New bird in town – University of Phoenix

University of Phoenix enters Milwaukee market with campus in Bishops Woods
Starting in the fall, working professionals will have another option for added training and education – the University of Phoenix. But it won’t require a transfer to Arizona, because the university is opening a Milwaukee campus – at Bishops Woods in Brookfield.
The University of Phoenix was created in 1976 as a school designed specifically for adults who wanted to continue their education while still working, said James Chitwood, director for enrollment at the University of Phoenix (www.universityofphoenix.com). The university requires that its students be working full-time.
“There was no such thing as adult education,” Chitwood said.
Milwaukee is a prime location for this type of adult education opportunity because the workforce is changing from being predominantly manufacturing-based to include more service-based industries, Chitwood said.
In order for adults to make the transition from one industry to another, the proper education is required, but many cannot leave work to return to school full-time. The University of Phoenix gives people the opportunity to earn their degree one class at a time and still finish in around four years.
“A normal program would take close to 12 years,” Chitwood said. “Who has 12 years to wait for an education?”
The University of Phoenix’s learning model is not theory-based where the students go to a classroom, hear a lecture, and then go home and memorize it. There is more open discussion and students are required to give presentations and write papers based on what is discussed, Chitwood said.
“Our students come with a lot of knowledge, and we want to show how that knowledge is beneficial in the classroom,” he said.
The classes meet one night a week, in five-week sessions for undergraduates and six weeks for graduate classes.
“Our learning model is not traditional, but we’re not teaching the traditional student,” Chitwood said.
The Milwaukee campus will offer bachelor of science courses in business management and information technology as well as a master’s in business administration when it opens in the fall. More courses will be added based on demand.
The Milwaukee campus is the first in Wisconsin, and the university hopes to add campuses in most major cities in the state, such as Green Bay and Madison, Chitwood said.
It is all part of the university’s Midwest expansion. Campuses have already been established in Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri and will soon follow in Illinois, Indiana, and Minnesota.
The University of Phoenix has approximately 80 campuses in 18 states, Chitwood said. With 90,000 students, it is the nation’s largest private university.
The campuses have been predominantly in the western states simply because of where Phoenix is located. The university expands because of the demand for this kind of educational experience everywhere, Chitwood said.
Along with its campus-based education, the University of Phoenix offers degrees via online study. With Internet access software, students retrieve lectures, questions and assignments from their instructors, then review them off-line. They also have access to online research libraries and services.
All online courses are offered one at a time and last five or six weeks. Students are allowed to take a break between courses, but Phoenix representatives say while that offers convenience, the online program does require a high level of discipline and does not allow students to “coast.”
July 20, 2001 Small Business Times, Milwaukee