Established 1991 Founded 1991 | President Donald Grunewald | |
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Type unaccredited Private, Distance learning Location Garapan, CNMI (U.S. commonwealth) Website | ||
Adam Smith University (also known as Adam Smith University of Liberia and École Supérieure Universitaire Adam Smith) is an unaccredited private distance learning university founded in 1991 by Dr. Donald Grunewald (MA Harvard 1955, MBA Harvard 1959, DBA Harvard 1962), who is still its president. Grunewald was president of Mercy College between 1972 and 1984. Since 1984 Grunewald is professor of Management at the Hagan School of Busines at Iona College, teaching courses in Business Policy and Strategic Management (source: Iona college). Grunewald served as a Member of Advisory Board of The Wilton Bank (source: Bloomberg). Adam Smith university espouses the principle of independence from state control, believing that such control prevents it from furthering its mission.
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History
John Bear states that Adam Smith University has been located in Hawaii, Louisiana, Montana, and South Dakota in the past. However, in 2004 the Chronicle of Higher Education reported that Grunewald had always run the university from his home in Connecticut, and throughout its history it has used an office address in a number of different United States states. The addresses moved as the states have successively 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 Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth. Adam Smith University asserts the establishment of a French unit called École Supérieure Universitaire Adam Smith, which offers academic degrees for work experience.
According a letter of the Director General of the Liberian Ministry of Education of 17 September 2004, Adam Smith University 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. The institution makes no statement suggesting that it has a physical campus.
Accreditation
Adam Smith University is accredited by the republic of San Marino as a recognized Higher Educational Institution on 18 November 2009.
Four states in the United States of America and Korea specifically list Adam Smith University as unaccredited. At one time, Adam Smith used accreditation by the unrecognized agency World Association of Universities and Colleges, and later Grunewald participated in founding another unrecognized accreditor, the International Association of Universities and Schools, but both of these affiliations were terminated before 2004. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board identifies the institution as operating from Liberia and Saipan, but states that it has "no degree-granting authority from Liberia or Saipan."
Without recognized accreditation, ASU's degrees and credits might not be acceptable to employers or other academic institutions, and use of degree titles may be restricted or illegal in some jurisdictions. Jurisdictions that have restricted or made illegal the use of credentials from unaccredited schools include Oregon, Michigan, Maine, North Dakota, New Jersey, Washington, Nevada, Illinois, Indiana, Texas and Korea. Many other states are also considering restrictions on the use of degrees from unaccredited institutions.
Criticism
Steve Levicoff referred to Adam Smith University as a degree mill, and he noted that it operated in Louisiana due to the absence of laws regulating the granting of degrees. Adam Smith University and Columbia State University have the same address, which is "likely a mail forwarding address".
Other critics have described Adam Smith University as a "diploma mill". Alan Contreras from the Oregon State Office of Degree Authorization (ODA), 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." This change followed the settlement of a lawsuit filed against ODA by the unaccredited Kennedy-Western University. 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 when its degrees are used in that state, it must be explicitly stated that the degree is unaccredited.(See reference for the legally required wording for the disclaimer.)
It was reported by The Hindu that Vice-Chancellor of University of Mysore J. Sashidhara Prasad said of ASU, "Beware friends. It only had a tie-up with an institution in a tiny African country."