Talk:Education Management Corporation

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Does anyone have any info on how they are doing massive layoffs and a possible connection to it being a "firesale" because of the lawsuits and the Gainful Employment Act? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.47.110.146 (talk) 18:25, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

New section for this article

Greetings, all who have this page watchlisted or come across this message. I have been working with Education Management Corporation for the last several months researching their company and working to create an accurate, neutral and well-sourced replacement for this article. It doesn't take much looking to see that there are many problems with this page; among these, many of the sources fail to meet Wikipedia standards and this article is almost entirely focused on EDMC's legal issues, with very little about the company's actual operations and history.

Understanding that some sections of this article may be prone to disagreement, I would like to start by presenting a draft section that covers a likely less contentious topic: an overview of EDMC's history. I have titled this Growth and acquisitions and have added the draft to my user space here:

• User:WWB Too/EDMC (Growth and acquisitions)

It should be noted that there is currently no history section in the article, though some of this information is addressed in the article's introduction. At a later point I would like to address trimming down the introduction, but for now I am inclined to leave it as it is.

Because I have prepared this draft on behalf of EDMC I am looking for editors to help me review this draft and ultimately add it into the article once consensus has been reached. I would appreciate any editors who have the time to review what I have prepared. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 16:24, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Edits that conform to policy are of course welcome. It is less than obvious that they will conform to policy if coming from someone who is editing on behalf of the company; if a company really wanted a neutral article it would surely be in violation of its fiduciary duties to its shareholders. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 04:59, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi there, Nomo. Have you looked at my suggested new section? I've written it very carefully to conform to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, although I'm certainly open to suggestions, and I've run this by EDMC so they're OK with it as well. I agree that contributions coming from someone like myself should be reviewed by uninvolved editors, hence the request. I do think this is a sensible addition, one which furthers Wikipedia's goals of creating a well-rounded and balanced encyclopedia entry on this subject. Any thoughts on the proposed section itself? Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 07:25, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, for one thing, it's too long, with inclusion of unimportant details such as arrivals and departures of executives and sales/purchases of stock. I suggest cutting it to perhaps 50 or 60% of current length. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 05:19, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, interesting. I'm not sure I understand "too long"—the obvious question is compared to what? Interestingly, the current lead section actually includes more information about the company's stock history. I think that much is probably excessive, although as noted above, it's something I'd plan to address later. I will take another look at the level of detail with an eye to trimming, although I have to say I disagree that it could be cut by 50% and still do a proper job of describing the company's history. More from me soon. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 19:47, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Too long in comparison to the value one gets from the text. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 04:17, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Good point about those passages in the lead, btw. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 04:22, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Nomoskedasticity, I've updated the draft to remove the detail on sale of shares from the History, leaving the explanation about the return to a public company and Goldman Sachs' retaining 40% ownership. I've also removed some of the detail on the changes in leadership in the company, but kept the mentions of changes in CEO, which are arguably the most important points. How does this look now? Certainly this is less than a 50% cut, but everything else here seems to me valuable information about EDMC's history and development. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 18:50, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi all, new to the discussion here. A few impressions reading all this and the suggested additions. 1st, the pre 2000 section should be expanded on the point of what did EDMC do from 1962 until the purchase of AI in 1969? One of my interests in wikipedia is the on-this-day feature at Pittsburgh Portal, do we have specific dates for the founding and the acquisition of AI I could add to the Portal and we could add to the article (along with $ amount of buying AI and location of headquarters in 1962). 2nd the Expansion in 2000s section could be compacted a bit, the information is all good however it could be presented in a more brief manner. 3rd and most importantly I understand it is a for-profit corporation however I would like to know more about the history of the actual product, more of the "firsts", innovations and major educational achievements, awards, etc. throughout all three sections. I understand this may mean slight enlargement of the "Expansion in 2000s" part but I would see it as very relevant despite length, it would be akin to writing an article on HJ Heinz but not going into detail on various products and market achievements. Overall I feel this is very close, and I for one think a good addition to the article itself. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 22:13, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi there, Market, thanks for the reply! All good thoughts and questions, and I'll need a day or two to consider your suggestions, and do a bit of research. The first question, though, is the easiest: I couldn't find much in reliable sources about EDMC's early years, which is why there's not much to it. As for the rest, let me get back to you soon. Thanks! WWB Too (Talk · COI) 23:14, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

WWB Too, yes some of these requests may take awhile and some (though I would think there is a resource or a cited external source especially within EDMC) may be lost to history. As always theres never a deadline at all-volunteer-wikipedia and the section can be added prior to filling in these requests with verifiable info, especially on education achievement, awards, firsts, innovations etc. (almost like a Carnegie Mellon would want recognition for some of their laurels). Also consider researching any referenced community involvement, scholarship changes and apprenticeships/partnership programs for inclusion. As a suggestion to what I had in mind for compacting the middle section I submit this for all editors' consideration as a final addition, with additional academic achievements and dates, $ amounts and pre 1980 history to be sourced in time:

Foundation and early history

EDMC was incorporated in what city?, Pennsylvania in 1962 and acquired its first educational institution in what date? 1969, when it purchased the then 50-year-old Art Institute of Pittsburgh.[1][2] In 1996 EDMC boasted 14 schools and went public details of the stock exchange, date and capitalization. By 1998 it served 17,400 students at 15 Art Institutes and three additional schools.

Expansion in the 2000s

In July date? 2001, EDMC first offered programs in law, education and business by acquiring Chicago-based Argosy Education Group for what $ amount?, the operator of Argosy University campuses.[3][4]

Former Maine governor John McKernan became CEO of EDMC on what date? 2003 and oversaw acquisitions of health-sciences-focused South University on what date? and 18 schools of the Ohio-based American Education Centers rebranding them a year later as Brown Mackie College. McKernan oversaw continued acquisitions of existing art and design schools in the U.S. and Canada, construction of new Art Institute locations and launching online education programs.[4]

Goldman Sachs, Providence Equity Partners and Leeds Equity Partners acquired the 70 school, 72,000 student strong (4,000 online students) EDMC for $3.4 billion in March 2006, taking it private once again.[9][10][11] The additional capital was used to grow online enrollment to 40,000 by decades end following a 2006 Congressional revision of the "50 percent rule" requiring more than half of enrollment in campus-based programs to maintain federal loan eligibility.[12][10] In January 2007 Todd Nelson became chief executive officer [6] guiding EDMC's second public offering in 2009,[2][9] with Goldman Sachs as 40% owners.[13]

Recent history

In 2012, Edward West replaced Todd Nelson as chief executive officer, while Nelson replaced McKernan as the company's chairman.[6] After the growth in student numbers in the late 2000s, EDMC’s enrollment declined from around 160,000 students in 2011 to approximately 130,000 students at the end of 2012.[14] EDMC attributed this to the economic downturn of the late 2000s and new PLUS Loan restrictions.[15]

