June 12, 2009, Washington DC…Global Academy Online, Inc., the premier provider of private label content and qualified
faculty to teach online college courses announced today their decision to fund University Builders Online, a Cleveland non-profit
501c3 veterans charitable organization dedicated to developing non-profit online and hybrid universities. The contribution
from the Academy and private benefactors is expected to top five million dollars.
Dr. Fred DiUlus, the CEO and Founder
of Global Academy Online. Inc. has taken the reins as the first Executive Director of University Builders Online. Originally
formed in 2008 by a group of dedicated Cleveland professionals as well as Global Academy Online principals, including DiUlus,
University Builders became one of the prime suitors for the former 160-year-old Myers University of Cleveland. At the time,
the school, the alleged alma mater of legendary entrepreneurs John D. Rockefeller and Henry Firestone, was under the control
of a County Court appointed Special Master for liquidation to the highest bidder.
Unable to rest control
of the non-profit school away from a for-profit organization, University Builders set out to create a not-for-profit charitable
organization that would permit the development and funding of non profit schools to compete for students amid a sea of profit
driven higher education providers and education conglomerate Pac Men; a reference DiUlus makes to the one-time popular video
game where Pac Men gobbled up everything in sight. Rather than take over an ailing or marginal school, he notes, University
Builders will provide instead the ability for non-profit school organizers to fund, develop, staff, and administer, accredited
online and hybrid universities (a 50% combination of on-ground and online delivery) dedicated to education, not profits.
University Builders first effort is “The Ohio Project”. It is the first non-profit university being created
in Ohio in a hundred years. The plan according to DiUlus is to fill the void left by the demise of the non-profit Myers University
as it morphed into a for profit entity.
Over the past ten years, Dr. DiUlus has been instrumental in the
creation and development of several established online education organizations. Among them are an online school of entrepreneurship,
an online certification program in applied ethics, and an online tuition free university, all the first of their kind. He
was also behind the creation of the “Billion Dollar Project”, an online charity singularly dedicated to helping
stamp out ignorance in the world. He says “University Builders is the quintessential demonstrator
of how that can be done.”
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Contact: LaFonda Oliver-Bowen
Vice President, Communications Global
Academy Online, Inc. Washington, DC 202-580-8755 413-521-8755
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