SMC AET 2001 Career Fair Flyer and Advertising

Here's a bit of interesting visual history from SMC's Academy of Entertainment and Technology. On or about May 17, 2001, SMC put out a flashy color flyer entitled "Career Fair." According to the flyer, "students [were] encouraged to bring portfolio and resume." AET also proudly boasts that there will be "top name industry companies" for "Animation and Interactive Media." Who were these top companies? AET doesn't bother to list them. Here's the flyer below:



Notice that there are nice images transplanted from the AET four folder flyers we compared in our recent blog article entitled, "SMC AET Deceptive Advertising Practices." Also, keep in mind that this exciting event to meet top name industry companies in animation is exactly one week prior to AET Professor Jim Keeshen making his presentation to Rice University. As we discussed in our blog article, "Jim Keeshen's Studio Animatics SMC Contracts Exposed," Keeshen obtained secret consultant contracts with SMC by using the fictitious company Animatics. Pursuant to the contract, he was to develop animated language modules with Title VI-A federal grant money.

According to the May 16, 2001 cached website for AET, Gloria Mottler was the Internship Coordinator while Katharine Muller was Dean of External Programs. James Keeshen is listed as professor of computer animation. You can view the 2001 AET Entertainment Industry Partners from our chart. Here's a snapshot I made from AET's May 16, 2001 AET's program page:



AET states in their Mission section: "Classrooms have a computer at every desk." Well, I've been at AET since Winter Session 2003 and AET definitely does NOT have a computer at every desk in every classroom. Is this a bit of deceptive advertising or did someone at AET make off with all those computers?

In 2001, AET proclaims: "Our mission is to develop flexible professionals who can adapt to a variety of projects and roles in rapidly changing fields." Compare this to the Academy's Mission Statement only three years earlier. In 1998, AET's website stated that it was "dedicated to educating students in the latest digital entertainment technical, artistic, and business skills." (See the 1998 AET program screenshot from our blog article, "AET's Questionable Vocational Career Certificates"). The former mission seems to be more conducive to AET's promises of "the goal of immediate employment."

However, as we've shown again and again, AET's Internship and Job Placement records do no reflect immediate employment for most of AET's graduates. Was it that they did not "adapt" in the Darwinian job marketplace or that AET failed to provide them with those skills necessary for employment? And that fancy Career Fair flyer didn't seem to help matters much.

From a cached AET webpage around June 11, 2001 entitled "Santa Monica College Academy of Entertainment & Technology Admission Requirements FAQ," AET states: "The program is designed to provide students with the skills needed for immediate employment." However, this same page also proclaims: "The Mary Pickford Foundation has established a scholarship endowment for Academy Students." Here's a screenshot I made:



As we've discussed in our previous blog article, "Mary Pickford Foundation AET Scholarship Endowment," SMC claims that it cannot find any public records pertaining to this alleged $200,000 endowment. Pursuant to Robert Sammis' January 9, 2006 letter: "The District has no documents relevant to this request. The District has complied with this request." (See our SMC Set Three CPRA Request, No. 28.) Either Sammis is lying or SMC never made this endowment available to AET students. If this latter is true, then one could construe this as yet another example of false advertising by AET. Keep in mind that Jim Keeshen claimed in his biography and resume that in 1999 he "was awarded the Outstanding Teacher Certificate by the Mary Pickford Foundation for his classes in storytelling, animation and storyboards."

Regardless of any of the promises made by AET back in 2001, the AET entertainment industry partners made a mass exodus by 2002. As of 2006, only a handful of industry professionals still sit on the AET advisory board. Yet, Gloria Mottler, Katharine Muller, Jim Keeshen, Bill Lancaster and Joan Abrahamson remain in their respective lucrative high paying positions. Meanwhile, the promises of "immediate employment" have vanished from AET's current mission statement. Here's a screenshot from the AET Programs webpage:



According to the Federal Trade Commission guidelines for Private Vocational and Distance Education Schools, it is deceptive to: "misrepresent the availability of employment while the student is undergoing instruction or the role of the school in providing or arranging for such employment." It is also deceptive to "misrepresent the availability or nature of any financial assistance available to students." Additionally, it is deceptive to "misrepresent that certain individuals or classes of individuals are members of its faculty or advisory board; have prepared instructional materials; or are otherwise affiliated with the school." Finally, here's an important FTC message:

It is deceptive for an industry member, in promoting any course of training in its advertising, promotional materials, or in any other manner, to misrepresent, directly or by implication, whether through the use of text, images, endorsements, or by other means, the availability of employment after graduation from a course of training, the success that the member’s graduates have realized in obtaining such employment, or the salary that the member’s graduates will receive in such employment.

Applying these FTC guidelines to AET's publicly funded vocational school, AET may have deceptively misrepresented the availability of immediate employment, the availability of financial aid through the Mary Pickford Foundation endowment, and the true involvement of their alleged 2001 advisory board members. AET's alleged deceptive practices and misrepresentations may have occurred to the California Postsecondary Education Commission as well as to potential students via its printed advertising materials and online websites. In any event, I will leave that to both you and the FTC to ultimately decide.

-- Des Manttari,
Editor-in-Chief,
Phoenix Genesis

(c) 2006: Phoenix Genesis/MBS LP

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