from: Mark McEachen President and CEO

Dear Colleagues,

For more than 45 years, The Art Institutes has been preparing Creative Warriors for careers in the creative and applied arts. Throughout this time, our commitment to students has never wavered, and our graduates are testaments to our success. This commitment, however, demands a constant strategic review of our approach to the student experience and a willingness to improve it, from initial interaction with prospective students through graduation and beyond.

To this end, I am excited to share with you that as of September 19, The Art Institutes will be launching a new website.

We met with stakeholders throughout Ai and EDMC, including leaders, faculty, staff and students. We conducted a comprehensive competitive website analysis to gain an understanding of how others in higher education approach their online presence. We determined that instituting changes to our website would allow us to more accurately reflect the full benefits of an Ai education at each campus location.

In essence, current and prospective students and their parents want to see what we do and who we are. They said they want to see more student work, see who would be teaching them, see what alumni have done and see how much it would cost them to earn their degree, that is what we are going to deliver.

We are taking a groundbreaking approach, launching one national website that encompasses 33 unique experiences, including one for each core campus location. Each experience will offer unique insights into local culture, academic expectations, current students and their work, faculty profiles and more. With each passing day, as local content is added and becomes more robust, the site will evolve and become stronger and more reflective of our students’ experiences.

I am excited about this new approach to our web presence. As September 19 draws nearer, I’ll share more details about the site’s functionality and content, including ways we can all get involved in making it even stronger. Until then, this short demonstration video will give you an idea of our direction and a glimpse into our website’s future.

As always, thank you for all you do on behalf of our students.

Mark McEachen

President and CEO

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I stand corrected 5jbo. I haven't spoken to my contact in a month. At that time, everything was rocking along. She did complain that online classes ran for varying lengths of time and that there was increasing overlap. An indication of something wrong? Yeah, I can see that. I'll be meeting up with her in about a week. I'll report back then.

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=mceachen+beer+pubs

As I am a big fan of the synergistic effect of appropriately paired businesses, I offer this suggestion for EDMCs invigoration. Hopefully this will be just the thing.

Remember, beer lovers and college shall never perish from the face of the Earth.

God bless America.

@5uvv - I don't know who your contact in online is but I can tell you they are wrong. Managers and directors are scrambling to make something happen. I see my manager stressing out about numbers everytime she comes back from meeting with our directors. Our managers have ZERO faith in their directors or above. It's clear just by looking at them.

The letter is emphasizing AI's web presence and so I'm reading it as confirmation that the bulk of classes will be moved to online. I have a contact in the online division and they are doing well. Unfortunately, the hours are long, the pay is pretty low and there's virtually no time off.

Unfortunately, I think that many of the prospective students and their parents do NOT research AI schools. If they do, they don't believe what they read and thinks it's just some disgruntled students making trouble for the school.

If you did a pole of current students and asked them what would improve their experience I wonder if building a new marketing website would make the list? My guess is it would not. My guess is they would be more concerned with transparency, student services, career services and quality instruction. It occurs to me that introducing a new website benefits the institution by cutting operational costs, minimizing the risk of lawsuits filed by individuals currently used as marketing tools who do not wish to be and recruiting new students.

What a joke! You can't search "EDMC/AI" without the words "layoffs", "lawsuit", "stock", "fraud" or "closures" automatically populating next to it! Does this clown think prospects or parents won't be researching these schools! There's no good news about EDMC on the internet!

Mark McEachen worked out that he can lay off some more unfortunates and save some money by closing the many sites and replacing them with just one site. Perhaps he will get a bonus for it.

God, this is going to be a paradigm shift. $25 million in consulting fees, this is going to turn our lives upside down, for the to better

Thanks. Showcase our work while destroying our careers.

They've got to do something. So much of the site they have now consists of outdated information and bios of instructors who are no longer with the company. The flagrant use such well credentialed faculty to lure in prospective students is fraud. I know of one instructor who left the company many years ago and finally protested the use of her credentials to promote the school. I suspect several others did as well.

Just close the place down.

Douche Bags as always

Positive signs they are trying to keep employees and students on the hook while they embezzle more taxpayers money!

Or the orchestra playing on the sloping deck of the Titanic

Positive sign of an organization on the upswing!?!?

Thread regarding Education Management Corporation layoffs

from: Mark McEachen President and CEO

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