This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Pearle (talk | contribs) at 09:06, 5 April 2006 (Changing {{cleanup}} to {{cleanup-date|April 2006}}). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 09:06, 5 April 2006 by Pearle (talk | contribs) (Changing {{cleanup}} to {{cleanup-date|April 2006}})(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)You must add a |reason= parameter to this Cleanup template – replace it with {{Cleanup|April 2006|reason=<Fill reason here>}}, or remove the Cleanup template.
Adam Smith University is a controversial unaccredited private distance learning university founded in 1991 by Dr. Donald Grunewald, still its president. Grunewald earned his doctorate from Harvard, is a former president of Mercy College, and is still an instructor at Iona College. According to the university, the institution was founded on the principle of independence from state control, where it believes that control prevents it from furthering its mission.
Accrediation history
As of 2004, the instituion claims to maintain a campus and offices at the ground floor of a Girls' Hostel in Monrovia, capital of the African nation of Liberia, under the direction of a former high school principal and with a Liberian board including two former Presidents of the University of Liberia. It rents these premises which, according to the university, have been converted into a suite of offices and classrooms where face-to-face instruction takes place.
According to the university, it has been accredited by the Liberian Ministry of Education since 1995, well before the most recent conflicts, and was accredited as a result of an act of the Liberian legislature (degree board forum post#17). Other controversial degree-granting institutions flagged in Liberia are James Monroe University and Saint Regis University but these were licensed by the dubious National Board of Education - NBOE.
However, in the United States this form of accreditation is not acceptable and the institution is not recognized by the Council on Higher Education Accreditation. Also the institution is not on UNESCO's list of accredited schools throughout the world.
The university does not maintain a physical campus in the United States. Its office address has been sited in a number of different United States states, and has moved as those states have progressively tightened standards for degree-granting institutions that do not seek recognized accreditation. These states have included Hawaii, Louisiana, Montana and South Dakota. Adam Smith's current American mailing address is a private mail box in Garapan on Saipan in the Norhern Mariana Islands, a US commonwealth.
Controversy and criticism
Adam Smith University was listed in the 1995 title "College Degrees by Mail: 100 Good Schools" by distance education consumer writer Dr. John Bear. Since that time, however, Bear has turned sharply critical of the school. In a 2002 post to the distance learning discussion board degreeinfo.com, he made light of their one-time claim "that their 29,000 book library was at their South Dakota campus (which was a mail forwarding service)." Adam Smith University strongly disputes Bear's comments about their library, stating that the library currently consists of some 12,000 titles on CD-ROM housed at several locations in the USA and an identical 12,000 titles that are housed at their Liberian campus, and that these are lent to students as required.
Critics have described Adam Smith University as a "diploma mill". Alan Contreras of the Oregon State Office of Degree Authorization, an agency of that state's government, called Adam Smith "a diploma mill with a long and unattractive history." in an article written in a personal capacity. However, in 2005, he updated Adam Smith's listing on the ODA website to remove the term "diploma mill" following a settlement reached with the unaccredited Kennedy-Western University under which ODA personnel received training in defamation law. Oregon has made it illegal to use in any professional context a degree from an institution not having what it judges to be the equivalent of regional accreditation in the USA. Adam Smith has refused to seek such accreditation, and consequently its degrees may not be used in that state.