone) had no idea what to do. She was unprofessional and very biased. The old Registrar was a witch. I witnessed her many a time go off on students and I think she's still there in some new position - Director of Articulation Management or something like that. Useless.
Shall I discuss the "corporate" level? OK - let's discuss it.
Robin Throne is the person who is supposed to get AIU off of probation. She's a "consultant" that reports to the Provost (Jon) - who is a complete idiot. I met him at the last Fashion Show and made a complete ass of himself.
A complete and utter embarrassment. From my understanding, Robin was a key author of this 4-6-9 curriculum that turned out to be such a disaster. How can someone who got the institute on probation get them off? Look at her "consultant" website for your good. It's been "under construction" for years. I can guarantee you CEC is her only customer (www.throneandassociates.com)
Let's take a look at Robin's history, shall we? As far as my research on her (all public knowledge), she's only worked at "for profit" places. She worked at some trade school in Iowa that was bought out by Kaplan. She then moved on to AIU and stayed there for awhile. When I worked for AIU she was working at AIU Online and creating her magic there. She then resigned from AIU/CEC and started her "consultation" company.
Let's talk about Amadou Tall for a moment. I worked with this guy and he was a complete bastard. He used to make Admissions Advisors bark if they didn't meet their numbers. Our HR Lady did absolutely nothing to stop this behavior. This guy used to dress like a pimp and would talk to us as if we were dogs.
It was amazing. He was eventually fired/let go for his shenanigans. Should I even bring up the topic of all the student's we sent to Victory, Balboa, and Century High Schools to get their high school diplomas? Ooh. It's scary.
They eventually got rid of this clown. Guess where's he's at now? He's the Online Enrollment Manager for Ashford University. Bridgepoint Education owns Ashford University. You know who else works there? This guy named Chris Spohn, who used to be another VP of Admissions for AIU/CEC. The CEO of Bridgepoint University is Andrew Clark - he used to be a regional VP for AIU/CEC.
You know who else works there as adjunct faculty? Yep! You guessed it, Robin Throne! All of these people eat from the same toilet bowl. They can leave CEC, but they just move on to something else. The funniest part of all this is that Robin got her Phd from the same place that ex-VP of Academics Larry Ryan now teaches. It truly is a small world isn't it? It's a small world for proprietary education, that is.
I really do hope AIU/CEC get slapped with another year of probation or better yet lose their accreditation because they deserve so much worse! These people are pure evil. They don't care about the students or the employees. They just took my money and ran with it. Now my degree is close to worthless.
I thank God that I only caught the tail end of that disasterous 4-6-9 curriculum. My friend got stuck right in the middle of it and they even graduated him with less than 180 units! I thought that was the bare minimum for someone to receive a BA? Who knows - I could be wrong, but my friend told me a lot of kids graduated with less than 180 units.
Jack Larson doesn't care about the students that go there. He only cares about lining his pockets with lots of money.
AIU will continue to hire incompetant idiots to run the place and this will continue to hurt the school and its students. Don't go there!
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