You should attend and let them know, in the middle of their first sentence, what you think about their marketing strategy.  You owe it to the audience who may very well request refunds.

And if their "certificate" includes the school's name, call in the lawyers.

Charlie

At 05:18 PM 4/21/2005, you wrote:
>Folks . . . one of our faculty received a notification from The Grant
>Institute for a "Professional Grantwriting Workshop" - June 1 - 3, 2005
>to be held at another sister l university.  The "To" line lists
>"Administrator" at that Institute.  The faculty who received the
>announcement was listed in the "blind copy" line.  He wanted to know if
>it was legit, since the information did not come from our Sponsored
>Programs Office.  I called my counterpart at the university where this
>workshop was to be held, and she knew nothing about it.  As it turns out
>this company rented the space in the campus student center.  No one on
>campus is "sponsoring" the event.  My colleague was  surprised that the
>student center agreed to host it, since her OSP office provides  similar
>training at no cost to faculty and students.  The Grant Institute is
>charging $597 tuition which includes all materials and certificates.
>Anyone heard of The Grant Institute?  They can be found at
>http://www.thegrantinstitute.com/index.php.  The one thing that
>concerns me is that in the email that went out from this company they
>list the name of university in the subject line " Professional
>Grantwriting Workshop - name of institution -  June 2005" which, while
>it does not say "sponsored by" makes it look like that university is
>sponsoring the event, which to me, lends credibility to the workshop . .
>. when in fact, it is just the location for the workshop, with no
>sponsorship . . . does this strike anyone else as somewhat misleading?
>Jackie
>
>
>Jacqueline Givens
>Director, Office of Sponsored Programs
>Kennesaw State University
>1000 Chastain Road, #0111
>Kennesaw, Georgia 30144-5591
>PHONE:  (770) 423-6036
>FAX:  (770) 499-3620
>WEBSITE:  http://www.kennesaw.edu/osp
>
>
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