The decrease in enrollment, coupled with pending changes to the U.S. Department of Education's "gainful employment" rule, prompted EDMC to hold off on planned expansions in 2012,[16] and also led to several rounds of layoffs.[9][17] The company has announced only one new school opening in the 2013 fiscal year.[18] In February 2013, EDMC announced a tuition freeze through at least 2015, as part of a strategy to refocus on students.[19]

^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 23:45, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Right on, I'll use the bolded questions as a guide to the early stuff, and see if I can verify those details. And worry not, I know well there is WP:NODEADLINE, I just wanted to make sure you knew I had read your note and that I'm on it! Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 20:55, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Glad to see my compacting kept the spirit of the message. Thanks for the research effort and even thou its not bolded any community involvement or academic achievements/awards would be really nice to add to all sections. I see a third editor is involved here and others might have input so I'll let this go about a week before adding my version but I will welcome any and all suggestions/contributions from all interested editors! ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 23:26, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I also see merit in the proposed addition -- except that I don't see the point of naming CEOs unless there is some demonstrated significance in that regard. I don't have a great deal of time for editing right now but don't want to stand in the way of adding the material in general -- but if it goes ahead with (imo) excessive detail I'll likely remove those details at some point. (In general, any material added via this discussion is subject to further editing.) Nomoskedasticity (talk) 04:06, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your time on this Nomoskedasticity, yes this is in no way a "consensus" other than if this COI submission should be included in some fashion, and I am hoping for further editing with both trimming and the adding of dates, times, places, dollar amounts and community involvement/awards. Your point about the CEOs is a good one since only the Maine Governor seems to have his own Wikipedia article. By that rule of thumb I would be ok with the removal of the other CEO moves. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 19:21, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

All right, I've made some changes and am ready to share them. I've been working on verifying the details that Market asked to include and I've updated the draft in my user space based on what I was able to find. At the same time, I made some edits so that the draft is in line with Market's suggested version above. There are some differences in phrasing: I understand that you made some changes to cut the length but this sometimes led to slightly awkward phrasing, which I've tried to address in this latest version. Also, I've amended the details about the acquisitions of South University and Brown Mackie College—this was not overseen by McKernan, as he only became CEO later that year. In terms of information you'd requested, I have a few notes:

• So far as I've been able to find, there's no source to confirm which city EDMC was incorporated in, but I believe this would be Pittsburgh. I've left this out for now I'll leave that to others.
• On the early history between 1962 and 1969, as I mentioned earlier, I just have not been able to find reliable sources to add any information. From discussions with the communications team at EDMC, I know that the company was a computer programming school during this time but I haven't found any source discussing this time period to support adding that into the draft.
• I added details on the first and second IPO, however I wasn't able to find a source that specified the exchange for the first IPO.
• Where possible, I've included specific dates for events. However for a few of these, the source only stated the year or just the year and month.
• In terms of awards and recognition, I haven't found anything specific to add—it might be best to move forward for now and look to add something later.
• Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but I'm not sure why the company's executives shouldn't be discussed? If the point is they just don't belong in this section, then I'm open to that. For now, though, I've left them in, but as always I expect others will make edits as they see fit.

Oh, and of course here's the link to the updated draft:

• User:WWB Too/EDMC (Growth and acquisitions)

If you're happy to do so, do you want to go ahead and add this into the article and make any further changes there? Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 23:04, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

1st great job with that data and research, very informative, 2nd good job on compacting some of that info in a factual way, I did wonder about some of that since I am not familiar with all the facts so that is helpful, 3rd about the CEOs I'd hesitate adding the more recent (non governor) ones along the lines of Nomoskedasticity's logic thou we may add them if they are notable in other ways or some greater achievements at EDMC, this is primarily due to both length and encyclopedic knowledge. I'm open to persuasion on this though. Finally, thou I'm a date-time-amount geek here on wikipedia I was really hoping for some community involvement/awards/achievement type things to give insight on what makes EDMC's product/education different than other schools, going forward if you come across anything like that be sure and give a heads up.

To ensure the greatest AGF I'm going to hold the addition for a few days and await any and all thoughts by other editors, barring anything major I'm considering adding it as amended except for the final sentence of the 2nd section: "In January 2007, Todd Nelson became the company's chief executive officer[8] and oversaw EDMC's second public offering in 2009, which brought in more than $330 million dollars when the company's stock was released for sale on the NASDAQ.[2][10][14] Following the public offering, Goldman Sachs retained a 40 percent ownership of the company.[15]" I'm thinking more: "In 2009 EDMC became a public company once again raising $330 million on the NASDAQ[2][10][14] with Goldman Sachs retaining 40% ownership."[15] I will add 2007 up above for McKernan and retain the 1st sentence CEO info of the final section, I feel this is a reasonable compromise that both compacts and gives some bare bones info. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 08:16, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, I'm in no big hurry. Thanks, and I'll keep an eye out! WWB Too (Talk · COI) 16:01, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

One more thing: I hadn't seen your latest edits to the live article until just a moment ago, but it's a huge improvement. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 16:08, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes just applying the same principals with this addition, removing duplicate into, compacting and asking how info is relevant to the overall encyclopedic mission of the article, while retaining the spirit of the legit contributions. Seems whoever added it had some POV balance needs.

2 quick questions, 1st the title of the Allegations section I feel is fair however I am open to suggestions on the titling since I technically made it a new section and I really don't know the blow by blow with them so there are possibly better section titles. 2nd its seems a lot of that hasn't been updated (were those dismissed, consolidated, settled?). Thanks. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 02:56, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Since you mention it, I've actually been researching and writing new material for those sections. I wasn't planning on addressing it next (improving info on EDMC schools was my next goal) simply because the subject matter is so thorny, but if you'd be interested in looking at that, I could share that soon as well. Anyway, I don't mean to get ahead of myself—I'd like to make sure this new section has consensus first! Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 16:58, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

That's fine, I don't always know what your access is to the archives or people there so wanted to get that viewpoint considered while it hit me. By all means work at the best priority scale you see fit. In other news I see Nomoskedasticity did contribute a section title, nothing against it content wise just think its a bit long winded considering it's a title, maybe more: "Allegations of inappropriate recruiting"? All editors may feel free to add opinion on this. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 19:40, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Just checked my draft: I currently have Financial aid and student recruitment complaints here. Obviously this is actually longer, but I think it's a better summary—certainly of what I'll suggest for the topic when we get there. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 14:47, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Market, thank you for implementing my draft! I appreciate the help. I'll be posting my draft for the next section a bit later today. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 18:43, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Suggested Legal issues section

Hi all, thanks Market and Nomo for the help reviewing and creating the Growth and acquisitions section. Based on the recent edits to the article it seems that there's interest in addressing the sections of this article related to EDMC's legal issues next, and I've just added a draft to my user space that covers the information in the section presently called Allegations regarding inappropriate recruiting activities sections. My draft can be found here:

• User:WWB Too/EDMC (Legal issues)

I acknowledge that my draft is longer than the current treatment of this subject matter in the article, and I am open to suggestions as to how to condense this information, although I don't believe the current version adequately summarizes these topics. For example, there are actually two active whistleblower lawsuits, though this is not clear from reading the current section. And in some cases, there have been subsequent developments that are not currently included but should be.

