UA Global Campus brings more higher ed to Chandler, but there are plenty of questions

The ribbon was cut Feb. 7 on the University of Arizona Global Campus, 180 S. Arizona Ave., Suite 301, which is operated as an online division of the UofA. –Photos by Andrew Lwowski/wranglernews.com

There were smiles all around when the University of Arizona and its online University of Arizona Global Campus cut the ribbon on a new campus in downtown Chandler on Feb. 7.

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Everyone agreed it was a marvelous opportunity to bring higher education to new constituents in the community. UofA also has a traditional university branch campus in downtown Chandler.

But back in Tucson, not everyone was so sure that everything is great with the UAGC plan.

The UofA Faculty Senate has expressed concern about how UAGC will be governed, whether UAGC and its student will be fully integrated into the main university with the same standards and practices, whether current UofA faculty will be integrated into the operation of UAGC, what it will cost and what it will deliver to students.

In 2020, the UofA acquired Ashford University, an online institution that was suffering legal and credibility issues, and rebranded it University of Arizona Global Campus. UAGC technically now is an online university operated in affiliation with the University of Arizona.

UAGC is designed to provide flexible opportunities for working students from diverse backgrounds, who seek a higher education, to help them achieve life and career goals.

Rescuing and rebranding Ashford and assimilating its 28,000 students was approved by the Arizona Board of Regents, but the faculty has said that the process was too fast and it was not as involved as it would have liked.

“There’s no question about it, there’s mistrust,” UofA President Robert C. Robbins told the UofA Faculty Senate early this month. “The way we build the trust back is to engage and ask you to work with us on these issues. It won’t be overnight, but we’ll have to agree to work together to try to implement serving these students.”

UAGC is designed to provide flexible opportunities for working students from diverse backgrounds, who seek a higher education, to help them achieve their life and career goals. UAGC’s Chandler branch, 180 S. Arizona Ave., Suite 301, plans to build strong relationships with the 10 colleges in the Maricopa County Community College District.

UAGC is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Senior College and University Commission. The WASC, which also evaluates schools in various locations throughout Asia and the Pacific, is among six regional accrediting agencies recognized by the U.S. Department of Education and Council for Higher Education Accreditation.

UAGC has nearly 160,000 graduates and offers more than 50 degrees at the associate, bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral levels. At the helm is Provost and Senior Vice President Sarah B. Steinberg, who has a lengthy track record of success at several highly regarded traditional and online universities.

“I am particularly focused on leveraging faculty engagement and technology as a means of guiding our students toward successful completion of their educational goals,” Steinberg said. “At UAGC, we have the experience and expertise throughout the organization to be best in class and exemplars in the higher ed community for supporting and embracing our students in a personalized fashion. My goal is to help UAGC become the ‘go-to institution’ for best practices in adult learning at scale.”

UofA President Robert C. Robbins said it will take about a year and a half to fully integrate UAGC into the university.

Prior to joining UAGC, Steinberg held numerous leadership roles at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, was an adjunct faculty member at University of Pennsylvania and Georgetown University and a long-time executive leader in online and adult education.

Steinberg received her doctorate in higher education management from Pennsylvania, an MBA in finance and marketing from Northwestern and a B.S. and master’s in civil engineering from Cornell.

Yet there remains uneasiness among the faculty in Tucson. Some members want the deal killed. Robbins said the financial stakes are too high now.

“When we entered into this agreement over a year ago, the UA Foundation signed the temporary program participation agreement,” Robbins said. “We then indemnified the UA Foundation as the university, so if we just walked away from it and let it go, then we would be on the hook for all of the money. If the whole thing fell apart, it would be over $1 billion in liability.”

Robbins said it will take about a year and a half to fully integrate UAGC into UofA.

 

 

Lee Shappell
Lee Shappell
Lee Shappell became a journalist because he didn’t become a rocket scientist! He exhausted the math courses available by his junior year in high school and earned early admission to Rice University, intending to take advantage of its relationship with the Johnson Space Center and become an aerospace engineer. But as a high school senior, needing a class to be eligible for sports with no more math available, he took student newspaper as a credit and was hooked. He studied journalism at the UofA and has been senior reporter, copy desk chief and managing editor at several Valley publications.

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