January 09, 2012 - UPDATE

January 09, 2012: The contact information for Omniversity® is now:

Omniversity, c/o Will Jensen

POB-9,

Hornbrook, CA, 96044-0009

Phone: +1-530-340-1876

Email: "omni.us@omniversity.us"

October 30, 2008: Our CEO closed our website with the exception of the home page and the related pages giving our publics the status of our situation, our experience with DoPSE and our responses to the DoPSE comments.

We closed our course website. We backed-up the essential content of the course website for recent courses so that we can provide our graduates and former learners with copies of their own work, if requested.

The necessary paperwork is being prepared and/or filed to officially close the Omniversity® corporation in Alabama and to move it to Utah. This process will take several weeks to complete.

Omniversity® will not operate in Utah as a university for the foreseeable future. We must get permanently settled in Utah and then apply for the proper license to operate as a university. This process cannot begin until early 2009.

Our Board of Directors are actively reviewing our options. We hope for a positive outcome. We do NOT want to promise what is not reality yet. We will keep our publics informed through this website and e-mails as well as in-person talks.

October 6, 2008: Our CEO advised DoPSE by FAX that we were in the process of completing the corporate move from Alabama. He advised that we had refunded tuition as needed and that we would provide diploma replacement and transcript service to our graduates and former students, as needed, from our new offices.

SEPTEMBER 25, 2008: Our CEO re-settled in Salt Lake City, Utah. A desired office would be available from January 2009. The mailing address for our CEO and Omniversity® was established at:

1905 West 4700th South, #535,

Salt Lake City, Utah, 84118

Phone: +1-251-404-4111

SEPTEMBER 19, 2008: The promised letter had NOT been received in our office yet. Our CEO drove to the DoPSE office in Montgomery to receive the letter in person. Our CEO applied for the necessary documents from the Alabama Secretary of State and the Alabama Department of Revenue to move Omniversity® to another state.

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008: The promised letter had NOT been received in our office yet. Omniversity® closed its Mobile, Alabama offices. Our CEO donated our office furniture, office supplies, complete library and some equipment to the Goodwill Center of Mobile. Our CEO donated his personal furniture to the pastor of the Little Rock Baptist Church of Foley, Alabama.

SEPTEMBER 17, 2008: Three weeks since the telephone call of August 31st. The promised letter had NOT been received in our office yet.

AUGUST 31, 2008: Our CEO phoned DoPSE asking for an update on their review process. Ms. McGrady answered and replied that she did not have our folder on her desk. Our CEO pressed for some indication of our likely outcome. She replied that, 'We do not like your oganizational structure and your faculty are not suitable. We will probably not renew because of these and other issues.' Our CEO asked if DoPSE will send us a letter with details explaining the non-renewal decision and when we could start the appeals process. Ms. McGrady said she would send a letter 'next week' - the first week of September.

AUGUST 22, 2008: Our CEO e-mailed DoPSE asking for an update on their review process. We never received a reply.

AUGUST 13, 2008: Our CEO advised Chairperson Mouraviev of the voicemail response. The CEO advised that we would not be able to start the course for the two new students on August 20th. The CEO advised that the financial projections for a first profit would now 'go negative.' The CEO copied DoPSE staff on this e-mail.

AUGUST 12, 2008: Ms. McGrady of DPSE left this voice mail message on our CEO's cellphone:

"I am meeting with someone this Friday (August 15th) for discussion about Omniversity®. I will be preparing something for you next week."

AUGUST 12, 2008: Our CEO e-mailed DoPSE asking for an update on their review process and to ask again if DoPSE would complete its process in time for the two new learners to start their degree program on August 20th. We never received a reply.

AUGUST 12, 2008: Our CEO sent an e-mail to DoPSE to advise them of the changes to the Board of Directors. We never received a reply.

AUGUST 11, 2008: Our CEO telephoned DoPSE to advise them of the changes to the Board of Directors and to ask for an update. No one answered so he left a voice mail. We never received a reply.

AUGUST 9, 2008: Our Stockholders and Board of Directors met in a specially called early meeting to make the desired changes to the membership in our Board of Directors. We made the following decisions:

  1. Authorize the expansion of the Board of Directors from the previous ONE member to a FIVE member board.
  2. The expansion to five members complied with our goal to expand the number of Directors in our 3rd year of licensed operation (September 2008 to August 2009).
  3. The expansion would include a minimum of 3 'public' members who are defined by the Southern Accrediting Association as persons with NO affiliation to Omniversity® as employees, stockholders, investors or with any financial, familial or business connections to Omniversity®.
  4. Elected N. Mouraviev, our Chief Learning Officer, as the 2nd member of the Board.
  5. Will Jensen was elected to continue as a director until four new members are recruited, vetted and accept the position as Director.
  6. Accepted Will Jensen's resignation as Chairman of the Board.
  7. Elected N. Mouraviev as Chairman of the Board, effective immediately.
  8. We began to recruit the four new members. We expected the process might take up to three months to complete, but we were committed to the change.
  9. Will Jensen will resign from being a Director on the Board once we get the fourth new member confirmed.
  10. Once we have the five members in place, N. Mouraviev will resign as Chairperson and remain as a Director. The Board will then elect one of the 'public' members to be the Chairperson, and another 'public' member to be the Vice Chairperson of the Board. The Board will then fully comply with SACS requirements.
  11. From that point Will Jensen's role would be as President/Chief Executive Officer.

