This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the The Art Institutes article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources:  Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Pennsylvania Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Pennsylvania, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Pennsylvania on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PennsylvaniaWikipedia:WikiProject PennsylvaniaTemplate:WikiProject PennsylvaniaPennsylvania articles Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. Pittsburgh Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Pittsburgh, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Pittsburgh and its metropolitan area on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PittsburghWikipedia:WikiProject PittsburghTemplate:WikiProject PittsburghPittsburgh articles Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. Higher education This article is within the scope of WikiProject Higher education, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of higher education, universities, and colleges on Wikipedia. Please visit the project page to join the discussion, and see the project's article guideline for useful advice.Higher educationWikipedia:WikiProject Higher educationTemplate:WikiProject Higher educationHigher education articles

The Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use require that editors disclose their "employer, client, and affiliation" with respect to any paid contribution; see WP:PAID. For advice about reviewing paid contributions, see WP:COIRESPONSE. WWB Too ( talk · contribs) has been paid by Beutler Ink on behalf of Education Management Corporation.

as per naming conventions, The should not be part of the titles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.20.124.50 ( talk) 12:17, 9 December 2005 (UTC) reply

Should the New England Institute of Art have it's location changed to Brookline, MA? That's where it is located. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.218.40.24 ( talk) 11:29, 28 December 2005 (UTC) reply

I'm removing an item about the two photographers. They are not the only two women. Per the Pulitzer Prize Feature Photography Page, I count no less than five female Pulitzer prize winning female pjs, not to mention those who may have won the award as part of a collabritive effort at a newspaper. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.227.113.225 ( talk) 02:25, 30 November 2008 (UTC) reply

It was suggested that this article be merged with The Art Institutes International- Kansas City, but it should not be. The Kansas City location is a disticnt and separate branch of The Art Institutes system of schools. Each Art Institutes school is separately accredited on its own. If you merged this, you would have to merge literally all forty Art Institutes school pages and a lot of valuable information would be lost.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DM7 ( talk • contribs) 13:57, 30 June 2009 (UTC) reply

I agree that the page should not be merged. Each Art Institute is not only it's own seperately accredited school, but has it's own unique program and specialties. No two Art Institutes are alike. Students choose AICA-OC from art schools accross the globe, and it's reputation in hiring circles is second only to that of AI- Ft Lauderdale (for now). If you're going to merge this article you might as well merge all Universities under one article, or all Ivy League colleges under one article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.148.80.150 ( talk) 05:44, 14 January 2010 (UTC) reply

I'm glad the previous contributor is not teaching puncuation. (....and I have a sneaking suspicion he's not unrelated to the Ai.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.43.185.10 ( talk) 21:53, 26 February 2010 (UTC) reply

I think there may still be some confusion over the Kansas City location. While the Art Institutes do have a school located in the Kansas City area (Lenexa, Kansas technically), there's also a free-standing, independent art college in Kansas City, Missouri called the Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI) which has been around much longer and is a fully-accredited college focused on a variety of different visual arts. I went ahead and added some information at the top to help differentiate between the two even more. 67.65.35.110 ( talk) 18:02, 3 June 2011 (UTC) reply

THe Art Institute of Colorado (Denver) is missing from this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.51.109.66 ( talk) 19:24, 7 April 2011 (UTC) reply

This is one sad article. There is nothing about the programs taught or the problems going on.

• They have students that have gone on to very impressive careers
• The culinary program is very good (enough that they try to seperate themselves from the AI name)
• They are laying off large amounts of instructors every 12 weeks but spending millions at each location on renovations
• They are trying to get around the Gainful Employment act by changing the programs everr 5 years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.47.30.187 ( talk) 17:25, 6 June 2013 (UTC) reply

This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest has now been answered.

Greetings, anyone who may have this page watchlisted. I have been working on behalf of Education Management Corporation (EDMC) for the last few months to research and improve articles related to their organization. (For anyone who is unaware, EDMC is The Art Institutes' parent company.) I've just completed a substantial revision to this article—which even a quick glance will reveal that it needs—along with a secondary list article to account for the list currently included in this page, both presented here for others to review and discuss.

