Contrary to Claims, Aristotle University Aided Foreign Students Financially

Editor’s note: In email to Patch and a report Friday by NBC San Diego, registered nurse Lisa Robinson reacted to a $21 million lawsuit by Aristotle University co-founder Xanthi Gionis against a state agency and others.

Robinson, an advocate of some former Aristotle students, told Patch and NBC7: “My only agenda for inquiring about Aristotle University was to find out if the students from Africa, India and the Philippines would receive a master’s [degree] in public health as paid for and promised. If there is any information to indicate that is possible, from the school or any official, that would come as a great relief to the foreign students whose lives have been turned upside down.”

Mildred Lyon, former state Senate campaign manager for Gionis, wrote the following response to Robinson's question:

To the editor:

Is there a name attached to this inquiry? It sounds an awful lot like the alleged “good Samaritan” Lisa Robinson, who has actually completely destroyed the students’ lives altogether.

Perhaps Robinson might find something better to do, at this point, like for example retaining counsel to respond to the complaint in federal court for the $21 million lawsuit that has been filed against her.

First of all, you may want to let the public know that absolutely no monies were ever received in advance by Aristotle University from any student, ever. In fact, that has been the case for all students who have ever studied in any of their degree programs.

So there are no monies to be recovered by the students. They paid their tuition, for each of the courses they completed, as they went through the program, with the exception of the final module that they were attending in January and it was in fact their decision to stop attending classes until the “news story” and “press” had died down.

Some very interesting facts will come out during the trial that I think will show just how very much Aristotle University did on behalf of its students.

For example, it paid out of its own pocket for each of the nurses who were in the MPH degree program to attend a 3-day workshop at another school in order to challenge the CNA licensure examination in California. So after arriving from their home country, they became licensed professionals in the state of California.

That brought a great deal of opportunity to them and also gave them a great deal of self-pride. Aristotle felt that by becoming licensed professionals in the U.S. shortly after their arrival to the shores of the U.S., they would have a greater opportunity to receive better clinical positions when they applied for the work-study internships that they were eligible to participate in.

Also, it was the first step toward understanding the health-care system as it exists in the U.S.

On one occasion, Aristotle paid (out of its own pocket, mind you) for one student from Thailand to take private English accent reduction classes in order to assist her to be more successful in finding an Internship.

On yet another occasion, Aristotle University paid out of its own pocket for a student to take private TOEFL preparation classes at another local school, so that the student would be able to become licensed as a pharmacist in the U.S., his career in his native land. This would also help him to find a more valuable internship or practical training.

Each of these students appeared on television to “ask for help” from the public. You would ask why?

Well, I believe very strongly that it is due to the fact that they have been told by the likes of Lisa Robinson, as the student e-mails will indicate, that there is some possibility to sue the “deep pockets” of their university, get lots of money and be able to remain in the U.S. under some other immigration provision.

The students who first began this “Greek tragedy” were actually incapable of continuing their studies because they did not have sufficient funds, in the first place, to study abroad.

[This is] best evidenced by the fact that, as of this date, they have been able to transfer to another school. So they decided to “get help from the public” by stating that they have been “had” by Aristotle University: “Help us, pay the monies that we knew we didn’t have when we showed proof of financial solvency to the U.S. F-1 Visa official in our homeland.”

Even in their television interviews, you will see how they ask “America to help, Americans to help.”

Lisa Robinson says in one of her early television interviews “I couldn’t believe this was happening to human beings.” What exactly was happening to human beings at Aristotle University? They were being educated.

You would think she discovered a semi-truck filled with illegal aliens in the hot summer sun with no water or air. Instead, she found international graduate students studying public health in Carlsbad, yes, truly a horrible situation.

Then we have our never more ignorant state Senator Mark Wyland, who is the absolute best example of the belief held by the majority of American voters that stupidity is a bipartisan issue.

We hear him saying that somehow, without any investigation whatsoever, it was determined that Aristotle University had “taken advantage” of their students.

