Greetings,

I am writing in regard to Webster University's 2014 review of its international campuses.

I am currently a part-time instructor at Webster University Thailand, at the Cha-Am location. I am currently teaching various COAP (Computer Applications) elective courses, as well as a BUSN (Business) course in spreadsheet applications over the summer term.

I am an American, and this is my third time living and working in Thailand. Previously, I have worked in Thailand with digital marketing agencies and also taught IT courses at a technical college in the southern part of Thailand. I noticed a part-time position available at WUT last year (2013) and inquiredabout it, and began a conversation with Roy Avecilla, my supervisor in the Business & Technology department, about Webster's need for a part-time computer electives instructor for the 2014 school year.I began teaching in January 2014 and was placed on a one-year part-time contract for "teaching 5 courses" - as it says in the contract - until December 2014.

1. It is alarming that the WUT directors failed to forward this feedback memo to any of the faculty or staff currently working at the campuses in Thailand, as far as I'm aware. That alone should speak volumes to their incompetence and purposeful attempts at avoiding feedback.

2. Though I have worked at WUT for over 9 months now, I have never officially met the Rector, or any directors, administrators, etc. My first and only point of contact was Roy, a friendly Filipino man who is my supervisor in the Technology department. For several months, I wasn't even aware of who the administrators were, as the website links are hidden: https://archive.today/6yX8I

3. My first impression of WUT was positive and simplistic. I was impressed with how quickly my contract, visa, work permit, and bank transfer were setup and activated. After some months, I realized this was only because WUT was lucky enough to have a very responsible Thai man working in HR, Khun Singto, who is now being treated like a slave, for lack of better words. The HR department is designed to have 3 office staff, yet Singto has been working alone for months. This is because WUT seems to radically underpay and overwork the Thai staff. Currently, all the applicants to the HR positions have bailed after seeing the WUT working environment.

4. On that note, many of the Thai support staff are treated a bit poorly. Their salaries are below the expected market average for similar jobs at Thai colleges and other companies. According to many of them, they only work at Webster to try and boost their resume before quitting after 6-12 months because the pay and working conditions are rather bad. Keep in mind that many companies in Thailand provide housing etc. even for their entry-level position staff. At WUT the staff must commute to work 30-60 minutes, ultimately for an under-paying job.

5. The campus facilities themselves are under-maintained. While compared to Thai government technical colleges it may "look" similar, WUT claims to be a private American university. There are few food/drink options because of the poor location. On the campus, only a few vendors are allowed to sell items, although it has improved in the past few months as far as quality goes and not letting vendors go home early. But the rest of the campus looks and feels so very "temporary" as if the bare minimum is being maintained in order to prepare for a quick exit if need be. Stories are circulating about how WUT got the land for free after a former college left the property, and has done very little to spruce it up. This atmosphere, and the location itself, contributes to the next point on this list.

6. Everyone at WUT believes the Cha-Am location is temporary and not a priority. In less than 9 months of my working there, already 3 times rumors have re-surfaced that the Cha-Am location will besoon abandoned. I have never seen any of the directors or most any faculty members on campus when Iteach on Fridays. The only people on campus when I've arrived on Fridays / some Thursdays besides students and a few part-time instructors are just the Thai support staff. It looks and feels like a dead building complex just pretending to be a university campus at times. At our staff meeting, the Rector said that St. Louis has refused to contribute any significant money to the campus.

7. The Bangkok location is clearly the priority of everyone behind WUT. The students at Cha-Am have low morale because the Cha-Am campus is so under-prioritized. From my understanding, and thisstory is now spreading, WUT only keeps the Cha-Am campus because of a Thai law that requires universities to hold at least 100 rai of land. While I understand if Webster sees growth opportunity in Bangkok, at this rate the Cha-Am campus is apparently functioning as nothing more than a money-making machine for Webster without any attention being paid to the campus or its students. It feels exactly like a fly-by-night for-profit college atmosphere.

8. Morale truly is bad. As an instructor, its almost embarrassing showing up to teach at the Cha-Am campus. The students only maintain their pride and happiness by creating activities clubs and trying to enjoy their time in Thailand together. The students truly are the ONLY thing keeping the Cha-Am campus from being completely dead and lifeless. As an instructor, I have only met a few other instructors who I happened to see in another classroom or in the hallway. There are no activities, meetings, or events for instructors to meet the directors, faculty, staff, or otherwise. There is complete disconnect between everybody. Because of the negative energy, Thai support staff stick together as theyare pretty much in their own, under-paid and mistreated world at WUT. The rest of faculty and instructors are pretty much in an "every man for himself" sort of environment.

9. Turnover is massive, and not only the instructors but also the students. Many students come for a while and then quit and move to another university or go back home it seems. And, the huge turnover of faculty and instructors is NOT because they are bad teachers, which happens at some other schools (especially in Asia). In fact, the instructors at WUT seem rather passionate and of relatively high quality compared to similar international campuses I've witnessed. So why do they leave then? Well, from asking them, it's simply because of the WUT administrators.