There are a few other differences between what is in the article now and what I have put in my draft that I am anticipating questions about, so I'll address them here:

• Most obviously, I've split this into multiple subsections, which should make it easier to separate unrelated legal cases.
• I have omitted the testimony from Kathleen Bittel. I didn't find significant coverage of this event, nor do I think she's notable enough for inclusion by name. However, I have mentioned the U.S. Senate Committee hearing at which she testified.
• The current version of the article discusses the Notice of Intervention in California as if it were a separate lawsuit. But that isn't the case; it simply indicates that California joined one of the existing lawsuits against EDMC, the one currently headed up by the U.S. Department of Justice. I didn't think that was a significant enough incident to single out for mention, nor does the current source (a primary source) support the information as presented.
• I haven't included the class action lawsuit against The Art Institutes of California. Again, my research did not turn up significant coverage of this; in fact the only news source I was able to find is this one which is currently used as a reference, but its reliability is not at all clear to me. And the other source in the section is a primary source; if there's more coverage later, I think it would be appropriate to include it at that time. But given what's presently available, I don't think it belongs.

I'm happy to field any questions about other changes I have made in this section, and I'm looking forward to hearing what others think. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 22:05, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the research WWB Too. Though from the references you present it is becoming clear that your draft may be superior pending some shortening, I will await any comments from other editors (hopefully even the editor that made the original additions) to ensure that there is some consensus overcoming any possible COI concerns. I tagged the 3 cases you pointed out to assure that the article is attempting to be encyclopedic as possible, while still allowing fairness to all editors. Most of my initial comments on your draft are compacting so I'll defer to any other editor for a few days to await any potential content suggestions. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 04:53, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Happy to do it, glad you think this looks like a good start toward a better version. If you want to make direct edits to my draft I'm perfectly OK with that. And I saw the tags you added to the current article based on some of my points; a good interim move, I believe. Meanwhile, I'll keep an eye on this page for additional replies and updates. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 13:20, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

The post above has some misconceptions. It doesn't matter whether Kathleen Bittel is "notable"; that concept is important for determining whether an article exists, not whether material should be included in an existing article. There's also no prohibition on a primary source, certainly not when the article in question is not a BLP. A major re-write on the basis of misconceptions of this sort will not be acceptable. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 13:29, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Regarding Bittel, "noteworthy" may have been a better word choice than "notable"; it wasn't my intention to invoke WP:NOTE. My point is that the subject of the testimony (alleged recruiting violations) is more important than who testified (Bittel was not the only one) and I do believe that is covered in better detail and with higher quality sources in my draft than in the current version. If there's consensus that her name and the date of her testimony must stay, I can live with that, but it seems like the kind of detail which can be omitted without affecting a reader's understanding of the case. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 15:42, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind reminder on my Talkpage WWB Too, and yes I have been checking in here some but as I said before my knowledge and pathos on the subject matter is pretty limited to just compacting the text. You are right to be concerned that there needs to be movement on this matter after about a week, especially with updating references & the context mistakes in the legal section, so I am a bit surprised no editor is commenting on this save Nomoskedasticity. Since there seems to be a vacuum on any direction in the last few days I'll share my perspective.

• 1st I find any non-vandalism deletion counterproductive to an encyclopedia, thou I will tag items for citations. That said I'm wondering about Bittel's relevance, especially since there is no BLP. To get coatracked into a corporations article is unfair to both her & EDMC. The existence of a "hook" in a given article is not a good reason to "hang" material there including a personal reputation of an education professional that is not given proper BLP context, it may even be said Bittel is now "known" as that lady that testified, no otherwise private citizen should be defined by that without benefit of a BLP article--thus the catch22. Allowing not-in-full-context about Phyllis Schlafly dismissing the National Organization for Women while not linking to an article on her that puts in context that thou Schlafly is obviously a woman she has devoted much of her life to working against the "national organization" of said women as a professional critic would be unfair to both Schafly & NOW. Bittel may be a good person that got into a bad situation, may be a bad person that got into a good situation, may be a professional critic such as Schafly, may have been commended a year after her Senate testimony or been found to have perjured herself, thus the inherent problems with Coatracking. All these Bittel hypotheticals personally could be expanded & covered in this article but then it becomes undue weight.
• 2nd the fact of "Senate hearings" should be sufficient. With my knowledge of Senate hearings history it seems even undue since almost every major corporation/industry/celebrity has been involved somehow in Senate hearings. That most articles "exists on earth" is not needed on wikipedia, unless it had a major revelation or ruling. I'm beginning to think this borders NPOV. As an earlier edit of mine expresses, we don't mention the Korean War on FDR's page, thou FDR is shown sitting with Stalin, seems like guilt by association. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 00:22, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

WWB Too I'm gonna give this a few days and it may take a week if discussions ensue if you have a version that "line item" corrects a misconception & with a better order for citations you can submit that here & I will add it within hours, if not we can await any further discussion on content before editing the article. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 19:47, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

No rush, Market. I don't have line-by-line corrections to the current article section; for reasons given above, I believe hitting reset on the section is necessary to address these topics more encyclopedically. If you'd like me to try other wikiprojects seeking feedback, I can do that, but if you want to wait first and then make the change, that also works for me. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 12:02, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

And I see this is  Done! Market, I think the edits you made to my draft were a real improvement, and this section is now very good. Thanks very much! I gather that you would prefer to see additional input from other editors (which I understand entirely), so when I propose a next section, I'm very willing to reach out to relevant WikiProjects to see if additional uninvolved editors may be willing to contribute. That said, is there a section you'd like to focus on next—whether Programs or Political activities? Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 21:55, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Appreciate your compliments on my improvements, yes further participation would be nice but if something is outdated or out of context then progress must march on if there is a better draft. As far as future additions if you have further citations or improvements to the Political Activities that's cool but I was assuming Programs was pretty much done unless it is outdated or out of context some how. As everyone knows I am no final authority on any of this just making improvements that I see as necessary, if there is a necessity in an encyclopedic sense I'm open to revising/discussing but I see nothing at this time with my limited knowledge of the subject, open minded thou. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 02:31, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Great, Political activities next, then! I can post that up a bit later today.Programs doesn't need a lot of work, but it's currently lacking citations to verify information, and is a little bit out-of-date. But we can deal with that later. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 15:44, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Suggested Political activities revision

Following the discussion above, I have added a new draft for this article's Political activities section to my user space. For comparison:

• Current article section: Education_Management_Corporation#Political_activities
• New proposed draft: User:WWB_Too/EDMC_(Political_activities)

I have written this draft to replace the current section wholesale and have made the following changes with the goals of making it more informative to readers and to bring it closer in line with Wikipedia guidelines:

• I suggest removing the first paragraph, which basically just points out that the former chairman is wealthy and married to a former senator from Maine, and lists a few committee memberships held by one of its SVPs (and for the latter, it's all primary sources). It's not really about EDMC but about these individuals, and would be appropriate for their articles, but it doesn't add any useful information about EDMC itself.
• I've expanded the information included about EMDC's involvement in lobbying and advocacy, particularly related to the "gainful employment rule", which is in fact an important regulatory issue they've been involved with.
• I've provided more detail on EDMC's former PAC, which is now mentioned in the current section. This includes more specific information about to whom the PAC distributed money, and I've provided a new source to support this information, as the two sources currently used are dead links.
• Lastly, I have expanded the final paragraph of this section about the Coalition for Educational Success, which was involved in lobbying related to the "gainful employment rule". The current version of the article does not provide any information on what the group did. I have also removed the statement that EDMC withdrew from the group because I have been unable to find a source confirming this.

