Indiana Wesleyan University has a new hometown this year with the opening of a Naperville, Illinois based service center in the western suburbs of the Chicagoland area.
The storefront location, on NEC Route 59 and McDowell Road just south of I-88, not only marks IWU's first physical location in the state of Illinois, but also a foray into a new model for interacting with students and prospective students.
"In the mid-90's, Indiana Wesleyan University was one of the first universities that offered a full degree online," said Rose. "Many schools were doing some electives and a course here and there, but we took the MBA and did it from beginning to end in an online format.
The increasing popularity of online education necessitates a different kind of on-the-ground facility, according to Rose.
Rose said that it remains important to have a physical presence, since a location in a well-trafficked area makes a strong impression on the surrounding community. But that office can be much smaller, offering the support structure needed by a student who does most of their learning from home.
"It [the service center] is not built out with multiple classrooms," Rose said. "It is built out to be a hub of operations to be able to reach students who are interested in going back to school in an online format, creating a local presence in a suburb of Chicago, so that they see it's a real, tangible school."
Students can get online degrees at the associate, bachelor's, master's and doctoral levels from IWU.
Read the full story on IWU Naperville at the IWU Spectrum blog.