The Art Institutes

My revised draft for this article is in my user space here:

• User:WWB_Too/The_Art_Institutes

To help other editors understand my goals in rewriting it, I'll discuss the current version of the article and what's new here:

• As it stands now, this article is little more than a list of individual Art Institutes locations and, while I do think there is a place on Wikipedia for this list, the main article should provide an overview of the Ai (as they abbreviate it) school system, which it currently does not do. In rewriting this article I have introduced two new sections: History and Schools and programs. These sections cover the establishment and growth of The Art Institutes as well as current programs and degrees, some recent problems and several notable alumni.
• In the History section, I've addressed EDMC's involvement in a current Department of Justice lawsuit; up until very recently this article had contained a section on this lawsuit, but it was removed by an IP editor who felt that EDMC's lawsuit was unrelated to The Art Institutes. As a matter of fact, the lawsuit is related to The Art Institutes, as some of the allegations involve recruiting violations at Art Institute schools (Update: This material was restored following my first post here, however my treatment of the subject is the better, I am sure). While a lengthy discussion of the lawsuit is not necessary, and I'm working on adding more detail about it to the main EDMC article, my draft does add back in some of the earlier language, with minor revisions to reflect the current state of the lawsuit.

Other minor changes include:

• Replacing the company infobox with a more appropriate university infobox.
• Replacing the word "chain" with "system", which I think is a more appropriate way to describe a for-profit university.
• Removing the statement about EDMC's size from the introduction, as not a relevant detail for this article.
• Adding in a reference section, as the article currently lacks one.

List of The Art Institutes locations

To account for the current list section in the article, I'd like to suggest the creation of a List of The Art Institutes locations list article. The draft version of this article is in my user space here:

• User:WWB Too/List of The Art Institutes locations

A few notes on this draft:

• I have removed the Art Institutes Online from the list, because it's not properly a location, but actually a subdivision of the Pittsburgh school. Instead of including this on the bulleted list, I have mentioned the online school in the introduction.
• You will see that in the current article there is a tag at the top of the list section noting that it is incomplete. I have added in the missing schools. It looks to me like the original list was only made up of The Art Institutes that had their own article on Wikipedia. You'll see that a number of the schools I've added are red links. Also, The Art Institute - Sunnyvale is actually called The Art Institutes - Silicon Valley so I have made this change in the updated list.

Thank you in advance to anyone who takes the time to review this request. With my COI I will only be editing drafts in my user space and not the live articles, so I am looking for an editor to review what I have prepared and help implement these changes when consensus has been reached. Please let me know if you have any questions and I'll respond here as soon as I can! Cheers, WWB Too ( Talk · COI) 22:05, 7 June 2013 (UTC) reply

Isn't this against the rules? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.47.30.187 ( talk) 22:47, 7 June 2013 (UTC) reply

I've moved the above comment from an unregistered IP editor out from the middle of my post to the end here. To be very clear: my participation on this Talk page and avoidance of direct edits follows the WP:COI guideline and especially the advice of WP:PSCOI. Also, I've seen your note above my own, and I hope you'll look to see that I'm actually seeking to add info about the issues you asked about previously. Best, WWB Too ( Talk · COI) 23:00, 7 June 2013 (UTC) reply

This is now  Done. Cheers, WWB Too ( Talk · COI) 19:19, 19 June 2013 (UTC) reply

Is it worth noting that the Entire chain of schools has been having massive layoffs for the past year and a half? I mention this since, while it is EDMC laying off employees, it is the schools that are affected. Google is returning many pages of student voicing their concerns and even registering domains to speak out.

http://wheredidmyteachergo.com/2012/08/23/art-institute-layoffs/

http://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/print-edition/2011/10/21/edmc-decline-prompts-art-institute.html?page=all

http://www.pghcitypaper.com/Blogh/archives/2012/08/23/edmc-layoffs-hit-art-institutes-nationwide

http://changeaidallas.org/

She keeps removing sections with legal information. I undid the edit but suddenly it is gone again. Nice to see EDMC can regulate what shows up on the wiki entry here.

Hi, thanks for your comment on my talk page. I added the information on the Art Institutes page in the first place. Then, an editor associated with EDMC pointed out that the edits pertained to EDMC, not The Art Institutes. I agreed, so I removed my own edit, and moved any new information over to the EDMC page, where it belongs. Nobody is "dictating" anything. In fact, this is working exactly how Wikipedia is supposed to work. The user who is affiliated with EDMC is following Wikipedia protocol when suggesting edits instead of making them himself. Happy to discuss this further, but I suggest you read the Five Pillars of Wikipedia, as well as WP:COI, and WP:Good Faith before making additional edits to any page. Athene cunicularia ( talk) 20:11, 7 July 2013 (UTC) reply

Hello, I worked with editors last year to help improve this article and I've been keeping an eye on it since then. As noted previously, my involvement has been on behalf of the Art Institutes' parent company, Education Management Corporation (EDMC). Yesterday, an IP editor made an edit to this article's lede that doesn't pertain to the Art Institutes, only EDMC. The new sentence is:

"EDMC has been the subject of several lawsuits and investigations regarding student recruitment and student financial aid eligibility. EDMC is also facing a court case for violating the US False Claims Act."