Unfortunately for Senator Wyland, he jumped on a bandwagon just as it was going off of the cliff and there are consequences to this type of reckless disregard of the truth, ergo the lawsuits.

Senator Wyland is quick to take the leap. If someone is bleeding, they must be dead. That is the type of circular logic, without an ounce of common sense or critical thinking, that constitutes our California Legislature.

Not only is Sacramento broken, but as Xanthi has said,  so many times, are we even sure that it ever worked in the first place? Tort reform. How about holding politicians, governmental agencies and, yes, even ignorant meddlers accountable.

That is what the lawsuit filed in Sacramento by the law offices of Keith Oliver will do for California. It’s a start; hold them accountable.

With regard to tuition monies: Just to set the record straight, students paid tuition when every two-month module began. They paid for the course that they were about to take.

When a student didn’t have the complete monies to pay for their class, Aristotle allowed them to propose a payment plan and worked with them—something, I guarantee you, any other local school would not do. 

When their module (a class basically) ended, they began a new class and paid the tuition for that class and so forth. There is no “thousands of dollars in tuition” for them to “recover” as reported.

The students who have reportedly “paid Gionis $18,000,” that would have been on a few students nearing the end of their two-year educational program and that would be $18,000 over a one and a half  year period.

So Aristotle University pocketed $1,000 a month from each student, who could pay their tuition a month. That is before rent, professors, materials, books and minus any deductions in profit used by Aristotle toward opportunities for each individual student, like the seminars and private courses I mentioned above, in English accent, TOEFL, CNA, etc.

Lastly, I would add, these students are all adults, most of them married with children. If they didn’t like Aristotle University or its operations, they should have very simply transferred out!

Mind you, before Robinson and Karin Tausan appeared on the scene, there was not one complaint or request for transfer from these students.

Instead, we see the very same students, who were most recently on NBC 7 news, sending letters of thank you to Xanthi Gionis, Albert Anarwat, texted Xanthi Gionis on all major holidays, as recently as New Year’s Day 2013, just a few days before he felt the desperation due to his economic situation to slander and libel Aristotle University and Xanthi Gionis.

In the text, he wished her well and thanked her for all that she did for him. Then he runs out of money and guess what? Xanthi Gionis and Aristotle University have taken his life savings and all sorts of garbage!

How can $2,000 be a life savings, I ask you?

In the television interview, he claims that the “life savings” that he came to the U.S. with and allegedly gave to Aristotle University was actually $10,000. Not!

There have no yet been any allegations of the students being bound by chains in the one-room university. There was not a “paid for and promised” as your reader (Robinson) refers to.

She is an absolute idiot and every time she opens her mouth, it becomes even more apparent.

The students who were manipulated by Lisa Robinson to give false interviews and statements did so because they were the students who had fabricated their financial documents to gain entry to the U.S. and in order to fraudulently receive their F-1 visas from U.S. F-1 visa officials in their native countries.

It is a well known fact that on occasion, international students will “beef up” their bank accounts for their visa interview with monies that they accumulate from all of their friends and relatives in order to generate a “hefty” balance in their account in order to justify sufficient funding to study abroad.

In most instances, these student visas are denied. However, some adept liars fall through the cracks and make it to the shores of the U.S.

However, once here, with no actual money to study,  they look for opportunities available to them to immigrate. They are faced with finding an “alternate means of staying in the U.S.”

Sad story, perhaps, but not the fault of any university. The students who began this entire ordeal with Aristotle were coincidentally the students who did not have the funds to continue their studies and they now cannot transfer for that very same reason.

Perhaps Lisa Robinson should have taken the students to a PI attorney to explain to them the consequences of defaming one’s character here in the United States or destroying one’s business, professional and political reputation.

Here in the U.S., the students should have been explained: “Tell a lie, lose your lawsuit.”

Irene Niuke, who appeared on NBC 7, speaks of it taking time to transfer to another university as the excuse for not yet having transferred, when in fact, she is unable to do so because of economic inability to pay tuition at any school, including Aristotle University. Lie after lie after lie after lie.

