Dear Students and Alumni,
As Thanksgiving approaches, I would like to express my appreciation for the recent blessings at CSU.
In particular, I would like to thank all of the CSU faculty and staff, graduates and guests for making the 2014 CSU commencement ceremonies and open house an amazing experience!
Students, alumni and their families visited our new Center for Continuing Education building where they met our new Knights mascot. Graduation ceremonies went very well and received high praise from graduates and staff.
To author and combat decorated U.S. Marine Oliver North, who was our keynote speaker, Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon, Alabama Sen. Tripp Pittman and U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, I offer my sincere thanks to each of you for making this graduation very memorable.
While graduation was going on, several CSU departments were busy preparing to launch the incredible new look of our website you see today. It features a more responsive design, specialized content and information to continue to provide you with exceptional customer service.
We also recently launched our CSU Alumni Magazine. I urge you to check out this publication created exclusively for alumni. Coordinator of Student Engagement, Libby Reilly is really excited about the first edition: “It is such an honor to tell the moving stories of some of our previous students and we hope that through the articles of each edition of the CSU Alumni Magazine, our readers will be encouraged and inspired.”
You can also read about two new students who were awarded National Volunteer Fire Council-CSU Scholarships. Joseph Ondrasek, Jr. and Marc Veilleux are very deserving of these scholarships to help them improve their careers through education. We also have a story about November’s Learning Partner of the Month, U.S. Steelworkers Institute of Career Development. We are proud to partner with the company and offer their employees a flexible and affordable educational opportunity.
CSU is thankful for this and all of the learning partnerships that have been created in part by the hard work of our CSU representatives. You can meet several representatives during the next few weeks as they travel to various cities. Although several conferences have already occurred this month, CSU representatives will be attending the National League of Cities Annual Conference in Austin, Texas, and the North Carolina Safety conference in Charlotte, N.C., on Nov. 18-21. Visit CSU Near You to find out where representatives will be and please stop by and say hello if you are in the area.
I am also excited that in this issue of the Communicator, we announce the new name and brand for our per-course flexible enrollment model. Programs that are self-paced and more flexible than traditional online models have recently become a hot topic in higher education. CSU has always had a flexible learning model and now it has a proper name and image to communicate its benefits.
We would also like to hear from you about our social media outlets’ content. Please take a moment to fill out this brief survey to let us know what you think of our efforts to bring you news and more about CSU and online education.
Lastly, I want to thank all students and alumni for making CSU your university. To all faculty and staff, I truly appreciate your efforts to help CSU make a difference and change lives through education.
I am very thankful for CSU. Dr. Robert Mayes, will CSU get regional accreditation in 2015. This would really help students like myself and alumni out. Many companies and state accreditation bodies will only reward certification and licenses to people who attended regionally accredited schools. I know the DETC’s policies fit CSU’s policies since it is a family-owned institution, but I feel that CSU could be both regionally and nationally accredited like American Public University System used to be and how a school like Black Stone Career Institute is. I wish CSU offered career placement services for alumni and students too. I am 18 credit hours (2 are in the process of being completed) of graduating. From my research and experiences of seeing other people and hearing from professional people like employers, they are still very hesitant to hire people who attended non-traditional schools. It will help students out if CSU was: 1. Regionally Accredited 2. Not-for-profit 3. Offered Career Placement Services.