AveWatch recently showed how Tom Monaghan's Ave Maria Foundation works to gain control over grade school projects, even from their inception. His money will solve problems encountered by the school's original founders; but in return, Monaghan becomes "the" founder, and gains control over the non-profit, even down to its dress code. It is more akin to a "buyout" than a "donation".

But, what evidence exists to suggest that Tom Monaghan is moving his educational influence beyond the Ave Maria "brand"?

1) NAPCIS

The National Association of Private Catholic and Independent Schools (NAPCIS) is "a national accreditation association" for "private Catholic and independent schools" for grades K-12. The Association has been slowly overrun by Ave Maria influences. Examples include:

• 2003 NAPCIS Conference at Ave Maria College; Tom Monaghan spoke on "Making Schools Work"; in that 2003 address, Monaghan referenced his talks on 'entrepreneurship' at the Association's 2002 and 2001 meetings as well.
• 2004 NAPCIS Conference at Ave Maria College; Tom Monaghan received their 2004 "Spes Nostra Award"
• 2005 NAPCIS Conference at Ave Maria University
• 2005 NAPCIS Teachers and Administrators Meetings; Dan Guernsey, Ave Maria Foundation employee and President of Ave Maria College, gave 5 talks; AveWatch readers may remember Guernsey as the Ave Maria interlocutor to Fr. William Thomas' school (and Fr. Thomas from our "BoysCherries" series)
• 2006 NAPCIS Conference at Ave Maria University; Guernsey, AMU President Nick Healy, and AMU VP Carole Carpenter presented
• 2006 NAPCIS Administrator Meeting; Guernsey gave 3 talks including "Firing: How to Avoid Problems with Problem People"
• the NAPCIS "Council of Scholars" includes a host of Monaghan supporters, including Fr. Joseph Fessio
• Monaghan's Dan Guernsey now serves on the NAPCIS Board
• the NAPCIS national headquarters, currently in California, will be moving to Monaghan's Ave Maria Town in Florida
• Guernsey has been named Headmaster of the new "Ave Maria Grammar and Preparatory School" in Monaghan's Ave Maria Town. According to the school's website, they are "actively pursuing" NAPCIS accreditation.
  

Does anyone really wonder if Ave Maria will get NAPCIS accreditation?

2) AALE

The American Academy for Liberal Education (AALE) is the accrediting agency whose Title IV gate-keeping privilege was suspended by the federal Department of Education earlier this year. AveWatch was the first to report on this DoE decision and on prior questionable interactions between AALE and Ave Maria administrators.

AveWatch has uncovered more.

Thanks to AveWatch's investigation, which was passed on to (and published in) The Chronicle of Higher Education, AALE's member-applicants finally learned from the media of the DoE's sanction against AALE. A number of member-applicants were not happy with AALE's failure to contact them directly about the DoE sanction - an action that could have significant consequences on member-applicant institutions.

According to interviews conducted with presidents and staff of some AALE member-applicant schools, Ave Maria VP John "Jack" Sites organized conference calls to see what could be done to help fix AALE's fallen standing with the DoE. AMU has a particularly vested interest in AALE's health since AALE pre-accreditation is the school's only current access to Title IV money... and because AMU's temporary pre-accreditation status with AALE expires in two months.

According to one of the member-applicant presidents, the conference call conversations "went beyond expressing our frustration on the part of members and applicants at AALE's management". This president said that each member-applicant was asked to "give $10,000 to AALE to help in their defense against the Department of Education". He stated further:

"What absolutely appalled me was (1) They [AALE] did not inform their applicants of the Department's actions. We found out by the Chronicle. And (2) Anytime someone asks for funds not related to fees, and makes an unspecified request, you're into a severe conflict-of-interest. This was a terrible conflict, a clear and absolute conflict-of-interest."

Why is it a conflict for AALE to solicit or accept donations from member-applicants? If a teacher receives money and help from a student outside of the teacher-student relationship, everyone would question whether that teacher could objectively evaluate that student's examinations back in the classroom. AALE evaluates an institution's ability to meet certain criteria for accreditation. As such, accepting "donations" from member-applicants would introduce gross bias into the accreditation evaluation process.

But, at least one person in those conference calls did not see gifts to AALE as being a conflict - AMU's Jack Sites. Sources report to AveWatch that Sites stated in a conference call that he was "authorized" to give AALE both money and "consultation" to help AALE with their DoE status. One school's president said that AALE's Jeff Wallin "expressed an interest in the money but not the consulting help, and I personally thought that curious."