This topic is covered in detail in the EDMC article in the Education_Management_Corporation#Legal_issues section. If other editors agree that this sentence isn't appropriate for an article about the Art Institutes, I'd like to suggest removing it. Cheers, WWB Too ( Talk · COI) 19:10, 26 February 2014 (UTC) reply

I deleted the last sentence, I did keep the first sentence and the references. To me they are as irrelevant (or relevant) as the ones on EDMC's lead. I am going to suggest highly that both articles have references in the lead deleted but I will see what my concerns about proportionality and omission are handled for the time being. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 00:24, 11 March 2014 (UTC) reply

Thanks for looking at this, Market. I'm not sure I agree that this information is as relevant here as it is on the EDMC article. This article is specifically about The Art Institutes, and the detail about the lawsuits relates to all the cases that the EDMC has been involved in, only one of which involved the Art Institutes (see my notes above). What do you think? WWB Too ( Talk · COI) 03:35, 12 March 2014 (UTC) reply

You're welcome. You may wish to get a 3rd opinion on this, if it is wikipractice to allow mention of lawsuits in the lead (and I have tested this on a few other random corporate articles and not one peep from any editors seeking to remove them) then I am indifferent on whether AI is lumped in with its parent. I do see a major point in having two very distinct articles and that tho EDMC is mentioned as the owner/operator of AI but leaving out other details. If I had to make a choice I'd probably delete the lawsuits from AI, however there might be some details I'm missing from both the suits themselves & specific wiki policy. I can see your point WWB Too but to me I don't see AI being treated unfairly in anyway, yes not wikipolicy just something that I kind of edit by. If there is some other opinions or other facts I'm missing I'd be open to them (and yes I realize many of the legal issues are not directly tied to AI). ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 05:09, 18 March 2014 (UTC) reply

If the material isn't specific to this organization and isn't essential to helping readers understand it then the material shouldn't be in the lead. Simply being a defendant in one or more lawsuits is insufficient to establish notoriety or notability; we need strong claims by reliable sources that the lawsuits were somehow important.

I also assume that this material was added by the unregistered editor(s) who has taken it upon him- or herself to add this kind of material to all sorts of articles about for-profit colleges and universities, presumably in some sort of effort to "correct the record" or "inform the public." Some of the information is indeed important and relevant but some of it is out-of-place and clearly betrays the negative point of view of the editor(s) making the edit. ElKevbo ( talk) 13:09, 18 March 2014 (UTC) reply

You assume correctly on the contributor ElKevbo, also the same on the main EDMC site. I would be interested in getting some consensus on this 'legal action/investigation' stuff. Should it be front page at NYT & WashPo? Should the fact that federal or state investigators took up the cases give it lead status? I had always assumed that any and all legal issues should be relegated to a section down below, however in the last month or so there seems to be some very differing opinions on that. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 19:15, 18 March 2014 (UTC) reply

Hi Market and ElKevbo, thanks to both of you for your replies here. I would agree with ElKevbo that material not specific to The Art Institutes should not be included in this article. As you say, this information was added by an IP editor who has been making such additions to articles about a number of for-profit educational institutions recently, and to my mind this suggests an agenda.

Ultimately, what matters here is not the intention of the editor, but whether the information is encyclopedic and relevant to the article. I would argue that it is not relevant here. In general terms, my understanding of whether legal issues should be mentioned in the lead comes down to extent of coverage of those legal issues in reliable sources. If they receive wide coverage, then a short mention is reasonable. This applies if the legal issues are specific to the organization that the article focuses on, which is not the case here.

For the EDMC legal issues information, since both of you seem to be in favor of removing this, would one of you be willing to make the edit? Cheers, WWB Too ( Talk · COI) 13:08, 19 March 2014 (UTC) reply

I'm not really for it but after the last few weeks I'm not really against it either, I'm on the fence & haven't heard much consensus tho I appreciate ElKevo's insights & I do tend to think this isn't an Exxon Valdez level legal issue (to borrow a metaphor from my dicussion on the EDMC page). ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 02:30, 21 March 2014 (UTC) reply

Checking in, I don't see any activity on this recently but will stop by to see if there is any consensus. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 04:31, 9 April 2014 (UTC) reply

Hi Market, I reached out to ElKevbo recently but it looks like he's not been able to take another look at this. In the interest of resolving this, one way or the other, I've just asked over at WikiProject Education if anyone there would be able to offer their thoughts. Cheers, WWB Too ( Talk · COI) 14:55, 9 April 2014 (UTC) reply

