Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, we ask for full accountability and restorative measures for those students and taxpayers harmed by Academy of Art University, The Bureau of Private Postsecondary Education and WASC Senior.

Further, we demand that you enforce Federal Codes of Education by holding Academy of Art University accountable not only for fraudulent misuse of Student Aide loans, false advertising and non-compliance to credentialing guidelines.  Moreover, we demand that any and all retaliatory actions taken against students who complained about these transgressions be overturned and their degrees awarded.  We bring this to your attention and demand this as those agencies, namely the Bureau of Private Post-Secondary Education and AAU’s accreditor WASC Senior are failing to hold them responsible.  Whether these agencies were embarrassingly duped by the grand advertising of AAU or are complicit, the Federal Codes of Education need to be followed. We are asking for an in person or streamed Zoom meeting to discuss the full extent of these transgressions.

In specificity, the Bureau of Private Post-Secondary Education and the AAU, accreditor, WASC Senior are in grievous fault for failing/refusing to enforce Federal Codes of Education in regard to AAU’s inferior credentialed staff and culture of scofflaw.

1.      Further, we ask that those not awarded their degree due to retaliation for demanding faculty meet Federal Education Standards be awarded their degrees.

 California Code of Regulations

1.      Division 7.5. Private Postsecondary Education We ask that Fine Art Director Craig Nelson obtain his own MFA /MA and that his wife, Online Fine Art Director, Anna Nelson at least achieve any degree in art at all. (Craig Nelson has only achieved a BFA and outside of creating a few movie posters, he confesses in a 2020 national blog interview that  he had no formal training in landscape painting and rarely indulged, when he set up the advanced degree programs. (AAU President Elisa Stephens, who has no PH. D awarded him a Doctorate to hide his lack of credentials so that AAU would be eligible for the Federal Student Aide Loan dollars.)This means that he had no formal training in teaching benchmarks applicable to codes of regulation.

2.      We demand that AAU President and Owner; Elisa Stephens stop issuing Doctorates until she herself obtains a PH. D (According to CA State Br - Elisa Stephens has been ineligible to practice law since 1996.) 

Elisa Stephens fraudulently accepted Federal Student Aide monies when under California Code of Regulations

Division 7.5. Private Postsecondary Education

3.      71720 Faculty Faculty

4.        (7) The institution shall not employ or continue to employ any faculty who were adjudicated in a judicial or administrative proceeding as having violated any provision of the Act or this chapter or as having committed any act that would constitute grounds for the denial of a license under Section 480 of the Business and Professions Code; 

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1.  For your convenience, just a few of the unenforced guidelines for WASC Senior that are also shared with the Bureau of Private Postsecondary Education shall be listed here, without prejudice as this is not a list in totality.

Fed Code / §602.22   Substantive changes and other reporting requirements.
(G) The acquisition of any other institution or any program or location of another institution.
WASC failed to appropriately address student complaint and continued to not check AAU staff credentials when it allowed AAU to acquire a “teach-out” contract with SF Art Institute for their Fine Art Drawing and Painting program, when in fact, Fine Art Director, Craig Nelson only has a BFA and not a degree level to teach an MFA or MA program.

(F) A substantial increase in the number of clock hours or credit hours awarded, or an increase in the level of credential awarded, for successful completion of one or more programs.

Actual example:  Even though one student has achieved 57 credits and has passed their final project with an A, AAU is refusing to grant student a lesser 36 credit MA degree, plus demanding a new thesis after the more advanced one was already passed. (This particular incident is linked with retaliations.) In spite of using one artist's work created before attending AAU to be featured on the AAU website, then later demanding more classes.

2.  The Bureau of Private Postsecondary Education is refusing to enforce the following codes:

 From California Code of Regulations

Division 7.5. Private Postsecondary Education

2. A credential generally recognized in the field of instruction.

(B) The degree, professional license, or credential possessed by the person shall be at least equivalent to the level of instruction being taught or evaluated.

(5) The institution's faculty as a whole shall possess a diverse educational background which shall be demonstrated in part by earned degrees from a variety of colleges and universities or by credentials generally recognized in the field of instruction

And finally, admirative personal in an inner office memo conversed as to whether to change  / or as they stated, "tweak" the findings of a grievance committee, even though they had no training in painting. Thus reflecting a culture of scofflaw and retaliation.

Evidence available upon request, obtained through court discovery records.

In summation:

We ask for full accountability and restorative measures for those harmed by Academy of Art University, The Bureau of Private Postsecondary Education and WASC Senior, now.

Respectfully,

Vanda Lavar