The Effect of University of Phoenix on the Local Community
Denver From There to Here…
- by Debra Abbott Pain, Executive Vice President Marketing and Development - Apollo Group, Inc.
About a quarter of a century ago if you told someone you worked for
University of Phoenix you might well have received a look that screamed, “Never
heard of ‘em.” That look might have been quickly followed by a series of
questions:
- Do you commute?
- What’s University of Phoenix doing in Denver?
- Are you guys really accredited?
- If there is a University of Phoenix in Denver is there a University of
Denver in Phoenix?
Not today! According to a national survey, University of Phoenix now enjoys a
90% share of name recognition, and it is clearly the industry leader. No one
questions what University of Phoenix is doing in any city, from Phoenix to
Vancouver. University of Phoenix has earned praise and recognition in countless
areas based on more measurements by more entities than any institution in
America.
Our campuses are giving back to their respective communities in a myriad of
ways. For years and through a variety of roles, Randy Lichtenfeld, state vice
president in New Mexico, has led the New Mexico Cancer Society. Lori Santiago,
Oklahoma’s state vice president, is chair of the Tulsa Hispanic Chamber of
Commerce. Colorado has just completed its annual Newborns in Need Campaign, a
public relations campaign that stimulates camaraderie at the campus, creates
much needed nursing placements at Denver Health, and garners substantial press
coverage for the campus and the hospital alike. Best of all, this campaign
allows almost 4,000 Denver Health babies to go home with something necessary and
new. Without the work of Colorado’s University of Phoenix employees many of
these babies would be wearing disposable diapers that were soiled, hung out to
dry, and used again. Our people make the difference.
Herman Miller - who’s he? Long before we were
creating amazing facilities for our students, faculty, and staff, employees
might have worked behind a TV tray, built an entire office out of empty
textbook boxes (this was prior to rEsource) and worked in a large single room (no cubicles) surrounded by every other
employee at the campus who were also on the phone only inches away. Today, our workplaces
are beautiful, comfortable, functional, and energizing. Even under less
desirable conditions, however, our people made the difference.
Today, business can come to a screeching halt if we encounter momentary IT
downtime or if the telephone goes dead. During our frontier days, or should that
be “daze”, we had spiral-bound notebooks instead of notebook computers, bright
red single-lined telephones that rang only when a faculty member was calling in
to report his or her attendance from the night before, and John Sperling was
thrilled that the faculty was going to be receiving a personal
voice-mailbox where students could call and leave messages 24/7. Can you even
imagine? When we opened the Detroit campus we turned on the lead flow and the
telephones, only to be disappointed that no one was calling. We quickly
discovered that the telephone company had misdirected our calls to a private
home. Our people kept level heads and our people made the difference.
University of Phoenix is ever changing, which can be unsettling. The unknown
can create wild speculation, sleepless nights, and fear. But, change can also
drive innovation, stop complacency, motivate, stimulate, and make University of
Phoenix stronger, wiser, and more self-confident.
The choice, as it always has been at University Of Phoenix, is ours. No
matter what is going on around us, each of us can chose to be true to our
mission and purpose, act with integrity, bring a positive can-do attitude to
work, and maintain our focus on contributing to a positive and productive
workplace.
Failure is not an option because we have you, and you make the difference!
Thank you for making University of Phoenix a great place to learn and a great
place to work!
