Fast-Growing U. of Phoenix Calculates a More Careful Course - Administration - The Chro... - 1 views
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George Mehaffy on 08 Feb 11"February 6, 2011 Fast-Growing U. of Phoenix Calculates a More Careful Course By Goldie Blumenstyk In the fall of 2009, after closing the books on yet another banner year of enrollment growth, and with its parent company's stock climbing toward a five-year high of $90 per share, the University of Phoenix began to question fundamental pieces of the very formula that had fueled its years of success. Even as its executives celebrated, recalls one, they were uneasy. A feeling was building "in the pit of everyone's stomach: That felt too good." From that "moment of truth," as that executive, Robert W. Wrubel now describes it, Phoenix quietly began what it calls a major change of direction. Out of the public eye, North America's largest private university not only put in motion an overhaul of what had come to be seen as its grow-at-any-cost admissions practices. It also ended a compensation schedule tied to enrollment, began a required orientation program for inexperienced students, and instituted a host of other reforms in marketing and nearly every other important facet of this 438,000-student institution. The moves, orchestrated from its headquarters here, and from corporate outposts like San Francisco, where the university has assembled a team of Silicon Valley veterans and computer scientists to create a cutting-edge electronic course platform, are part of a top-down campaign led by a team of a half-dozen executives, all of whom have joined its $5-billion parent company within the past four years. excited about an education. "We are investing in academics like no other higher-education company can do," says Joseph L. D'Amico, who as president of Apollo Group Inc. oversees the campaign it calls "Reinventing education, again." The goal, he says, "is to take our business to a new level." Last month Apollo provided The Chronicle a behind-the-scenes (but by no means unfettered) look at some of the new recruiting techniques, educational moves, and marketing tactics