Thanks in advance to anyone reviewing this request. Again, my draft can be found here. I'll be reaching out on a few WikiProjects to see if I can find some interested editors to help review this. I'll appreciate any and all constructive feedback. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 20:16, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Checking in here, unless any editors wish to share their opinions I have no strong feelings on either the status quo or the proposal so I will soon contribute the proposed revision. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 08:47, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

OK, that sounds good. I've reached out to a handful of WikiProject discussion pages, although I've had no reply from any (and obviously there is none here). But I'll keep an eye out. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 14:49, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

I made what I see as the final draft on your page WWB Too, & I'll wait for any other opinions a few hours/days until putting it on the main article. The only other revision I would make is at first glance the information about the Governor & CEOs that you removed I would keep to a degree. Though I personally feel that any BLP information should best be kept either on that person's article or removed from organization articles that have no separate BLP article for that individual (as stated way above), a CEO or other officer/chairman of a company I see as different. To me it is very relevant if a leader of an organization does something that affects in any way their organization.

I will be working to include that 1st paragraph in any revision, thou I remain open minded the overall principal of organization leaders being relevant info for the organization, to me is pretty iron clad. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 00:58, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Market. I've looked over the changes you made to the draft in my user space and they all look appropriate to me. I did make a few copy-edits (for example "DOE" usually means the Dept. of Energy in U.S. abbrevs) but the content is the same. Thanks for your work there.

As for the McKernan-Snowe info, how would you suggest adding this information back in? A big reason why I'd removed it is that the Maine Sun Journal source used in the current version is about the assets of Maine's congressional delegation, and does not discuss or even speculate on the implications of McKernan or Snowe's ownership of EDMC stock. Moreover, it's not remotely unusual that a director would own stock in that company. I think for this information to be retained, a third-party source would have to say something about how this affected EMDC's political activities, and in my research I haven't come across anything like that. Let me know what you think. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 17:41, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Ok, added this after giving due time for any other editors opinions, I did check out your concern with the Governor and deleted that poorly sourced and somewhat speculative info however I kept the VP info and put that at the end since it does pass the test for relevance, encyclopedic data and commonsense business info. Let me know if you have any concerns over these edits. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 08:43, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi again, Market! Thanks for updating the Political activities section. Also, I'm sorry my note above didn't touch on the information about Anthony J. Guida Jr.; I didn't realize that you were concerned about removing the information about him. I'm OK with keeping him here, however a few of the sources need replacing:

1. The first reference in that sentence, the ed.gov source, doesn't mention Guida, nor is that reference in a logical place in the article. I would suggest removing that source entirely.
2. The second source in the section is Guida's bio on the EDMC website and is fine. It supports his appointment to the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance. I would suggest leaving this source where it is.
3. The third source in the sentence lands on a 404 page. I've looked the website and found the current URL for his biography. If you look to the third paragraph of this bio you'll see that he is no longer a member of the board of directors of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, but that he is currently on the organization's Federal Legislative Affairs Committee. I would suggest updating the URL for the third source and revising the text to reflect his current involvement with the organization.

What do you think? Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 17:42, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

WWB Too I think I have resolved these concerns, but let me know if something is out of place or in error, I did keep both his appointments but only listed your suggestion as the current one. Also I am not really into learning all about the tricks of formatting reference tags, however if you wish to leave the 3rd citations formatting on this page I will update the article with the proper format. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 09:21, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi there Market. I've reviewed the changes you made; content-wise it's just fine, though grammatically the transition following the mention of his involvement with the U.S. Department of Education's advisory committee is a bit off. I've put together the following revision (with markup) so if it looks OK to you, feel free to use it. Don't worry, the highlighting has been removed from the markup.

I also noticed that the EDMC bio states that his appointment to the U.S. Department of Education's advisory committee ended in September of 2012, not 2011 as the article currently states, so I've corrected this. I've also formatted the APSCU reference using a reference template and updated the reference for the EDMC bio since part of the template was missing.

For end of Political activities section

EDMC Senior VP of Regulatory Affairs and Strategic Development Anthony J. Guida Jr. served by appointment on the U.S. Department of Education’s Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance from 2009 until September 2012. He previously served on the Board of the Association of Private Colleges and Universities, an advocacy organization, and currently serves on the organization's Federal Legislative Affairs Committee.

References

Markup for the proposed change

EDMC Senior VP of Regulatory Affairs and Strategic Development Anthony J. Guida Jr. served by appointment on the U.S. Department of Education’s Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance from 2009 until September 2012.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.edmc.edu/about/officers/AnthonyGuida.aspx |title=Officers - Anthony J. Guida Jr. |work=edmc.edu |publisher=Education Management Corporation |accessdate=1 July 2013}}</ref> He previously served on the Board of the Association of Private Colleges and Universities, an advocacy organization, and currently serves on the organization's Federal Legislative Affairs Committee.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.career.org/about/board-of-directors/anthony-guida.cfm |title=Anthony Guida |work=career.org |publisher=Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities |accessdate=1 July 2013}}</ref>

Let me know if you have any questions. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 20:20, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I made the requested update given the factual and possibly BLP concerns. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 09:36, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Market, the change looks great! Thanks again for all your help here. Also, in case Nomo is reading this: I'm OK with the change to the section heading. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 18:16, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Suggested Programs update

With the previous suggestions on this page implemented, I'd like to turn to some sections that involve less controversy but still can and should be updated to better follow Wikipedia's guidelines for sourcing and article content. With this note, I'd like to suggest a revision to the Programs section; my proposed update is in my userspace here: User:WWB Too/EDMC (Programs). Further details:

• Though I believe that current content of the Programs section was accurate at the time it was written, the general lack of references to support the information included is an issue; I have rewritten the section based on what I could find in sources. I always looked to reliable, independent sources first, but I have used the EDMC website in a few places to verify unexceptional details.
• The biggest change is the addition of two-paragraph introductory section, comprising a companywide overview: names of schools, types of programs offered, the number of locations, total enrollment and notable alumni.
• Then, for each school. I have covered the types of degrees offered, the areas of study provided and the number of locations. In each case I have actually removed some information, but I think for the better: for the purposes of this article, it is best to leave out information about leadership (names of presidents) and accreditation (it varies). Those kinds of details should be covered in those institutions' dedicated articles.
• The other significant change I have made is to merge discussion of the Western University College of Law with Argosy University; this school is now a part of the Argosy University system.

