The University of Alabama in Huntsville recently dissolved a contract with a self-styled business guru — who had a history of fraudulent business practices — to help develop a piece of teaching technology aimed primarily at K-12 students. But some observers are wondering why it took the university six months to terminate the relationship after unsavory details of the entrepreneur’s past came to light — and why due diligence did not stop the university from signing the contract in the first place.

The university went into business in 2007 with Bernard Dohrmann — an entrepreneur who has a long history of run-ins with federal watchdogs, including two convictions — to help monetize a tool called Super Teaching. It entered into a contract in December of that year with a company called Life Success Academy, headed by Dohrmann and his wife, as well as another company called Monte Sano Associates, to help test and improve the Super Teaching hardware.

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The University of Alabama in Huntsville has put up its credibility as an institution of higher learning as collateral to develop and market the invention of a twice convicted con man — and no one seems to be paying attention.

The “invention” in question is called Super Teaching (interchangeably used as one or two words). Here is the description of this revolutionary learning system from the UAH website:

SuperTeaching is a multi-sensory instructional system designed to utilize computer generated audio and imagery in order to engage learners. The SuperTeaching system includes three screens positioned at the front of the room, which display images in a seemingly random pattern. The images included in the pattern roll are those of the instructor, learners, course content, and nature scenes.

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