10. Contract fraud, withheld salary. You'll probably hear this from other instructors too, but even though my contract was for 5 courses, WUT tried to force me into teaching a 6th class without even asking me if I was interested. They simply put my name on the schedule and that was it. When I emailed the Academic Director, Nisha Malhotra a.k.a. Nisha Ray Chaudhuri (depending on the name she's using at any given time) she ignored my emails. I finally was able to track her down in the hallway on a Thursday and she told me it was "poor form" for me to ask questions about my contract. She tried calling Roy out of teaching his class to "explain to me why I had to teach 6 classes" instead oftalking to me herself. I told her she was the director, why couldn't she talk to me? (This was the first time I'd ever talked to her, mind you.) Finally she asked me what I wanted, and I said firstly I didn't believe I was qualified to teach a prerequisite Business course with my bachelor's degree in Social Science and professional background in web design and digital marketing. Secondly I asked her to put in writing that I was qualified to teach the course, and lastly, I asked to be paid for teaching the course. She said that WUT could only pay me after 2014 was finished, but agreed to "make some phone calls" after I said that it didn't make sense. 30 minutes later she emailed me saying she would find another instructor for that class, and repeated it was "poor form" to bring up the issue.

11. Nisha Malhotra a.k.a. Nisha Ray Chaudhuri deserves her own special attention in any audit. How is a woman who's never previously held any significant position now the Academic Director of a Webster University campus? Absolutely unbelievable. Her incompetence is very obvious, such as whenshe resorted to sarcastic condescension during our summer "staff meeting" trying to explain the policiesof the WUT campus. She was not even able to manage arranging bus transportation properly to and from the staff meeting; I had to ask my supervisor Roy to personally call the bus team to get transportation arranged for the staff meeting. My Thai students who have Nisha as a professor also claim she has said "racist" remarks about Thai people in class. I am not an eye witness to this, however,so please assume this is inaccurate unless corroborating evidence is presented by others.

12. Following up on Miss Nisha, WUT students are now calling Webster the "Indian University" or "Indian Mafia University" because of the rampant nepotism and cronyism going on between the rector, Ratish Thakur, and Nisha, among others. I am not qualified to comment on most of those topics, but mystudents have said they've had undocumented funds "removed" from their financial aid deposits by the administrators. Some students speculate they are collaborating with a bank (or others) for kickbacks which is why they might be withholding salary and financial aid to WUT faculty and students, in order for the bank to capitalize on the funds before the funds are released, or etc. All of these accusations would require a serious, in-depth investigation of WUT accounting. All I know is that these practices are illegal in the United States re: student loans and labor laws.

13. One of my students recently came up to me and claimed he had been "threatened" by the "administrators" for having voiced a public complaint about them. As this student was a Thai, he took the threat seriously and did not seem to want to explain it more to me. As you may know, corruption and extortion run rampant in Southeast Asian universities and companies, and this is why most students(and instructors) probably do not want to come forward at WUT. Visas and work permits are increasingly hard to come by as well, so instructors who want to continue living in Thailand often believe that putting up with employer corruption is a normal part of the process.

14. Webster University should seriously reconsider how the WUT campuses reflect not only on their international brand, but on the United States. As an American, the tactics and reputation of WUT makesme feel very ashamed. Most of the students at WUT are having their first encounter with American organizations of any sort, let alone meeting foreigners from Western countries and beyond. The truth is that there is very little at WUT that is American at all. The former U.S. Military veterans who show up to WUT are often shocked at what they find: disorganization, incompetence, and almost no American citizens in the WUT administration not to mention the faculty. This is not even going into the lagging academic standards, the prejudice of the WUT administration against the student government, and other wholly un-American aspects and ideals at the WUT campus.

15. The computers and IT at WUT are inexcusably poor. For 9 months, I've asked for WiFi to be installed so that I can teach my COAP students how to use web design software. I'm still waiting. In fact, it was only 2 weeks ago that the computer lab the ONLY computer lab on campus got 25 computers with Windows 7 and basic software installed like Office 2013. Previously, we had only 21 computers with Windows XP, Internet Explorer, and some of them wouldn't even turn on. Even now, some of them do not work properly. So my 28 students are not able to learn web design, let alone other basic computer applications. This is NOT the fault of the IT director, who is a helpful guy. It is the WUT administration who refuses to fund his office in order to purchase Windows licenses, WiFi routers, and other basics. Even the government college I taught at in the south of Thailand had campus-wide WiFi signals and modern computers. What a disgrace to Webster that my students must pay for 3G hotspots on their smartphones and share 3 people to one computer in order to study.

This warning sign was found laying on a computer in the lab last week.

In conclusion, there are dozens and dozens of issues that could be mentioned at any university or at anycompany in the world. But as far as Webster University's presence in Thailand goes, suffice it to say that the students and faculty here assume that St. Louis doesn't care very much because the same complaints have been raised for several years now. But I do think Webster does care, otherwise this audit process would not be happening. The tricky issue is of course balancing American regulations andideals with the legalities of Thailand and the culture of Southeast Asia.

In short, there is strong discontent with the current Indian Mafia administration. Unless the current leaders are removed from WUT, the culture of corruption and neglect will likely continue. Despite Webster being pleased, perhaps, the the current leaders of WUT are turning a nice profit (in contrast with past leadership, allegedly), at this rate Webster's brand is suffering tremendously. Not only are American students studying abroad here taking that negativity home, but American veterans and students from all over Asia are spreading the word about WUT problems as well.

WUT has massive potential with great students and mostly great teachers. Being pretty much the only regionally accredited American university in this part of the world is huge. But hopefully Webster focuses on long-term reputation instead of sacrificing quality for a quick rise in profits.

Thanks very much and best regards --