Looking back over the past year, Athens State University President Bob Glenn said the state’s approval of a master’s program in Global Logistics and Supply Chain Management is what he’s most proud of.

The Alabama Commission on Higher Education approved the program in December, though it may be spring of next year before the school begins offering coursework at the master’s level. Athens State has offered a bachelor’s degree in the field since 2010, but Glenn believes the master’s level program will open the door to bigger and better things for the school.

“It was hard work, and we drove the length and breadth of the state many times over, and we faced significant opposition from our sister institutions that were concerned our having master’s programs would somehow hurt their institution,” he said. “We believe the expansion will not cause a problem for any other institution, and we will seek programs that will serve our region and not compete with those other institutions.”

Glenn said regional cooperation is what Athens State has strived for, and cited the school’s partnership in 2013 with the University of North Alabama on a master’s in business administration degree as an example of that. He said the school would continue to offer unique courses of instruction that won’t interfere with any other school programs.

“We do not want to be the institution that spits in someone else’s soup, but at the same time, we won’t be pushed back or limited by any other institutions,” he said.

Interim provost Dr. Ronald Ingle said the state will benefit from Athens State’s logistics coursework because it would turn out graduates who are workforce-ready to take positions at any number of Tennessee Valley industries.

“If you talk to the folks at Carpenter Technology, one of the things they’re looking for is higher education,” Glenn said. “They’ll tell you one of the reasons they came here was because of Calhoun and Athens State, though obviously not the sole reason.”

Both Glenn and Ingle said Athens State has the ability to respond to local industries in ways larger universities cannot. He added the school has the ability to offer new courses of instruction or modify existing curriculum to meet the needs of those industries.

Glenn likened the school’s flexibility to being a “tugboat” as opposed to larger four-year universities, which he likened to aircraft carriers.

“Now think about the Tennessee River,” he said. “You can’t turn around an aircraft carrier in the river. That’s why we’re more like a tugboat. If you want something done in a hurry, if you want nimbleness and the ability to provide flexibility, we’re your guys.”

Adult degree completion program

Glenn said the school is working to aid the local workforce in other ways by offering adult degree completion programs for adults who may have attended college at some point, but dropped out because they needed a full-time job.

As part of the program, Athens State evaluates the work experience of a potential student and provides course credit. For example, if a person has been working as a bookkeeper for several years, but doesn’t have a degree, the school will award coursework credit if it’s determined the person has mastered the process.

Glenn said Athens State has about 225 adults enrolled in the program, and has given diplomas to 12. About 263 people have applied to enroll in the program as of Wednesday.

“There are 500,000 Alabamians who are in that boat,” Glenn said. “I see that as a viable area for us to expand into because we’re willing to meet students more than half-way.”

Online education

Athens State is making significant inroads into the field of online education, with about 90 percent of its 3,052 students enrolled in an at least one online course. Two-thirds of the credit hours generated are through online coursework, Glenn said.

Ingle, who was hired as interim provost in December after the resignation of Dr. Ronald Cromwell three months earlier, said the perception of online coursework has changed significantly over the course of 10 years.

“I think (colleges) have turned a corner, and students are now picking and choosing more online courses because the convenience is there,” he said. “Institutions that don’t pay attention to that aspect are going to fall behind, and we want to ensure Athens State ramps it up a bit.”

Both Ingle and Glenn said the popularity of online coursework shows how much the method of education delivery is changing. Glenn pointed out that small children who run into a problem now turn to the Internet and YouTube to find videos on how to solve the problem.

“Years from now, those same children will be on our campus and we have an opportunity to redefine the way higher education works,” Glenn said. “It’s going to be about faculty becoming agents of learning. Online learning will become like chalk when it was first introduced; it became a tool for content delivery.”

Both Glenn and Ingle said leadership would continue to have a number of conversations with faculty about how to streamline and improve the school’s approach to online education. When asked about the myth that online education doesn’t provide the same level of learning found with traditional methods, Ingle laughed at the notion.

“People who say that have probably never taken an online course,” he said. “Research is piling up that online instruction is effective and can be done with high quality, but most people aren’t paying attention to that.”

The search for a new provost

Ingle, 74, was hired in December. He previously served as president of Coastal Carolina University, from 1993 to 2007, and most recently acted as the executive vice president at Young Harris College in Georgia.

He has held administrative and teaching positions at the University of South Carolina, Kennesaw College, and South Georgia College, according to his resume.

Glenn said he’s asked Ingle to work with the school’s human resources department and faculty senate on the search for a full-time provost, a position he said would be filled before year-end.

Most importantly, Glenn said, he wants to see the process done right.

“We may decide to take a run at it in the spring, but the last time we searched for a provost, we had to do it twice,” he said. “We did not have the candidates we had confidence in. I want to give us plenty of time and be careful about vetting candidates to make sure we’re getting quality people.”

In the meantime, Ingle said he wants to lay a solid foundation for the next provost and wants to establish new ideas, especially in regard to student recruiting. He said he would like to see faculty members from both Athens State and Calhoun Community College work with the admissions office on developing a plan to talk to high school students sooner, rather than later.

“That way, students can begin to get in their mind the goals they want to accomplish, especially if they’re thinking about coming to Athens State,” he said. “We have to be creative.”

Community outreach

Athens State was proactive in 2014, hosting a variety of special events for the public, exhibits at the ACA and fundraisers for the school’s foundation. Glenn and Rick Mould, vice president for Advancement, said that trend would continue in 2015.

Mould said the school wants to expand its concert and lecture series and bring more events he believes would be attractive to all members of the community.

“That’s an important issue that connects the university to the community,” said Mould, who also serves as lead organizer of the annual Tennessee Valley Old Time Fiddlers Convention.

Both Glenn and Mould were positive about the school’s ability to continue raising money for the school’s foundation, which provides student scholarships and renovations.

The school’s capital campaign, which began two and a half years ago, has raised $3.2 million, surpassing its goal of $2.5 million. Mould said the goal has been stretched to $4 million, and he was optimistic the foundation would reach that.

“Six years ago, we didn’t have the infrastructure for fundraising,” Glenn said, praising the work of Mould and others in the school’s advancement department. “There’s a lot of work that goes into who to contact and what to say when you contact them.”