AveWatch made many attempts for over one month to contact the presidents of AALE member-applicant schools. Most declined to talk, refusing to even state why. Over two weeks ago, AveWatch asked AMU's Jack Sites to confirm or clarify these accusations, including how much (if anything) AMU (or an entity affiliated with AMU, like Barron Collier Co.) donated to AALE. There was no reply. AALE's Jeff Wallin told AveWatch the following:

"No, we did not ask members or applicants to contribute $10,000 - or any other amount, for that matter - to "support our defense" or help in any other way. It is true that other accrediting agencies, such as SACS, for example, have assessed members for special needs in the past, and this same path is, of course, open to us. However this is an option that we have not, at least to this point, chosen to exercise.
Of course, our members are concerned about the USDOE's vendetta against AALE, and there have been conference calls and meetings - none of which were instigated by AALE - about what might be done to help out. To my knowledge, nothing as concrete or specific as a solicitation for funds has resulted from any of these meetings, although I suppose one could, our members being free to do whatever they might think appropriate without either our approval or even knowledge. Again, though, I don't think this has occurred."

The statements from the presidents and staff interviewed by AveWatch, and the statement by AALE's Wallin, are at odds.

AMU is currently undergoing evaluation by AALE to determine if it will retain access to Title IV, or lose it. The stakes are high. If Ave Maria, or an entity related to Ave Maria, offered to help AALE financially or otherwise, it should be fully disclosed.

A weakened accrediting agency like AALE that receives help from Tom Monaghan, or any of Monaghan's related entities, should be a big concern to the many conservative liberal arts institutions that Ave Maria views as competition.

3) FELLOWSHIP of CATHOLIC SCHOLARS (FCS)

How ironic it is that the current President of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars - the Law School's own Dean Bernard Dobranski - does not have the fellowship, much less the leadership confidence, of a majority of scholars at his own school. The recent resignation of five AMSL Board members is also telling (1,2,3).

Here is a Catholic academic who stripped a tenured professor (father of seven children) of his income on "thin grounds", and recently punted two other experienced professors (fathers to four and five) just weeks before classes start. Dobranski will fill those faculty slots with instructors whose strongest credential is being pro-Monaghan. Legal scholars throughout the blogosphere have voiced opposition to Dobranski's treatment of faculty and alumni. AMSL Co-founder and Professor Emeritius Charles Rice has been a strong voice of objection to the firings (1,2). In less than three days, AMSL's Alumni Association has garnered over 200 signatures on a petition to reinstate these professors. Here is a more complete list of Dobranski's "accomplishments" in the area of Catholic education administration.

And the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars has been silent.

The "Fellowship" is preparing for their September conference on "The Idea of the Catholic University for the Twenty-First Century", named after the venerable Cardinal Newman's thought on higher education. This FCS meeting is being managed by Jack Rook (jrook@catholicscholars.org). Rook has an email address at the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars; but, he also has one at Ave Maria University. Rook is an employee in Tom Monaghan's "Ave Maria University Office of Development and University Relations" in Florida. Let's see how much 'development' and promotion Ave Maria gets at the FCS meeting.

If this group of Catholic scholars at FCS does not reject, in public, Tom Monaghan's dysfunctional "idea of a university" and call for Dobranski's resignation as President of the "fellowship", then these FCS academics will deserve what they get from Monaghan in the future, which is contempt and control... not to mention a justifiable discrediting of orthodox Catholic academicians who appear content to merely talk about Catholic social teaching in the classroom, and ignore the voice of Ave Maria casualties like Guillermo Montez, the former AMU Chairman of Economics who said "AMU does not behave like a Catholic employer. Justice issues are systematically neglected in the employer-worker relationship" (2005).

If these scholars take no action, they will learn the words of a former Ave Maria Dean the hard way:

"But I will forever consider the AMC-AMU team to be a bunch of pirates, a reckless band of marauders on the high seas of academia and Catholic culture and I thank the Lord that I escaped with my own personal integrity and with whatever tenuous professional and financial stability that I have. I believe that other people need to know about these pirates before their vessels are boarded, their treasures plundered, and their families carried off to futile ventures. The facade of ecclesiastical, political, and conservative backing makes their deceit all the more shameful and tragic."

Thanks to the willingness of 'useful idiots' who are content to compromise their integrity and autonomy to access Tom Monaghan's money, the billionaire who wants to francise Catholic education is poised to influence academia from kindergarten to graduate school.

Tags: accreditation, conflict-of-interest