I still haven't received any responses from WikiProject Education regarding mention of the EDMC lawsuits in the intro, but I wanted to point out that the same IP editor recently added more details here about EDMC. The new sentence quotes a DOJ report about EDMC's recruiting practices and, I think perhaps even more clearly than the previous edit, doesn't belong in the introduction of the article. I wonder if its addition might sway you to remove both sentences, Market, as nearly half the lead is now made up of information focused entirely on EDMC. Let me know your thoughts. I will also reach out again to WikiProject Education about this update. Cheers, WWB Too ( Talk · COI) 16:20, 24 April 2014 (UTC) reply

Getting a bit tired of these anon users that just show up once a month and add detail to lead sections. Is it wrong? Maybe not, but neither is my fatigue from it. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 20:42, 9 May 2014 (UTC) reply

Hi again Market, thanks for removing that sentence from the article's introduction. Are you still on the fence about the other sentence, regarding EDMC's lawsuits and investigations? I've been looking for a third opinion here, but so far not had any luck. Also, if you're able to take a look, I would appreciate your thoughts on my other requests for the Brown Mackie and Argosy University articles.

Honestly, I completely understand your fatigue over these IP edits. It's my feeling that these are likely the work of one editor, given the pattern of edits and similarity of edit summaries. I'd thought about leaving a message for the editor on the IP's talk page, but I realized that since they seem to use a number of different IPs, it's unlikely they'd see it. I'm open to suggestions on how we could address the situation. Cheers, WWB Too ( Talk · COI) 22:03, 12 May 2014 (UTC) reply

I was asked to have a look at this discussion by WWB Too, given his inability to find someone willing to give a third opinion and my interactions with him in editing Brown Mackie College. After reading this discussion and the lead section, I can say that I don't believe the bit about EDMC should be included in the lead of the AI article, and it probably doesn't belong in the article at all. Unless the lawsuits specifically involved an AI school or had some material impact on an AI school, I'm not sure why it merits mention here. Our users are smart enough to click through to the EDMC article and read all about the details of the parent company – lawsuits and all – for themselves. All that said, if there is a specific lawsuit involving an AI school – and the above discussion seems to indicate that there is – that needs to be investigated to see if it belongs here. Acdixon ^{( talk · contribs)} 20:40, 6 June 2014 (UTC) reply

Hi again Acdixon, thanks for taking a look at this for me. One of the suits (a Department of Justice investigation and lawsuit begun in 2011) that falls under the umbrella of the general statement regarding EDMC does specifically involve The Art Institutes, and you can see the full details of that suit discussed in the History section. If there's consensus, I can understand there being a short mention of this in the lede, but I do think it is WP:UNDUE to mention all of EDMC's suits and investigations in the introduction of this article.

I should note that the History section also currently discusses a second suit, which involves a whistleblower from another of EDMC's schools, South University. Although The Art Institutes aren't specifically mentioned as being part of the suit, I believe editors felt this belongs in the article since the suit is against EDMC as a whole. Again, I since The Art Institutes is not a major part of this suit, I do not believe this needs to be mentioned in the lede. Cheers, WWB Too ( Talk · COI) 12:53, 10 June 2014 (UTC) reply

After looking through most of the bluelinks on List of The Art Institutes locations, I see that very few have independent references establishing notability of that particular location. A proposal to merge locations into the main article was discussed here in 2011, and opposed by several editors, mostly IPs. I think this proposal should be revisited, given that most locations do not meet the notability criteria set in WP:NSCHOOL, WP:CHAIN and WP:BRANCH, or the general notability guideline, and as such, should be merged, redirected, or deleted as non-notable. Dialectric ( talk) 18:54, 17 February 2015 (UTC) reply

I agree. Champaign Supernova ( talk) 22:02, 17 February 2015 (UTC) reply

I think the current approach of a separate list article with the locations is best due to the number of them. The list would overwhelm the main article if included. Bahooka ( talk) 22:09, 17 February 2015 (UTC) reply

List of The Art Institutes locations is a reasonable merge/redirect target. My main point is that each school does not have the notability for a seperate page. Dialectric ( talk) 01:11, 18 February 2015 (UTC) reply

Many of the branches are inherently notable as they were formerly independent colleges, before being acquired by The Art Institutes. We shouldn't have a list article that's overwhelmed by information about the history of a bunch of separate schools. So I could see merging the articles that are stubs (or that become stubs after some prudent trimming), but with an eye toward spinning them out again as separate articles when needed. Toohool ( talk) 05:49, 27 February 2015 (UTC) reply

I see your point about formerly independent colleges. For now I will focus on merging the articles for those branches that did not have a history as another college. Dialectric ( talk) 18:16, 31 March 2015 (UTC) reply

unjustified as a separate article DGG ( talk ) 04:32, 20 August 2015 (UTC) reply

I support the merge proposal. Champaign Supernova ( talk) 19:58, 25 August 2015 (UTC) reply