New Gilbert university enrolling students

Classroom chairs are empty. One floor remains unfinished. Hallways lack the sound of footsteps.

But in a bright office on the first floor of Gilbert’s university building, Jeff Ehrlich is trying to bring back the pitterpatter of student footsteps.

Ehrlich, executive director of Park University’s newly-minted Gilbert campus, is well aware of the Vaughn Avenue building’s history. In 2015, St. Xavier University opened Gilbert’s first higher education institution in a Heritage District building the town borrowed $37 million to build and outfit. Less than a year later, citing financial issues at its home campus, St. Xavier shuttered.

What ensued was a years-long search for a new tenant. Gilbert approved a lease with Park University this April. The school will occupy 11,000 of the building’s 89,000 square-feet for now, paying the town nearly $800,000 in rent over three years.

Relics from the building’s days as a St. Xavier campus remain: a flag lying on the floor bearing the school’s name, a poster still plastered on a wall, a high-tech training dummy used for St. Xavier’s nursing program. Fortunately, both schools display a similar dark

red-wine color.

For now, it’s mostly just Ehrlich and the university’s academic director, Donna Ehrlich — the two are married — roaming the halls.

Not for long, he says. This month, accreditation authorities gave the final approval for Park to start classes Oct. 15.

Only about a week into recruiting efforts and Ehrlich says he is close to enrolling a few students already. He hopes for 50 during the school’s first quarter and the university projects an enrollment of 300 students by Park’s third year in Gilbert.

“We will continue to grow,” he said. He hopes to take up more space in the building as the program grows. Park has rights to lease more space over other prospective universities.

Park is a private, nonprofit liberal arts school based in Missouri with 41 campus centers across the U.S. More than a dozen of its campuses are on air force bases, including Arizona’s Luke Air Force Base and Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. About 70 percent to 80 percent of the school’s students are military, Ehrlich said.

He said the school, started in 1875, has always emphasized inclusivity in its student body and faculty. Two of its original 17 students were Native American.

“We’ve always been inclusive and that’s what makes me so proud to be at Park,” he said. “We recognize the world’s a great, big place.”

The school will operate in eightweek quarters, offering at first programs in criminal justice and business, in addition to offering classes for general education requirements. Park will soon add graduate degree programs in business administration, healthcare administration, and public administrations.

A search for instructors won’t extend too far away from Gilbert.

“We really are making a very concerted effort to find faculty that are local to the area,” he said. “We want the faculty to also work and live here.”

Ehrlich also plans to add fitness, wellness and communication programs as the school grows in Gilbert. He said because the school is private, it can be more “nimble” in adding and subtracting degree programs, unlike a state school, which must go through layers of approval for new degrees.

“If a program isn’t getting the interest, we can literally pull it off the shelf and plug a new one in literally overnight,” he said.

Students have the option of taking some courses online and can “pirate patch” into courses with students from other campuses — Park’s mascot is the pirate.

The school will have a liberal policy in accepting transfer credits from local community colleges.

Ehrlich said the bulk of Park’s programs run at around $399 per credit hour. Arizona State University’s online programs range from about $520 to $728 per credit hour, according to the university’s website.

Park is bringing an athletic program to the Gilbert campus, too, including men’s and women’s cross country, golf, soccer and volleyball. Ehrlich is even planning an eSports program for budding gamers. He wants to be competitive in athletics by year two, he said.