Iowa Wesleyan University recognized for excellence in online courses

The national ranking placed IWU within the top 210 schools for Best Online Bachelor’s Program, and third in Iowa. The university ranked highest in Iowa for the Best Online Bachelor’s Program in Business.

“Rankings are validation from a third party that we have a high quality program,” said Iowa Wesleyan University Provost Dr. DeWayne Frazier. “This gives the consumer an independent look at higher education and quality.”

“In a region where we are, it can be a little extra push for somebody to take a class with us,” said Frazier. “This is versus a national provider, and it makes the consumer take a look and consider us for their education.”

Iowa Wesleyan has a partnership with Southeast Community College, where students can get a two-year degree with SCC and then move on to a four-year degree with IWU.

“We do a stacked degree with SCC, where we are the source for a Bachelor’s Degree,” said Frazier. “We have online students that are bringing in an associate degree or the required number of credits. It stackable because you can do your Bachelor’s with us and then you can also do your Master’s with us.”

“We are the degree completion for the region,” said Frazier. “This is usually what goes on, the students come in a complete an online Master’s Degree in arts and management with us. This will give them more opportunities to move up in their employment, or to have options of teaching at schools such as colleges or universities.”

“We will be offering more Master’s Degree programs in the future,” said Frazier. “We are in the process of starting to fully develop those programs. That is where the growth, when it comes to online, is taking place. We are going to be hitting the market hard with more graduate programs in the coming years.”

The university is considering to creating a Master’s in criminal justice, they are also looking to produce a degree program in social services, as a program that will assist in training for the mental health crisis that is currently taking place in the region.

“We are in a huge shortfall in nursing,” said Frazier. “And we will be taking steps to compile a program for a Master’s in Nursing.”

“We will continue to look at the market, and see what the region needs,” said Frazier. “We are not trying to do Master’s Degrees for the country, like a big school would do, but rather we are looking at degrees that would fit the region. We want to assist in getting people employed in locations where they are needed.”

“Online studies are not our largest program here at the institution,” said Frazier. “But in any given year, we may have 60 to 70 undergraduate students, and 10 or more graduate students. Most of the students are located within this region. And this number continues to grow.”

Contact Michelle Hillestad at michelle.hillestad@southeastiowaunion.com