DISCOVER REAL HIGHER ED REFORM
Welcome to a New Breed of University. Welcome to NewU.
Accreditation and Licensure
NewU University is a 501(c)(3) private nonprofit degree-granting post-secondary educational institution, licensed to operate and issue Bachelor of Arts (BA) degrees by the Washington DC Higher Education Licensure Commission (HELC).
The Commission strives to be a national leader in licensing, compliance monitoring, and enforcement and outreach that ensures students are protected and approved postsecondary institutions provide quality education and training programs. For a list of FAQs, visit the HELC website here. A complete list of approved institutions is available here.
HELC Contact Information:
1050 First St. NE
Washington, DC 20002
202.727.6436
NewU University is a brand new school, and we just opened our doors to our first class of students in Fall 2022. We are bringing much needed reform and innovation to Higher Education for the benefit of students and parents.
Licensure in our nation’s capital by the DC HELC is mandatory, and serves as a transparent and rigid quality control and oversight mechanism. Many people tend to look to accreditation status as an indicator of quality, yet numerous accredited schools continue to close or merge as they fail to innovate the way NewU University does. A list of accredited schools that merged or closed in recent years is available here. Most people are surprised to learn that regional accreditors do not currently have a process for evaluating colleges before they have actively enrolled students, and even when the accreditation process commences it may take a couple of years for it to run its course. Because of these dynamics, it is unrealistic to expect brand new universities to be accredited from the start. NewU University is confident we would meet and exceed any and all regional accreditation standards, so we plan to start the accreditation process with The Middle States Commission on Higher Education in October 2022. Accreditation is retroactive to the date of application.
Because of where we are in our evolution – just starting with our first ever class of students – and because accreditors do not yet provide an option for new schools to get accredited before they have actively enrolled students – we have done our best to start the process as soon as it was legally and practically possible. In the meantime, we strongly encourage prospective students, parents, counselors, and teachers to look to NewU University’s licensure and consider the outcomes NewU is achieving: a unanimous vote of approval by DC HELC, and a recent articulation/credit transfer agreement with the accredited Visible College.
Partners and Supporters
Governance
Mr. Stratsi Kulinski, founder, President & CEO, and member of the Board of Directors. Mr. Kulinski holds a BA from the American University in Bulgaria, and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Ms. Alicia Margoles, Corporate Secretary and member of the Board of Directors. Ms. Margoles holds a BA in Business Administration with a major in Sales & Marketing from the University of Georgia, where she was captain of the Women’s Soccer Team. Since then, Alicia also successfully completed a number of top-ranked executive education programs including an Executive Development Program of The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania, an Executive Leadership Program at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, and an Executive Development Program at Harvard University.
Ms. Viktoriya Zotova, Treasurer & CFO. Ms. Zotova holds a summa cum laude BA from the St. Norbert College in Wisconsin, and is a MLA candidate (expected May 2023) at Harvard University Extension School, and holds a PhD from the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. She was also an instructor of accounting at the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland and at Georgetown University's business school.