Trustees discuss Promise Scholarship

The ASU board of trustees discussed several things during their meeting Friday morning at the ASU-Heber Springs campus, including the new the Arkansas Promise Scholarship and the offering of a new online associate's degree.

During his report to the board, ASU Chancellor Robert Potts said that the new Arkansas Promise Scholarship was intended to maximize the impact of the lottery scholarship.

Rick Stripling, vice chancellor of student affairs, said the university started working on the scholarship in December and knew they wanted it to wrap around the lottery scholarship.

The Arkansas Promise Scholarship is offered exclusively through ASU-Jonesboro and is a competitive scholarship that covers tuition and fees for incoming freshman.

"It's to be something for students out there who are still thinking [about going to college]," Stripling said.

With ASUMH and ASUJ soon to be offering an online associate's degree, Dan Howard, provost and vice chancellor of student affairs, said they wanted to develop a system approach to distant learning.

Ed Coulter, chancellor of ASUMH, said the new online associate's degree would be respected academics, competing with other universities like the University of Phoenix, Chaplan University and Devry University.

ASUMH will select the faculty for this new system, hire them and handle their pay, said Pat Bailey, vice chancellor for academic and student affairs at ASUMH.

Bailey also said all academics, faculty scheduling, and handling of textbooks would be managed through Mountain Home.

"Students won't be turned away because classes are full," Bailey said.

Students can start working toward their associate of arts degree on Sept. 1, with classes rotating every seven weeks.

"Students can actually complete their associate degree in 18 months," Bailey said.

The online degree will be offered in all 50 states.

Stripling also commented on the success

of the Red W.O.L.F. Recreation Center.

He said initially, they thought there would be between 500 and 700 people using the facility a day, but since the opening, they've been seeing 1,200 people a day.

"There are many days we run 1,500 [people in the facility]," Stripling said.

Potts also said despite the university's $2.5 million cut in budget, things were still okay.

"We've come through in pretty good shape," he said.

Les Wyatt, ASU president, said the university was glad to see that the budget forecasts were not reduced again during the recent special session of the General Assembly.

In the executive session, many appointments were made including the extension of Howard's contract as executive vice chancellor for academic affairs and research and provost for three years, ending on Dec. 31, 2012.