Philip Hampson Knight is an American billionaire business magnate who is the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Nike, Inc., a global sports equipment and apparel company. He was previously its chairman and CEO. As of December 2023, Forbes estimated his net worth at $45.0 billion. He is also the owner of the stop motion film production company Laika. Knight is a graduate of the University of Oregon and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He was part of the track and field club under coach Bill Bowerman at the University of Oregon with whom he would later co-found Nike.
Charles Erskine Scott Wood or C.E.S. Wood was an American author, civil liberties advocate, artist, soldier, attorney, and Georgist. He is best known as the author of the 1927 satirical bestseller, Heavenly Discourse.
A big year is a personal challenge or an informal competition among birders who attempt to identify as many species of birds as possible by sight or sound, within a single calendar year and within a specific geographic area. Popularized in North America, big years are commonly carried out within a single U.S. state or Canadian province, or within larger areas such as the Lower 48 contiguous states, within the official American Birding Association (ABA) area, or sometimes the entire globe. The ABA big year record of 840 species was set by John Weigel of Australia in 2019. The big year world record of 6,852 species was set in 2016 by Arjan Dwarshuis of the Netherlands.
Adam Smith University is a private distance learning university founded in 1991 by Donald Grunewald, who is still its president. Grunewald was president of Mercy College between 1972 and 1984.
George D. Gollin is an American physics professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Besides his work on particle physics and the International Linear Collider, he has since 2003 made numerous efforts in fighting institutions which are considered to be diploma mills, which has caused him to receive significant public attention. Gollin placed second in the 2014 Democratic primary for Illinois's 13th congressional district.
Bircham International University is a private, unaccredited institution of distance-learning higher education. It is registered in Spain and the United States (Delaware), and formerly operated from the Bahamas.
The glaucous-winged gull is a large, white-headed gull. The genus name is from Latin Larus which appears to have referred to a gull or other large seabird. The specific glaucescens is Neo-Latin for "glaucous" from the Ancient Greek, glaukos, denoting the grey color of its wings.
David Allen Sibley is an American ornithologist. He is the author and illustrator of The Sibley Guide to Birds, which rivals Roger Tory Peterson's as the most comprehensive guides for North American ornithological field identification.
Belford University was an organization that offered online unaccredited degrees for "life experience". The organization maintained a post office box in Humble, Texas, but its certificates were mailed from the United Arab Emirates. Along with many similar websites, it was owned by the Karachi-based company Axact, the main business of which, according to an investigation by The New York Times, is "to take the centuries-old scam of selling fake academic degrees and turn it into an Internet-era scheme on a global scale". In July 2018, Shoaib Ahmed Sheikh, the CEO of Axact was arrested and sentenced to prison for 20 years for his role in perpetuating this scam.
American Central University (ACU) was an unaccredited distance learning private, for-profit university licensed by the state of Wyoming in 2004. The Oregon Office of Degree Authorization stated that the institution may be run from Malaysia.
Rushmore University is an unaccredited institution of higher learning offering online degrees in a variety of business-related fields, exclusively via distance learning. It has been described as a diploma mill, providing illegitimate academic degrees and diplomas for a fee.
The Oregon Office of Degree Authorization (ODA) is a unit of the Office of Student Access and Completion, with responsibilities related to maintaining high standards in private higher education institutions in Oregon. ODA administers laws and provides oversight of private colleges and universities offering degree programs in the state, validates individual claims of degrees, enforces the closure of substandard or fraudulent higher education programs in the state, and enforces policy for publicly funded postsecondary programs and locations. It was formerly a unit of the Oregon Student Access Commission (OSAC), which became Oregon Student Assistance Commission prior to January 1, 2012. Its functions moved to the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission as part of the Office of Student Access and Completion in July 2012.
Accrediting Commission International (ACI), also known as Accrediting Commission International for Schools, Colleges, and Theological Seminaries, possibly associated with International Accrediting Commission (IAC), also known as International Accrediting Commission for Schools, Colleges and Theological Seminaries, is an unrecognized educational accreditation corporation in the United States. It primarily accredits religious schools, including seminaries and Bible colleges, and also offers accreditation to non-U.S. schools that offer business education programs. It is on a 2009 list of accreditation mills in College and University, the journal of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.
The name Warnborough is associated with several related institutions of higher education existing from 1973 to the present, including Warnborough College Oxford, Warnborough College UK, Warnborough College Ireland and Warnborough University, some of which are no longer in operation. Warnborough College UK provides educational programmes both on-site in Canterbury, England, and by distance learning. Warnborough College Ireland offers distance-learning programmes from Ireland. Warnborough College has been the subject of multiple controveries relating to misrepresentation, education quality, legal and tax troubles, and eligibility to participate in government financial assistance.
The American University of London (AUOL) is an online diploma mill. The company disputes the label and instead describes itself as a for-profit unaccredited educational institution offering undergraduate and graduate degrees solely by distance learning. It is a different organization from the American University in London.
Reginald Shepherd was an American poet, born in New York City and raised in the Bronx. He died of cancer in Pensacola, Florida, in 2008.
The Stamford Raffles Award is an award of the Zoological Society of London. It is "For distinguished contributions to zoology by amateur zoologists or professional zoologists in recognition of contributions which are outside the scope of their professional activities." The first awards were sculptures by Henry Moore called 'Animal Form', followed later by sculptures called 'Young Hippo' by Anita Mandl.
Timothy Robert Birkhead is a British ornithologist. He has been Professor of Behaviour and Evolution at the University of Sheffield since 1976.
Paul Lawrence Farber was a professor of the history of science at the Oregon State University. He wrote or edited eight books about the history of science as well as dozens of articles. He was an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Noah Keefer Strycker is an American birdwatcher. In 2015, he set a record for a worldwide Big year of birding, seeing 6,042 of the world's estimated 10,365 bird species at the time (58.3%), becoming the first person to record half of the world's birds in one year. His journey spanned 41 countries and all seven continents from January 1 to December 31, 2015.