What would stop that? Deportation, not likely, she would only continue lying in another country. A lawsuit? She would only go to another country.

The reasons that she cites in the interview for not being in an educational program have absolutely nothing to do with Aristotle University or a lengthy admissions process. It is because nobody has stepped up to “pay her way.”

As you will see, the students who began this entire fiasco, like Albert Anarwat, will not be the ones who will transfer to another academic program, unless, of course, they obtain the “help” of third parties.

Irene went on the airways to say that there were no classes, no professors, no books and so forth, at Aristotle University—all of which are absolute lies and will be proven at trial.

For example, there are sign-in sheets that all students signed upon entering their classes each week. There are professors who will testify at trial, exams to show, graded papers and so forth. Not to mention billing statements to Aristotle for the orders placed on new books for each of the students and for every module (2 months) which, by the way, were loaned free to the students for their use.

Should Xanthi have attended one of the San Diego County Republican meetings and dropped the huge stack of exams and sign-in sheets on Mark Wyland’s lap? Would he “get it” then? Will he ever “get” it?

Likely not, but thank God for term limits and he will be back at the mill again very soon and not the “diploma mill” he so badly wants to find.

As you know, these stories spread like wildfire and it was unbelievable to all of us.

Xanthi suffered a great deal in all of this and there are many of us who saw it all, firsthand, and will rejoice in her vindication.

They perhaps were lies of desperation from the students, but that does not excuse what happened to the Xanthi, a witch hunt.

So now does Aristotle University sue the students who lied for defamation? I suppose that is an option. Does it wait for the depositions of the students through the court case in order to clear its name?

Enter now Karin Tausan and Lisa Robinson. Who on earth, I ask you, would conduct themselves as these losers have? Certainly, nobody with a real life of their own.

Robinson is not even known to Xanthi yet she states that Aristotle University was a “one-room” schoolhouse. Really? I don’t think so and anyway, she needs to crawl back under her rock in the backyard and mind her own business, that is, if she has any.

The school, by the way, was located in the same building complex as National University. It was set up with one classroom, two administrative offices, a break area for students and another small room which accommodated a Muslim student's daily prayers.

It was not a one-room university and there are witnesses to that, floor plans and photos available which will come out at trial. The state requires you to have in facilities what you need for the number of students that you have.

It is not at all unusual to have small graduate classes, not so common, let’s say for undergraduate degree programs. So should Aristotle University have had eight classrooms for 10 students? There is something to be said for fiscal conservatism, wouldn’t you say?

One classroom for 10 students, clearly logical. But why, I ask you, should Aristotle University explain this to a person off the street, like Lisa Robinson?

Lisa Robinson deserves no answers but deserves to answer many questions in court.

With regard to associate’s degrees, Aristotle University can accept absolutely any student they wish to admit to their master’s program. They determine the criteria for admission.

It is not uncommon, at all, that associate degree holders who are licensed professionals, like practicing nurses, would be admitted to a master’s degree program.

There are Ivy League schools that do it and Aristotle University did it on occasion when it felt it was appropriate.

Aristotle University does not have to explain its procedures of admission to every person who thinks she deserves an answer, like Lisa Robinson. It is absolutely none of her business as is anything concerning the students and their education.

What has “turned the students lives upside-down” is trusting Lisa Robinson. It’s a shame she doesn’t have what it takes to own a university that the students can now attend with the donations of American citizens.

Maybe a not-for-profit should be their next endeavor. Perhaps they should have all thought about the consequences to their actions months ago.

When you take an action, a normal individual has a future plan or at least a consideration of what might occur; they don’t just arbitrarily act, and then act very stupidly at that.

Lisa Robinson and Karin Tausan in all of their ignorance were the destruction of the academic futures of the Aristotle University students.

I personally believe that the students should sue Lisa Robinson and Karin Tausan for the complete and utter destruction of their university program and the interruption of their studies here in the United States. That’s who they should seek damages from—the persons who truly caused their damage.

Mildred Lyon