Founders students end semester early

 

By MARY EVA CASSADA

Special to The News & Record

 

The five remaining students at Founders College are taking their final exams to end the semester ahead of schedule.

The school's website calendar says the semester finals were to have ended April 22, but sources said students were taking exams last week in preparation to go home. Although most classes adhered to the original calendar calling for the spring semester to begin Jan. 14, at least one class did not start until February. The calendar also called for separate spring and Easter breaks, but it could not be determined whether those weeks were taken. The accelerated schedule of, at a maximum, 11 weeks of class time is the latest in a series of setbacks at the start-up, for-profit private college, which lost more than half its student body over the Christmas break, along with a few professors and staff. Although the college's website advertises that it is accepting applications for the 2008-09 school year, its 800 telephone number is not in service and public inquiries about college admissions left on an administrator's voicemail were not returned. The open house is listed on the website for November of last year, and personnel who left months ago are still pictured on the website as part of the staff. Sources said that, unlike last spring's all-out effort, no one is recruiting on behalf of the college. The college opened in September 2007. Founders is a sister entity to the luxury Inn at Berry Hill, with which is shares buildings and a campus. Both businesses as well as their executive, Tamara Fuller, have been hit with a barrage of collection and foreclosure lawsuits in the past few months. Fuller did not return a phone call and e-mail seeking comment on the status of the college.