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American Intercontinental University AIU - Career Education CEC Read the scoop on this inept company - Probation - see why! ripoff Los Angeles California
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 a*s, 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 a*s 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 b*****d. 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!
David
Providence, Rhode Island
U.S.A.
3 Updates & Rebuttals
Michael B.
Los Angeles,California,
United States of America
Shame on You.... LINDA MC ALLYSTER... SHAME ON YOU!
#4UPDATE EX-employee responds
Fri, October 08, 2010
Dear "Dave" from Providence, R.I:
You have to make up your mind: were you a student or a disgruntled employee?
They say time is a liar's worst enemy and in your case, you have revealed your true identity without paying attention: you claimed to be a "student" in your initial slander against AIU and unfortunately for you, you also claimed to be a former employee a few months later in your tirade against Robyn Throne: you must either think the world as being stupid or maybe you are the one that is truly stupid.... When you say, that everybody at the campus was an idiot, what you implied was Everybody Except YOU!
In your initial tirade against AIU, you also revealed your true identity (a disgruntled former employee, probably in academics) by revealing information that only an employee would be privy to: you spent a lot of time going over academics intricacies and this leads me to believe that you were definately not a student, not even a low level employee, but rather a manager in Academics: I think your name is LINDA MC. ALLYSTER: a ruthless, bitter woman who cares about nothing but POWER!
Now that you have overcome your initial shock because you've been exposed to the World, let me tell you how it was quite easy to uncover your true identity: there was only 1 person in that building that was full of venom, anger, rage at the fact that she had lost her position of authority to a young, intelligent and extremely capable executive by the name of Mr. Tall.
You NEVER worked for the man, but it was very obvious to the entire campus how much you personally disdained him and the President, Mr. Tartaglini.
You NEVER attended the July 2003 start celebration (if you did I challenge you to state the name of the location of the event)... Everyone was there except you... Question: what exactly were people celebrating if they were idiots? Let me help you... SUCCESS!
A black man in a business suit is a "pimp" according to you... but a white man in a business suit is simply a "business man".... You are a disgraceful BIGOT!!!!!!
A clown does not successfully manage a multi-million dollar enterprise, it takes a true leader to do so.
I was one of the D.A's you referred to as "friends" of Mr. Tall, and guess what? He was NO FRIEND!...Rather, a tough but fair leader and the proof of his leadership is that from what I hear, till today, he's entire team still follows him wherever he goes: that's called LEADERSHIP and LOYALTY.
I have never known a man as hard working, successful and honnorable as Mr. Tall and I will work for him anytime: You on the other hand Linda, you were despised by all and that's why we celebrated when you finally vanquished.
You accused mr. Tall of making his employees bark like a dog... but when Maggie (who was my counterpart in High School) challenged you by telling you it was actually she that came up with the motivational chant (quite common in any team environment), You did not counter her statement... Why? Because you know she was telling the truth and you were not there.... YOU LIED AND GOT CAUGHT ONCE AGAIN!!!!
Linda, I know you, I was in charge of the Adult division and you and I had several disagreements over how you treated everyone. You're hatred for every living thing except yourself, is what caused you to be fired... it's sad that after all these years, you still haven't learned anything about life: treat others as you'd like to be treated, respect yourself, be kind, be fair... KARMA is a b***h and from what I can see, 4-5 years after you left a company you're still full of hatred towards everyone of your previous co-workers: You must TRULY be living a miserable life... I heard you're now an adjunct professor (online).... LOL.... What a Fall: from VP of Academics to Adjunct!
RIPOFF... Shame on you for allowing disgruntled ex-employees who got fired to berrate their bosses and co-workers on this site... this is supposed to be for consumers who were Ripped off by businesses... not for LOSERS WITH AN AX TO GRIND!
Michael B.
Dave
Providence,Rhode Island,
U.S.A.
Robin Throne update
#4UPDATE EX-employee responds
Sun, October 15, 2006
I got this post from the Yahoo Messageboards. I guess Dr. Throne left another school she worked at in shambles. If you want to look at these posts, go to Yahoo and look at their Finance section. After you there there, enter CECO and go to the messageboards. This was posted by a guy named BanBasketball:
Wow! This is amazing that I'm reading this stuff on here about Throne. Well, I'm one of her former employees at the Iowa school that she also left in shambles in 1990. In fact, my/our story is so amazing, that it could probably be a blockbuster film, as no one would believe that that type of dictatorship and mishandling could exist in education.
I don't have time to go into all of the details here (many of you would be fascinated to hear all of it), but the long and the short is that she set up an online program that was destined to fail. Once it started failing, she then blamed the instructors for it, required that they fix grades, track down students who werent attending (failure to do so resulted in termination), and ultimately fired four of the first six full-time instructors. Rarely have I loathed someone like Throne for messing with people's lives like she did, so it's great to hear that she's getting some payback. Reply if you want some more gory details.
Anonymous
New England,Other,
U.S.A.
So True
#4UPDATE Employee
Fri, October 13, 2006
CEC is a messed up company. The people are imbiciles and are good car salesman to say the least. I was one of them and good at it at best. The sent me to Hawaii because I made so many "sales." Our VP of Admission had no degree and the other Director of Admission was a bartender. Close to no professors have terminal degrees. Some have associates or no degree at all. So the education lacks for this reason.