Wendell Godwin

Wendell Godwin has more than fifteen years of experience in higher education leadership. Under his direction, East Central University (ECU) recently achieved a 9.3 percent enrollment growth rate, outpacing the other regional universities in Oklahoma. In an interview with Education Insider, Godwin discusses the realities of leading a regional public university and shares how adopting a proactive approach to problem-solving drives better outcomes.

Leading with Clarity and Intent

As the head of a regional public university, I am responsible for the overall operation of the university and fundraising. We operate on one campus in Ada, a small regional town in Oklahoma, with a population of 17,000 people.

Across Oklahoma, declining state appropriations have left universities, including ours, managing flat budgets. At the same time, the state is seeing fewer high school graduates, which affects the enrollment pipeline. Despite these challenges, our enrollment growth last August surpassed that of Oklahoma’s other 10 regional universities combined.

Balancing Tradition and Technology

While we remain a traditional residential campus, we also offer a range of online courses, including a doctoral program in education. We use a lot of open resources in the classrooms to reduce the amount students spend on textbooks.

About a year ago, we launched our campus chatbot, Roary, named after our university mascot. Today, Roary has a 96 percent student opt-in rate, and 63 percent of our students are actively engaged. This helps us with communication, retention and the overall student experience on campus.

We are embracing AI both as a teaching resource and as a subject of study and actively work to help students understand its appropriate and responsible use. We also use geofencing to deploy advertisements for recruitment to reach prospective students more effectively.

High Quality Education at a Lower Cost

Our annual cost of attendance is only $16,322, including tuition, fees, books, room and board. Over four years, the total comes to about $65,000.

41 percent of our students graduate with no debt, and our average debt across the campus for four years is $5,700. Our graduates go into the job market at the same starting pay as those from other universities, but at a significantly lower cost to earn their degrees.

We were recently recognized by Research.com as the No. 1 Best Value College in Oklahoma and the fourth most affordable college in Oklahoma.

Building for Future Growth

We are completing the construction of our new Dan Hays STEM Center, which will open for classes this fall. The $41 million project includes $36 million in construction and $5 million in technology, furniture and equipment. The facility will be home to our nursing, computer science and mathematics departments. Nursing is our largest academic program, and this expansion will allow it to grow by 60 percent.

We also launched our $36.3 million ECU Forward Capital Campaign to align with our five-year strategic plan. Combined with outside donations, tribal support, local foundations, the City of Ada and state grants, we expect to invest $50 million in campus improvements. We anticipate 1,000 students living on campus this fall, which is higher than at other regional universities. We have also introduced a new Doctor of Education (EdD) program focused on rural education, strengthening our longstanding legacy of being a teachers’ college.

Advice to Fellow University Leaders

Hire the best people for your leadership team and let them do what they were brought in to do. Leveraging their expertise will really make a difference.

Don’t sit around waiting for someone else to solve your problems. Be willing to step beyond the usual ways and be creative in problem-solving. We have been able to implement this approach, and it has been very successful.