Dive Summary:
- Cambridge Graduate University may have gone too far with its ambitious list of faculty members, including Ivy League professors whose only contribution to the school are free lectures created for a different website, and at least two professors from Northeastern University who have no affiliation with the startup at all and have asked that their names be removed.
- CGU's president, Tim Howard, said the school's website was only created a few months ago and is an evolving concept, adding that it welcomed its first full cohort of students last week in Hong Kong and that the attention from the media and higher education institutions "validates the power of the CGU model."
- Alan Contreras, a former watchdog for Oregon’s Office of Degree Authorization, says that CGU's model could work, but that without proper licensing, accreditation, or "genuine faculty," the school is just a “crude, ill-constructed and poorly conceived pursuit of raw money."
From the article:
Cambridge Graduate University makes some bold claims, which is hardly rare for a startup. But it has gone further than usual with an ambitious list of faculty members, many of whom had never heard of the university. At least two professors from Northeastern University were surprised to see their names on the list, since neither has any affiliation with the venture. They are among several who have asked the university's president, Tim Howard, a former Northeastern professor, to remove their names. ...