Driving along Congress Street in Charles Town, it’s not hard to roll right pass the cluster of buildings that make up the “campus” of American Public University. You won’t see sandaled undergraduates hurrying to class or stressed-out graduate students unwinding with a game of chess on the porch of the administrative building. The only indication an institution of higher learning inhabits the block might be the cluster of stately buildings—they evoke a sense of purpose and permanence that is distinctly academic.
If you didn’t know about Jefferson County’s other university, here are a few facts. The American Public University System’s student body numbers some 20,000 full- and part-time students. There are 400 faculty from all over the world, nearly a hundred of them full-time. The school offers more than 50 degree programs, including Masters degrees.
One of APUS’s most distinguishing characteristics might explain why it escapes the notice of passersby: APUS’s classrooms exist entirely online. “We have students in all 50 states and 130 countries,” said Dr. Frank McCluskey, provost and executive vice president. McCluskey, a Greenwich Village native with a Ph.D. in philosophy from The New School, taught philosophy at Mercy College in New York for 17 years. He is regarded as a pioneer in online learning. In 1990, he and Mercy colleagues launched the distance learning program at Mercy with a grant from IBM. It consisted of a “386” computer with a smart card 15 phone lines in a hunt sequence. It would break down for 36 hours at a time. “Thinking about it now, it was pretty hilarious,” said McCluskey. He later became Dean of Online Learning at Mercy.
APUS was founded as American Military University in 1993 by a retired Marine Corps officer to serve adult learners. Its emphasis is on meeting the needs of active military personnel and people serving in the guard and reserves.
Later American Public University (American Public) was founded, geared toward students who aspire to, or already serve in public safety and security. Together the two universities make up the American Public University System. “As we grew,” said APUS President Wally Boston, “We realized that we could make our curricula available to civilians.” Firefighters, police officers, homeland security professionals can pursue degrees at APUS that are available almost nowhere else, with concentrations in explosive ordinance disposal, homeland security, military management and program acquisition, and national security studies. From 70 to 80 percent of APUS students are active or retired military.
A growing number of students are civilians attracted to the university’s flexibility and range of degree programs. “We have semesters starting every month,” said Boston. Most bricks and mortar universities, Boston notes, are still on an agrarian calendar, where summer’s off were once necessary. At American Public, civilian professionals who have a regular seasonal slow time can jump on for a six-week course. Educators with summer’s off have become one of the fastest growing segments of graduate students at American Public. In the military history program, said Boston, “about half the graduate students are high school teachers.”
As an online university, APUS doesn’t face the same infrastructure costs of a typical college campus. However, the maintaining the technological underpinnings of the operation are mission critical. When a traditional college has a website go down, there is no emergency. Or if the air conditioning breaks in one building, classes can temporarily moved to another building. If an online university’s technology falters, the entire operation would shut down.
APUS has co-located servers in Charles Town and Manassas, Va., so that if one server goes down or is taken out of service, the other is there for backup. “From July 2006 to July 2007, we were down for one hour,” said McCluskey, and that was for planned system maintenance.
Another APUS challenge is creating a sense of community among students who likely will never meet. “We have no quad, no student center,” said McCluskey. “But students still want that sense of community. We’re building a college experience in cyberspace. APUS students talk primarily through a system of online bulletin boards and chat rooms.
The expectation of community is different in an online university. At a traditional university like Shepherd, campus life is an integral part of the educational experience, says McCluskey. Daily encounters with people from diverse backgrounds, lectures, and campus events help them make personal discoveries about who they want to be and the career choices that are open to them.
At APUS, the average student is 31 years old and married with children. They’ve also come to the university with clear career direction—many are working in their field of study. They still want opportunities to interact and collaborate. Referring to the Shepherdstown coffee shop favored by students, McCluskey says, “We’re creating the Lost Dog online.”
APU is also creating jobs and other benefits for Charles Town and Jefferson County. The institution employs 140 people in Charles Town, making it one of the larger private-sector employers in the county. More than 40 of these jobs are high-skill programming and technical positions; many others are administrative and management positions. Boston anticipates adding another 30 to 40 jobs.
The influx of good jobs since APUS moved to Charles Town in 2003 has resulted a in noticeable effect on local business. “Downtown shops and restaurants have certainly benefited,” said city clerk Joe Cosentini. The most visible effect of APUS in Charles Town are the restored buildings on Congress Street. The main administrative operations are housed in the former Jefferson County Hospital. Anyone who remembers the building’s condition previous to APUS’s arrival will be amazed by the building’s restoration.
This combination of good jobs and historic preservation wins high marks among county leaders. “APUS envisions preserving the character of our county by preserving the buildings that they renovate for their use,” said County Commissioner Jim Surkamp. “It is just the kind of effort of preserving the county’s character thru historic preservation the county welcomes.”
For Boston, there is a certain synchronicity in leading a university housed in a former hospital. He spent 18 years as an executive in major health care companies. He had been chief financial officer or chief executive officer of Meridian HealthCare, Manor Healthcare, Sun Healthcare Group—hired in 2001 to lead Sun out of bankruptcy.
Talking about the restored hospital building, Boston clearly gets a charge out of the role APUS has played in preserving a piece of the town’s history. “People drop in sometimes and tell us about operations they had here or visiting family members here,” said Boston.
As one of the nation’s largest online educational institutions, APUS is making some history in the Eastern Panhandle—and saving a bit of history in Charles Town, too.