As with all my drafts, feel free to make any necessary changes in my user space. If you have any questions or comments let's discuss them here on the talk page. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 17:52, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I've reviewed the material suggested. It looks hunky-dory to me. (While some of the stuff is SPS, it is reliable enough and does not involve third parties.) WWB, if no other editors have given the thumbs down, you may, IMHO, add it. Also, you might post a {{Connected contributor|WWB_Too|declared=yes|editedhere=no (or yes if you do edit here) }} ({{connected contributor}} template) at the top of this talk page. – S. Rich (talk) 04:37, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I'll look into this some per your suggestion WWB Too. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 03:07, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for making the change, S. Rich, and thanks for your willingness to consider the same, Market! WWB Too (Talk · COI) 16:21, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

One more note: I know both of you have interests elsewhere on Wikipedia, but I do have a couple of forthcoming suggestions I would certainly welcome your help with. First, I plan to present a short Corporate affairs section, which would provide basic details on the company's location and leadership. Then my final request will be an updated version of the introduction, with an infobox, which the article currently lacks. I'll share my Corporate affairs draft next, maybe as soon as tomorrow. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 21:40, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Suggested Corporate affairs section

Hi again! As I mentioned in the message above, I have a short Corporate affairs section to present for review and hopefully inclusion in the article. The article currently lacks a section on the company's leadership, so I have prepared this section to cover this information. I also felt like this was a logical place to mention that EDMC's headquarters are in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which currently is only clearly stated in the introduction.

This section is much shorter than the previous sections I've presented so I'm going to share it below, as opposed to in my user space.

Corporate affairs

Corporate affairs

EDMC's headquarters are located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Since July 2012, the company's current chairman is Todd Nelson and its chief executive is Edward West. The company's activities are overseen by an 11-member board of directors, including former EDMC chief executive officer John R. McKernan Jr. Other board members include representatives from Goldman Sachs, Providence Equity Partners and Leeds Equity Partners.

References

Markup

==Corporate affairs== EDMC's headquarters are located in [[Pittsburgh|Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania]].<ref name=Conte13>{{cite news |url=http://triblive.com/business/headlines/3558038-74/edmc-company-percent |title=Education Management CEO praises back-to-basics strategy |author=Andrew Conte |date=28 February 2013 |work=[[Pittsburgh Tribune-Review]] |accessdate=04 March 2013}}</ref> Since July 2012, the company's current chairman is Todd Nelson<ref name=Dietch11>{{cite news |url=http://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/for-profit-educator-edmc-gives-employees-a-tough-lesson-in-modern-business/Content?oid=1487478 |title=For-profit educator EDMC gives employees a tough lesson in modern business |author=Charlie Dietch |date=24 October 2011 |work=[[Pittsburgh City Paper]] |accessdate=12 February 2012}}</ref> and its chief executive is Edward West.<ref name=AP12>{{cite news |title=Education Management chairman to step down |url=http://newsok.com/education-management-chairman-to-step-down/article/feed/409875 |date=27 July 2012 |work=[[Associated Press]] |accessdate=14 February 2013}}</ref> The company's activities are overseen by an 11-member board of directors, including former EDMC chief executive officer [[John R. McKernan Jr.]]<ref name=Long12>{{cite news |url=http://bangordailynews.com/2012/10/25/politics/us-judge-parts-of-john-mckernan-linked-lawsuit-can-stand/ |title=U.S. judge: Parts of McKernan-linked lawsuit can stand |author=Robert Long |date=25 October 2012 |work=[[Bangor Daily News]] |accessdate=14 February 2013}}</ref> Other board members include representatives from [[Goldman Sachs]], [[Providence Equity Partners]] and [[Leeds Equity Partners]].<ref name=EDMCBoard>{{cite web |url=http://edmc.edu/About/Board.aspx |title=Board of Directors |work=edmc.edu |publisher=Education Management Corporation |accessdate=8 April 2013}}</ref>

I envision this section being added following the Growth and acquisitions section, but I'm open to an alternate placement if others feel it is better suited elsewhere.

Let me know if you have any questions about this. If it looks OK to you please add it to the article. For any new editors to the page, some important context here: I am a consultant to EDMC, and because of this financial COI I am avoiding any direct edits to the article. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 13:06, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

This is now  Done. Thank you S. Rich for reviewing and adding this so quickly. I see you implemented my suggested section with a few slight edits and it all looks good to me. Last big request from me, as mentioned previously, is going to be an updated intro section with infobox. I might be able to post that by tomorrow, early next week at latest. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 00:15, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Suggested revisions for introduction + infobox

Hi, as I mentioned above I have one final set of suggestions to present for this page. The first of these is fairly simple: the article lacks an infobox and I think one should be added. I have prepared below the markup for the {{infobox company}} template to be added to the page. The information in this infobox is all covered elsewhere in the article with the exception of the number of EDMC employees, for which I have provided a source. Alas, the formatting is a bit wonky in the green box below, but I think not impossibly so. I've also included the logo, however it has been disabled; as a non-free file image, it should not appear on a Talk page, and will need to be re-enabled unless the "markup" below is copied straight over.

Infobox

Education Management Corporation

Company type	Public
Traded as	Nasdaq: EDMC
Industry	For-profit education
Founded	1962 (1962)
Headquarters	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania , United States
Number of locations	110 campuses
Area served	United States, Canada
Key people	Todd Nelson (Chairman) Edward West (CEO)
Number of employees	23,000
Divisions	Argosy University The Art Institutes Brown Mackie College South University
Website	www.edmc.edu

References

Markup

{{Infobox company
| name = Education Management Corporation
| logo =:Image:EDMC logo.png
| caption =
| trading_name = <!-- d/b/a/, doing business as - if different from legal name above -->
| native_name = <!-- Company's name in home country language -->
| native_name_lang = <!-- Use ISO 639-2 code, e.g. "fr" for French. If there is more than one native name, in different languages, enter those names using {{tl|lang}}, instead. -->
| romanized =
| former type =
| type = [[Public company|Public]]
| traded_as = {{NASDAQ|EDMC}}
| industry = [[For-profit education]]
| predecessor =
| successor =
| foundation = {{Start date|1962}}
| founder =
| defunct = <!-- {{End date|YYYY|MM|DD}} -->
| location_city = Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
| location_country = United States
| locations = 110 campuses
| area_served = United States, Canada
| key_people = Todd Nelson (Chairman)<br>Edward West (CEO)
| products =
| production =
| services =
| revenue =
| operating_income =
| net_income =
| num_employees =23,000<ref name=Conte13>{{cite news |url=http://triblive.com/business/headlines/3558038-74/edmc-company-percent |title=Education Management CEO praises back-to-basics strategy |author=Andrew Conte |date=28 February 2013 |work=[[Pittsburgh Tribune-Review]] |accessdate=4 March 2013}}</ref>
| parent =
| divisions = [[Argosy University]] <br>[[The Art Institutes]] <br> [[Brown Mackie College]] <br>[[South University]]
| subsid =
| homepage = {{URL|http://www.edmc.edu/}}
| footnotes =
| intl =
| bodystyle =
}}

