Article discussing confusion created by a diploma mill with a company name similar to the school I attended in the early 1990's.

1. I’M BOILING MAD about a sullied school reputation,
...but there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about it.
I believe I just found out why my job hunt is taking so long. Potential employers think I am fudging my educational
credentials — and though they are meager regardless (an Associates in Computer Information Systems), the
misunderstanding throws doubt on the whole of my resume.
The only reason I discovered the issue is that when applying to (finally) work toward a Bachelor’s degree, my transcript
was discarded because, in the words of the CSA patiently leading me through the process, my old school, ‘Ambassador
University’, was listed as a ‘diploma mill‘.
My eyeballs almost exploded.
Now, anyone who attended those two-and-a-half years with me will tell you
that I was not the greatest student, that I didn’t have my personal act together,
and that those two claims to infamy were likely responsible for each other in
a yin-yang sort of way. But I did manage to escape with a degree, and with
a GPA that wasn’t the worst among my cronies. And I was eventually able to
parlay that brief collegiate experience into a career history that I am very proud
of — with the help of some very good role models in my industry.
HOWEVER…
Fast-forward 20 years, and there is a new ‘institution’ that is clouding up the
Google searches, should anyone want to investigate my alma mater.
The web addresses http://www.ambassador.fm (registered in 1999), http://www.ambassador-university.com (2005)
and http://www.ambassador-edu.org (2008) point to ‘Ambassador University Corporation‘ — which by all accounts
(including their own slimy web presence) is indeed a ‘diploma mill’.
For the record, I did not purchase my diploma from ‘Ambassador University Corporation’, somewhere in the Middle East.
I attended ‘Ambassador University’ in Big Sandy, Texas!
Ambassador College, later renamed Ambassador University ( http://www.ambassador.edu), had been operated by the
Worldwide Church of God ( http://www.WCG.org ), now Grace Communion International ( http://www.gci.org ), between
1947 and 1997.
After working under state-only certifications for many years, Ambassador University was accredited in 1994 by the
Southern Association of Colleges and Schools ( http://sacscoc.org/ and Wikipedia ).
Unfortunately, the school closed its doors just several years later, due to financial problems rooted in a doctrinal shift
among WCG’s teachings. (originally http://www.wcg.org/wn/97/97Jan21/press.htm , also archived at Google and in PDF ).
A detailed history of this very-real but now-missing educational
institution can be found by anyone curious enough at http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambassador_University
I also learned that the CHEA database ( http://www.chea.org/ ) does not
list Ambassador as having been accredited, or even that it ever existed
(though I was unable to locate in this or any other database where a
listing might show *formerly* accredited institutions).
Next week, I’ll try to explain all of this to the Registrar at my new school
— and to several potential employers I have been shopping.
It’s even harder to explain the justice of this to my kids, who would
simply like to trust that their Daddy can bring home enough money to
pay for the Mac-N-Cheese, and renew the Netflix subscription.