AUGUST 4, 2008: Our CEO e-mailed DoPSE asking for an update on their review process and to advise DoPSE that we were trying to determine if DoPSE would complete its process in time for two new learners to start their degree program on August 20th. We never received a reply.

AUGUST 1, 2008: One month after our June 30th office visit we were still awaiting the results of the review of our license renewal application. We began the fourth month since we made our renewal application to the Department of Postsecondary Education (DoPSE).

JULY 29, 2008: Our CEO e-mailed DoPSE asking for an update on their review process. We never received a reply.

JULY 18, 2008: Our CEO called DoPSE to ask what progress was made with their review process. The reviewing manager said there were still major questions about our application. She said they were not done yet and that there were several concerns. When asked what specific concerns there were, she replied that the review was still ongoing but that some of the concerns were:

  • So many of our faculty earned their degrees from non-accredited universities, (OUR REPLY)
  • Some of our faculty earned their degree from Omniversity®, (OUR REPLY)
  • Our undergraduate requirements of "General Education" credits was not adequate, (OUR REPLY)
  • Allowing a student to transfer into Omniversity® up to 75% of the credit hours in our undergraduate degrees was excessive, (OUR REPLY)
  • The names for some of our courses and degrees were unusual, (OUR REPLY)
  • Calling our faculty "Mentors" instead of "Professors" was unusual, (OUR REPLY)
  • The type of work that students had to do for the courses was being questioned, (OUR REPLY) and
  • It appeared that Omniversity® staffing was not sufficient to manage the work. (In short, that our CEO was a "One Man Show" - Our term). (OUR REPLY)
  • Omniversity® was located in a business center with shared services. (OUR REPLY)

Our replies to these concerns were in the form of e-mails sent to DoPSE on July 18th, 21st and 22nd. The content of the e-mails (with some editing for confidentiality of persons and relevance to the topic) are linked to the comments above.

JUNE 30, 2008: We had our office visit from DoPSE on Monday, June 30th. We answered all questions and provided access to all files and data. We were told the review process was not complete yet, but that we would receive an answer to our application for renewal within the next couple of weeks. This was not an affirmative answer. We still maintain our position as stated in the following paragraphs. We hoped for a positive answer. We thanked our present learners who wanted to stay with us.

We had a better understanding that the agency was making significant efforts to change their licensing policies, standards and the process in order to eliminate diploma mills that have operated in Alabama for years. We applaud the efforts to rid this state of that scourge. Our CEO pledged our best efforts to assist in that effort.

JUNE 30, 2008: We refunded, by bank wire, the prepaid tuition for a single course to the only learner who requested us to do so.

JUNE 24, 2008: We completed the activities for the course MTD-7902: Mentoring, as planned.

JUNE 16, 2008: We received an e-mail asking for confirmation of a June 30th appointment at 2 PM. We agreed.

Alabama law (Chapter 16) and the DoPSE's regulatory guidelines as they existed until October 1st 2008, provided for a daily fine of up to $500 and a possible jail sentence of six (6) months for operating without a proper license. Not wanting to violate the law and risk being fined or sent to jail, we decided the following:

  • We refused all new applications to enroll.
  • We told all prospective and applying students to NOT send us any payments until we had resolved this problem.
  • We completed the teaching of the then current DBA Support course, MTD-7902: Mentoring, on June 24th to fulfill our obligation to the enrolled students.
  • We postponed all course offerings until a later date.
  • We initially terminated all website links to our catalog until our license was renewed so that we could not be accused of soliciting new students by having a working website. This decision was modified on June 30th to allow DoPSE regulators to verify that our website said the same things as contained in our print catalog.

Currently enrolled students who wanted to withdraw from the program and receive a refund of their course tuition were asked to send an e-mail directly to our CEO. Refunds were processed as soon as we received their bank information for receiving a wire transfer. Students were encouraged to call me directly on my personal cellphone (7/24) to discuss the situation. My cellphone number is +1-251-404-4111.

Omniversity® deeply regretted this situation.


Sincerely, William H. Jensen, Jr., President and CEO of Omniversity®.

JUNE 16, 2008: The agency was not amused. The DoPSE director responded by e-mail and offered no indication of resolution.

JUNE 14, 2008: We wrote an e-mail to the agency, its' manager and the Chancellor of DoPSE protesting the delay in the renewal of our license as intolerable and unacceptable.

JUNE 13, 2008: We were notified by e-mail that the June 17th visit was cancelled and asked to confirm a shift to the week of June 30th.

JUNE 10, 2008: We confirmed an appointment for June 17th at 2 PM for a DoPSE agent to visit our offices as part of the DoPSE review.

JUNE 1, 2008: Our license to operate expired!

The Alabama Department of Post-Secondary Education (DoPSE), that licensed Omniversity®, did not complete their review of our application for renewal before our license expired on June 1st. They were experiencing an estimated three-month back-log in their work. This was not the fault of Omniversity®. We would have applied three months earlier if we had been notified of their problem. DoPSE did not notify us of this situation until we handed in our application.

MAY 28, 2008: An e-mail from DoPSE on May 28th said that they were reviewing our application and that we could continue to operate. The relevant text of the e-mail is quoted here:

"Please do not worry about the expiration date of the Private School License. The Department has received your renewal application and it is under review. Omniuniversity (their spelling error) can continue to operate as normal until a decision has been made about the renewal. I have only been on the job here for 2 months and there was a huge back log of applications. I will be finishing your review soon and will get with you as soon as possible."

The relevant law does not give authority to DoPSE or its agents to allow a licensee to operate past the expiration date of their license.

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