The second suggestion I would like to present is a revision for the introduction. My goals with this revision were to retain all accurate and pertinent information in the introduction and to condense it to one paragraph, as opposed to the three 1-2 sentence paragraphs currently in place. I am also suggesting the following changes:

• Adding in the names of the schools operated by EDMC
• Removing the POV-laden words "target", "overzealous" and "inappropriate" from the summary of the company's legal matters
• Removing the final sentence of the current introduction about EDMC's "ebook policy". From the searching I have done it appears that this is an isolated event and did not receive significant media coverage. I have seen nothing that indicates that EDMC has such a policy in place, furthermore the source cited mentions that this event took place at the Art Institute of California-Orange County so perhaps that is a better place for this information.

Introduction

Education Management Corporation is a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based operator of private sector post-secondary educational institutions in the United States and Canada. The company was founded in 1962 and currently operates 110 schools through its four higher education systems, Argosy University, The Art Institutes, Brown Mackie College and South University. As of 2012, more than 130,000 students attended Education Management Corporation-operated schools, making it the second largest private sector educational provider in the United States. The company has been the subject of several lawsuits and investigations regarding its practices relating to recruitment and student financial aid eligibility.

References

Markup

'''Education Management Corporation''' is a [[Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania]]-based operator of [[for-profit education|private sector]] post-secondary educational institutions in the United States and Canada.<ref name=Lindeman13/> The company was founded in 1962 and currently operates 110 schools through its four [[higher education]] systems, [[Argosy University]], [[The Art Institutes]], [[Brown Mackie College]] and [[South University]]. As of 2012, more than 130,000 students attended Education Management Corporation-operated schools,<ref name=Belser13/> making it the second largest private sector educational provider in the United States.<ref name=Conte13/> The company has been the subject of several lawsuits and investigations regarding its practices relating to recruitment and student financial aid eligibility.

Thanks for taking a look at these two suggestions. I'm very appreciative of the help I've received so far. I'm hopeful that an editor has a few minutes to help with these two final changes. I think they will really improve the quality of this article. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 18:28, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Both changes looked excellent, and so I've gone ahead and implemented them. Thank you very much for your work, WWB. Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 03:17, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Nolelover! I appreciate your help with this request. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 18:33, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Asking for help to resolve WP:LEAD and WP:PLAGIARISM issues

Hi there, I'm a consultant to EDMC and, as you can see from discussions above this post, last year I worked on this article to improve and update this article. I didn't make any changes myself; all revisions were implemented by non-COI editors. Since then, I have been keeping an eye on the article and saw today that an IP editor has added a lot of text to the introductory section, including a great deal of information not really appropriate for the lede. Nearly all of this information is already included in the article's Legal issues section, and a good deal of the new language is copied directly from the sources cited.

So I'd like to offer a solution to resolve the plagiarism issues, and incorporate the one relevant topic not now included; regarding the Colorado settlement, I'd like to suggest that a reworded version of this be added to the end of the Investigations section. Here's the language I'd propose using:

Wording regarding Colorado suit

In December 2013, EDMC settled a civil claims suit filed by the Colorado Attorney General's Office, agreeing to pay $3.3 million including reimbursement of tuition fees for 66 students. The suit was brought following investigation by the attorney general's office, and alleged that the company's Argosy University in Denver violated the Colorado Consumer Protection Act by misleading students about potential employment following graduation.

References

Markup

In December 2013, EDMC settled a civil claims suit filed by the Colorado Attorney General's Office, agreeing to pay $3.3 million including reimbursement of tuition fees for 66 students. The suit was brought following investigation by the attorney general's office, and alleged that the company's Argosy University in Denver violated the Colorado Consumer Protection Act by misleading students about potential employment following graduation.<ref name=Coyne13>{{cite news |url=http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2013/12/10/edmc-settles-suit-for-33m.html |title=EDMC settles suit for $3.3M |author=Justine Coyne |date=10 December 2013 |work=[[Pittsburgh Business Times]] |accessdate=3 January 2014}}</ref>

Can someone take a look at the current wording in the introduction and consider making the changes I've suggested? Let me know if you have any questions. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 06:40, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I've stopgapped the issue of the additions for now, a few things strike me as very wrong with how it was added.

1. Agreed that such detail should never go in a lead.
2. When editing this for space concerns it was obvious to me that this might have just been taken word by word from a press release or news article, never good.
3. This is an encyclopedia not a SOAPBOX and we are not advocates either way, IP should keep that in mind going forward.
4. A quick and dirty streamline has been done on this information, eliminating SOAPBOX quotes and words while eliminating repetitious sentences. I will be happy to take another look at this in the next few days and see if the suggested changes should be good. For now though I will give this some time to see if any other editor has thoughts on the matter. Though I was only editing the additions in accordance to the pillars of wikipedia, if one reads the entire article the legal section is getting rather long and odious with an overbalance of detail that may be borderline undue weight. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 08:59, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for looking at this, Market, and removing the material from the introduction. One thing that strikes me about the Legal issues section now is that it repeats information about the Federal False Claims lawsuit. This is already covered in detail in the first paragraph of the Lawsuits regarding financial aid and recruitment practices section, although it doesn't mention Sobek's name. If you think it would be clearer to readers to mention him specifically, I'd suggest amending the sentence about the civil False Claims Act suit to clarify that it was Sobek who brought that suit. What do you think? WWB Too (Talk · COI) 22:26, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Since no editor (nor the original editor) sought to discuss this as yet I replaced my compacted version of the IPs additions with your suggestions since I see no major problem with it. I have to admit I am confused as far as which lawsuit was filed by which party and then was consolidated and settled after the other one etc. So if something is still potentially confusing with Sobek let me know & I'll clarify it. IMHO the lawsuit section is a bit long, it does belong but in the perspective that every major organization 50 years or older has had hundreds if not thousands of lawsuits filed against it, if we gave each equal time articles on say an Exxon or Harvard University etc. would be unreadable. I am not up to the task of compacting the section but just throwing that out there to any editor who may wish to. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 22:16, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

The proposed version was excessively sanitised. If Sobek is dealt with elsewhere, then fine, that paragraph can go. But the "condensed" version of the other paragraph omitted important information. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 22:25, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Market and hi there, Nomoskedascity. While I don't have any further thoughts on the Sobek lawsuit, I do have a concern about the Colorado settlement information. The material that's now in the article about this is plagiarized: the original IP address editor who added this copied it word-for-word from the Pittsburgh Business Times source cited. Nomo, I understand if you feel that more detail should be included than was in my suggested draft or in the version that Marketdiamond had written, but this definitely needs to be reworded to avoid plagiarism. Here's another attempt, with some more information added:

Updated wording regarding Colorado suit

In December 2013, EDMC settled a civil claims suit filed by the Colorado Attorney General's Office for $3.3 million. The suit was brought following investigation by the attorney general's office, and alleged that the company's Argosy University in Denver violated the Colorado Consumer Protection Act by misleading students about potential employment following graduation. Specifically, students had lodged complaints that the school had led them to believe it was pursuing accreditation from the American Psychological Association for its education in counseling psychology program, although it was not. Without the accreditation, students were not accepted to local internships meeting the state's licensing standards. As part of the settlement, EDMC agreed to reimburse tuition fees for 66 students, end advertisement of its education in counseling psychology program in Denver as a psychology licensure-track program, and not enrol any further students to the program.

