Affiliate Summit West kicked off again on Sunday, and the CUnet team is busy meeting with current and future affiliates (and giving out pens).  Located at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, this is the final day of the summit, which provides educational sessions on the latest industry issues and fosters a productive networking environment for affiliate marketers. If you’re still milling around the halls, come stop by booth 125 and we’ll give you a warm welcome.

	The CUnet Staches Team
Jeff Herz Director of Internal Operations	Ray Philip Senior SEO Strategist	Ben Counter Director of Telephony Products
Gianfranco Origliato Business/Technical Analyst for Peterson’s Interactive	Jay Donaldson Senior Director of Application Development	Tabitha Pierce Senior Affiliate Manager

Well, it’s been an exciting month here at CUnet. Beyond our fabulously amazing team of performance marketing specialists, CUnet also secretly harbored a team of manly, hirsute individuals that opted to support Movember, a month-long charity event where men (and some women) grow mustaches to help raise funds for men’s health education and research. In order to help out the CUnet Staches team, our employees engaged in increasingly outrageous behavior to help drive the fundraising goals, including eating a head of lettuce in less than 15 minutes and ingesting a ghost pepper, which was the hottest pepper in the world in 2007 according to the Guinness Book of World Records. We also live streamed some of these events from the office so that our clients could watch.

Ultimately, the CUnet Staches team raised over $4,300 for charity and placed in the top 80 Movember teams with under 10 members.

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Attendees get ready to tee off during CUnet’s inaugural Premiere Vendor Summit. Second Row: Jon Delrusso, left, Ben Counter, Brad Gibbs (CGO – Plattform), Patrick Mckenna (CEO – DMI Partners), Jerry Slavonia (CEO – CampusExplorer), Matt McLaughlin, Brian Eberman (CEO – Avenue 100), Greg O’Brien (CEO – CollegeBound). Front Row: Dante Aubian (Sr Account Exec – CollegeBound), left, Greg Loeffelholz (Managing Director – CUnet), Brian Keigley (SVP – CampusExplorer), Doug Brown (CEO – All Star Directories), Rob Carbonaro (SVP- Avenue 100), Anthony Rolon (President  – Americolleges)

The weather’s turning colder, the leaves are turning color, and CUnet has officially wrapped up another exciting summer season. The warm weather always brings good opportunities to reconnect with partners and customers – we thought we’d share some of our favorite highlights here.

CUnet Vendor Summit
This year, we kicked off with our inaugural Premiere Vendor Summit, a free event that brought together our clients and vendors for two days of discussion about news and trends within the online education space, the impact of government regulations on vendor partnerships, and one-on-one networking opportunities.

“It was an opportunity to engage our vendors in a discussion about how to thrive under the new government regulations.,” said Greg Loeffelholz, managing director of Inquiry Generation at CUnet. “We wanted to allow our top vendors to interact directly with executives from our agency schools to build a better understanding of operational change.”

Oh. And we also managed to squeeze in some golf at the lovely Paramus Golf & Country Club and take in a Mets game at Citi Field.

The event was a rousing success. According to Greg O’Brien, CEO of CollegeBound:

“The CUnet Vendor Summit was a very focused, balanced forum for higher education marketing leader. It provided a unique opportunity for leading organizations to share opinions, voice concerns, and discuss changes in the industry. If this becomes an annual event, I certainly look forward to next year.”

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Gen. Colin Powell came across as warm, funny and engaging during his talk today at the close of APSCU’s 2011 Annual Convention & Expo.

Titled “Higher Education and the American Dream,” the speech ranged from Powell’s life to his thoughts on the for-profit education industry, and it ended with a standing ovation for the former Secretary of State.

“Our society has such a need for education and no field has more to help than career and private sector education,” said Powell. During the talk, he urged the industry to continue fighting for regulatory reforms. “Make the case,” said Powell. “The purpose of private sector education is to help American people strive for a brighter future.”

Powell also pointed out that he himself was a product of what education can make you. His parents were poor, uneducated Jamaicans that came here to start a better life. Education enabled Powell to “change the history of my family,” he said.

Proprietary education is an increasingly important part of the American Dream largely because it allows immigrants a route up. The United States is an inspiration for the world, said Powell. Immigration is the lifeblood of the American system. Other countries like Japan do not integrate immigrants well- The United States.

Pictures from the first day at APSCU 2011:

Greetings from Texas! CUnet is at the 2011 Annual APSCU Convention & Expo this week, along with the Beach Boys,Colin Powell, and a bevy of schools and education industry professionals.

Located in Grapevine, Texas, home of Daniel Johnson, the Guinness Book of World Records holder for Guitar Hero, and named for the wild mustang grapes that grow in the area, this year’s event is expected to draw approximately 1,5000 attendees from the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

As you can see from the pictures, we’re putting the finishing touches on our booth right now. This year’s theme is transparency, so expect to see transparent walls, white-leather chairs and clear cases for the iPad 2s that we’re going to be giving away to a few lucky winners over the course of the convention. Stop by and say hello to us at booth 1119.

If you weren’t able to make it to the convention this year, keep your eyes peeled as our APSCU retinue tweets, posts, and blogs coverage of the convention.

I wanted to share some thoughts and reflections about CCA’s annual conference in Las Vegas last week. On Thursday evening I sat at The Imagine America Foundation (IAF) Gala and watched Jack Larson receive The Pioneer Award. For those not familiar with The Pioneer Award, it is the lifetime achievement award within our circle of the education world. Jack was well deserving of the award; Career Education Corporation founder, entrepreneur and solid family man.

The Pioneer Award is one of the many awards and activities that IAF is involved in during APSCU’s events and one of the many activities that IAF is involved with during the year. For those unfamiliar with the IAF, let me explain its mission:

Established in 1982, the Imagine America Foundation is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to providing scholarship, research and training support for private sector colleges and universities. Since its inception, the Foundation has provided over $40 million in scholarship and award support for graduating high school seniors, adult learners and U.S. military veterans attending private sector colleges nationwide through its award-winning Imagine America programs. The Foundation also publishes vital research publications for the higher education sector, honors achievement in private sector education and offers faculty development training.

At Friday’s Award Luncheon, IAF presented our military students with outstanding achievement awards for scholarship and leadership. The ceremony was a remarkable recognition of the sacrifice these women and men have made for our country and to their families. The Foundation’s support of our military is only made possible from the continued support of our corporate partners.

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In just a few short weeks we’ll be gathering at the annual CCA Convention. This year, CUnet will be at booth 811 and encourages everyone to stop by and shoot a hole or two of golf with us! You can even enter onsite to win one of eight Callaway Diablo Edge Drivers that we will be giving away at the end of the show.

If you’d like to learn more about CUnet, our activities at the CCA or schedule a meeting with us during the conference, go to www.cunet.com/cca. If you sign up for a meeting with us through the site, we’ll have a special gift waiting for at the conference.

Fore!