References

Markup

In December 2013, EDMC settled a civil claims suit filed by the Colorado Attorney General's Office for $3.3 million. The suit was brought following investigation by the attorney general's office, and alleged that the company's Argosy University in Denver violated the Colorado Consumer Protection Act by misleading students about potential employment following graduation. Specifically, students had lodged complaints that the school had led them to believe it was pursuing accreditation from the American Psychological Association for its education in counseling psychology program, although it was not. Without the accreditation, students were not accepted to local internships that met the state's licensing standards. As part of the settlement, EDMC agreed to reimburse tuition fees for 66 students, end advertisement of its education in counseling psychology program in Denver as a psychology licensure-track program, and not enrol any further students to the program.<ref name=Coyne13>{{cite news |url=http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2013/12/10/edmc-settles-suit-for-33m.html |title=EDMC settles suit for $3.3M |author=Justine Coyne |date=10 December 2013 |work=[[Pittsburgh Business Times]] |accessdate=3 January 2014}}</ref>

Does this provide more of the detail you feel should be included? WWB Too (Talk · COI) 20:11, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, that's helpful. I've added it with a couple of minor alterations. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 21:03, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Nomo. I appreciate that your concern here was about the level of detail, but I do still feel even now that this is a lot of information about this one legal issue. It's something I may want to readdress soon, to see if it's possible to summarize further. Knowing that Market is concerned about the length of the Legal issues section as a whole, if either of you are interested in working on summarizing this information more, I would be happy to help. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 21:34, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Help with additional WP:LEAD issues

{{request edit}}

Hi again, all. As noted in previous discussions, I've been keeping an eye on this article on behalf of EDMC. Recently, I noticed that an IP editor added a new sentence to the introduction, as well as three new sources to the existing text there. I have a couple of changes to suggest, based on these edits.

First, though the information in the new sentence is accurate, I don't believe it is a detail that needs to be in the lede and would be better placed within the Corporate affairs section. I'd like to suggest moving the information to the end of that section with slightly new language:

For end of Corporate affairs section

EDMC is owned in part by banking firm Goldman Sachs, which has a 43% stake in the company.

References

Markup

EDMC is owned in part by banking firm [[Goldman Sachs]], which has a 43% stake in the company.<ref name=Newsday14>{{cite news |title=New investigations hit for-profit colleges |url=http://www.newsday.com/business/new-investigations-hit-for-profit-colleges-1.6900312 |newspaper=[[Newsday]] |date=29 January 2014 |accessdate=4 February 2014}}</ref>

I'd also like to suggest removing the three new sources from the introduction, since the details there are already covered in the main body of the article and therefore don't need citations in the lede. For two of the sources, I would like suggest removing them completely: one is an opinion piece-style blog post on the Huffington Post website and doesn't appear to be a reliable source, and the other is a primary source (SEC report).

The third source is reliable, secondary, and does provide new relevant information, however, so I'd like to propose using this to add some new details to the Investigations section:

For the end of Investigations section

In January 2014, EDMC was among several for-profit schools approached by approximately twelve attorneys general for information in an investigation of their practices.

References

Markup

In January 2014, EDMC was among several for-profit schools approached by approximately a dozen attorneys general for information in an investigation of their practices.<ref name=Newsday14>{{cite news |title=New investigations hit for-profit colleges |url=http://www.newsday.com/business/new-investigations-hit-for-profit-colleges-1.6900312 |newspaper=[[Newsday]] |date=29 January 2014 |accessdate=4 February 2014}}</ref>

Can anyone take a look at this and make these small changes if they look OK? I avoid making direct edits myself due to my financial COI, so I'm hoping another editor can help. Let me know if you have any questions. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 16:24, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

I've moved the Newsday reference to the lower section as suggested. For the ownership point, i agree it doesn't merit a separate paragraph in the lead, but it works nicely enough in the first paragraph, I think. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 22:50, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for making those changes, Nomo. I think where you've moved the ownership detail in the lede is an improvement, though I still think it places undue weight on the detail. In any case, do you think it should also be included in the Corporate affairs section? Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 15:25, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I've added it there too. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 05:42, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 18:17, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Requesting help again

Hi there, didn't expect to have to ask again so soon, but it seems the same IP editor mentioned in my last note has implemented further edits to the article's lede, also problematic.

New sources have been added to the end of the sentence "EDMC has been the subject of several lawsuits and investigations regarding its practices relating to recruitment and student financial aid eligibility." The sources describe information that is talked about in detail in the Legal issues section, so I would suggest moving them there (though they don't provide any new details).

Two new sentences have also been added. The first mentions a drop in EDMC's stock price and uses the live Yahoo! Finance page that updates several times a day as a source. The conclusions in this sentence are the editor's own, based on their interpretation of figures found there. The second new sentence talks about dropout rates and is plagiarized directly from the Huffington Post blog it cites. Again, the source itself is an opinion piece-style blog and unreliable. I would suggest both be removed entirely.

Finally, the editor has formatted the paragraph into several stand-alone sentences and split the sentence that Nomo recently edited about Goldman Sach's stake in the company.

I'd appreciate it if an editor could look over these changes and revert them as they see fit. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 18:17, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you to Nomo and Fortuna for taking a look at the above requests and making the edits. Alas, the same editor has returned once more and inserted a new sentence about dropping enrollment numbers to the lede. As the Recent history section currently has information about decreasing enrollment numbers from the last few years, I'd like to suggest moving this new sentence there.

The editor also added a sentence about the False Claims Act court case that is currently pending, and which is dealt with in detail in the first paragraph of the Lawsuits regarding financial aid and recruitment practices section. As the source they added is not currently used in the article, perhaps it could be moved to that section, however I feel that discussion of this particular court case in the lead of the article gives it undue weight and should be removed. If other editors could take a look and see what they think, I'd appreciate it. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 18:25, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

I have removed all information from the lead section, will look a bit more into this. I'm not gonna take the time to find it now but I do remember a discussion that lawsuits per se are not lead material in articles. I think kicking this around for six days is sufficient. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 06:57, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Well that was fast Nomo, I see I was reverted within a minute?!? ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 06:59, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

A couple of minutes, anyway. WWBToo wasn't asking for the entire paragraph to be removed. I can see removing the new sentence about the new suit, but why remove the entire paragraph? Nomoskedasticity (talk) 07:07, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Citing other examples is no excuse, true, but for the sake of proportion such articles as BankAmerica and Exxon seem to be angels dancing on clouds with harps for over 100 years, BankAmerica with a whole section of lawsuits tucked in down 25 sections (& subsections) while Exxon doesn't mention lawsuits. I've never been the world's foremost expert on all that is wikipolicy but maybe a few brave volunteers will step forward. 6 days and counting for the lead to not be defended (and the IP silent) is a bit strange. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 07:23, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't see why the delay leads you to delete an uncontested part. In any event, I'm moving the source to here, so that someone else can figure out where it's supposed to go. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 07:52, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

• EDMC is also facing a court case for violating the US False Claims Act. < ref>http://www.post-gazette.com/business/2014/02/23/Under-False-Claims-Act-whistleblowers-get-their-share-of-billions/stories/201402230084< /ref>

Appreciation on the good faith, Nomoskedasticity. To avoid confusion the COI editor raised this 6 days ago and no one that I can see (especially the IP) defended it being in the lead section, all I'm saying is it's very strange. If that is an additional source it should go to the lawsuits section, as was my view months ago the legal battles are just not lead material. I've not been up on wikipolicy the last 6-12 months so if that has changed so be it, although not strictly wikipolicy I can see some discriminate and defamatory-by-omission concerns as I stated above. It is common knowledge that some corporate entities have hundreds of major lawsuits (even initiated by government) in their histories and yet I can't recall seeing anything in any corporate leads on wikipedia. Again, I've been "out of the loop" lately so if that has changed or is open to change then any concern of proportionality is unfounded. Not strictly wikipolicy I know but still a concern when surfing 20 different corporation articles on here. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 11:20, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Update, after reading the rather lengthy PG reference I added it to the appropriate part of the lower section. AT&T, USIS (company) and the City of Pittsburgh are also mentioned in the reference renewing my concerns of proportion/omission etc. (tho "lawsuit" is mentioned in AT&T's lead a single time to cite the suit that broke off SBC that later bought it as the start date of the corporation). ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 11:40, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Okay, sounds good. As for other articles: if I worked on something like Exxon I'd push really hard to ensure that the lead mentions stuff like the Alaskan oil spill. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 23:12, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for looking at the changes and discussing, Nomo and Market. I appreciate the court case reference being relocated to the Lawsuits regarding financial aid and recruitment practices section. Which, to clarify, is not a new case, but an ongoing legal issue already covered in that section.

I also wanted to follow-up on the IP editor's edit from last week concerning decreasing enrollment numbers. What are everyone's thoughts about moving this information down to the Recent history section?

Finally, if either of you have time, would you mind looking at a few more edits by this same IP editor on The Art Institutes article? I've detailed the changes on the Talk page there. Thanks again! Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 19:21, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

I did check out the Art Institute page a few days ago and will be happy to take a crack at it today or tommorrow, as far as the decreasing enrollment numbers my view is similar to my concerns up top about proportion and omission relative to the rest of the encyclopedia. Tho Exxon's legal issues can fill volumes with just the past years activity I sometimes wonder if Wikipedia had been this mature during the Valdez spill how much would have been filling up that article on it. It isn't that any group of editors are doing something wrong, it is just that we all need to step back and be careful to treat every major legal or PR issue with the perspective of historical proportion both inside articles and article to article, in short yes I'd move the "historical hiccup" of decreasing enrollment down and I would trim it down a lot too, can't have editors contributing in 1989 how Exxon is decreasing in production and infer that they will fall from grace (apparently the current Exxon article contradicts such a 1989 view). ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 13:23, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree, Market. The importance of events changes with time and enrollment numbers are likely to change even faster. As long as no other editors disagree, would you mind trimming and moving the sentence down as you suggested? Thanks for taking a look at the Art Institute pages as well! I'll reply there about that edit momentarily. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 03:33, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

I left the raw number in the intro and moved the cite and comparison numbers to recent history. I would not be in favor of 'advertising' a jump in enrollment for the lead, so I think it is fair to leave comparisons for the article body. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 04:55, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Help with DOJ report in the lead

Starting a new thread to note a new edit in the lead. I believe this edit was made by the same IP editor as in my previous two requests. This time, the added information includes a quote from a DOJ report about EDMC's recruiting practices. I would suggest moving this information, but I believe it has already been summarized and covered in the Lawsuits regarding financial aid and recruitment practices with the sentence "The Department of Justice argued that EDMC violated federal rules banning incentive-based compensation and therefore acquired the federal funds illegally." If other editors agree, can someone remove the information from the intro? Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 16:37, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm ambivalent about this one. The problem with the lead in its previous state is that it refers only to lawsuits and investigations, without any indication of the outcome -- in other words, leaving open the possibility that perhaps the lawsuits and investigations came to nothing. We know that they *didn't* come to nothing, and I think the lead should make this clear. Whether the DOJ finding is the right vehicle for that point is arguable -- but if we don't employ it for that purpose we would need another approach. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 06:47, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I see that Market Diamond has moved the DOJ quote into the Investigations section, so thank you for that edit, Market. Nomo, I also saw your edit to the sentence regarding the investigations and lawsuit and, while I see your point that the previous wording didn't provide any information on what happened with those investigations and lawsuits, I'm not sure that either the DOJ quote or your recent change clarify this.

If I'm understanding correctly, you'd like to show what happened with these cases. The way that I read your change is that it provides a different way of summarizing what the reason was behind the investigations and suits. Now the reason given is much narrower, focusing on one particular allegation. My suggestion would be to return this sentence to its original wording, and add a sentence summarizing the outcomes of the cases:

As of 2014, several of these investigations and suits are ongoing, including a federal whistleblower suit, and EDMC has agreed to settlements in the two civil suits that have concluded.

How does that sound to you? Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 19:21, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the current version needs a bit of work. But your proposal is not an improvement -- it seems intended to obscure the nature of the actions which led others to investigate and file suit. It's not the disposition of the investigations/suits that matters most here -- it's the actions of EDMC that need describing. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 07:21, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Nomo, it certainly was not my intention to obscure anything, rather I was basing this wording on what you'd said above about the lead needing to show that the lawsuits and investigations didn't "come to nothing". I'd understood from that earlier comment that you felt the lede needed to show what the outcomes were of these lawsuits and investigations, for instance whether they were thrown out or settled etc. From your latest reply, I now understand that you're more interested in showing what (alleged) actions by EDMC led to the suits and investigations, which is quite different from what I was intending to provide with the above suggested wording. For now, I don't have any further suggestion to offer here, but I'll be thinking about how best such information could be worded. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 14:02, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

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The Intro

This is 80% controversy and it may be summarized and better suited for another section that addresses it.--WondoMathias (talk) 18:42, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

I have significantly shortened the lede and moved the relevant content and refs to the history section. That section could be streamlined more, though.Dialectric (talk) 12:39, 6 March 2020 (UTC)