As Campbell University enters its 128th year, we look back at a 2014 that was full of big announcements, new programs, historic wins in athletics and unprecedented growth. The following are our picks for the Top 10 Campbell stories from the past year.
1. Thank you, Dr. Wallace
Campbell University President Jerry M. Wallace, who has led Campbell to unprecedented growth and transformed the university into a destination for leading health education and other key programs over the past 11 years, announced in April that he will step down as president on June 30, 2015. After a one-year sabbatical, he will transition to the honorary role and title of university chancellor.
Wallace will have served Campbell for 45 years — 12 as president — when his tenure comes to an end. Back when he was introduced as president on May 29, 2003, Wallace said: “Campbell will respond to the existing and developing needs of the region, state and nation by providing new undergraduate, graduate and professional programs that complement and extend Campbell’s mission.”
Since that inauguration speech, Wallace has more than lived up to those words. Notably, Wallace has expanded Campbell’s health programs to complement its pharmacy school and to address the shortage of health professionals in North Carolina, including the establishment of a medical school. When the Jerry M. Wallace School of Osteopathic Medicine opened in the Leon Levine Hall of Medical Sciences in August 2013 with 160 students, it was North Carolina’s first new medical school in 35 years.
Dr. Wallace has big shoes to fill. His announcement is our top story for 2014. Join us in not only wishing him a great final semester as president, but thanking him for his 45 years of service to Campbell University.
CLICK HERE: Campbell Magazine story on Wallace’s announcement.
CLICK HERE: Campbell Magazine feature on Wallace’s master plan
2. Maddox leaves a legacy
In its Jan. 28, 1985, editorial on Campbell University’s decision to start a pharmacy school, the Dunn Daily Record issued a vast understatement:
“The new School of Pharmacy will bring to Harnett hundreds of new students each year, along with thousands of visitors. Not only that, it will give both Campbell and Harnett added prestige as an educational center of the state. … The new Campbell School of Pharmacy is going to mean a great deal to Harnett County.”
That school — now the College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences — will enter its 30th year in 2015 as a nationally acclaimed, prestigious institution that has far exceeded the projected maximum enrollment back in 1985 of 200 students (the school’s current undergrad and graduate enrollment is just under 1,500 today).
One man has led the school from its inception, a man with a tireless work ethic and a vision to provide proper health care to rural, medically underserved areas of the state and region — Ronald W. Maddox.
Maddox will retire from his post as dean of the College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences at Campbell University effective today, and will be replaced by his former student, Michael L. Adams, who graduated from Campbell University’s School of Pharmacy in 1996.
“Ron Maddox’s leadership in founding the pharmacy school turned a big corner in ensuring Campbell’s survival and growth as a university,” President Wallace says. “He and [his wife] Suzan gave their all to birthing the nation’s newest pharmacy school, and their hard work and contagious spirit inspired trustees, alumni and other state leaders to join our effort. He also stepped up to assume vice president for health programs responsibilities and was instrumental in launching the medical school, physician assistant program, public health program, Doctor of Physical Therapy program, nursing program and the soon-to-be-announced Doctor of Occupational Therapy program.”
CLICK HERE: Campbell Magazine article on Maddox and his legacy
3. Engineering: A degree and a school
Between 50 to 80 percent of job growth in the United States is dependent on scientists and engineers, according to a 2010 report by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine (“Rising Above A Gathering Storm, Revisited”). Yet, only 2.7 percent of all engineers in the U.S. live and work in North Carolina, though the state is the 10th largest in the nation.
In May, the Board of Trustees approved the addition of a Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree program, proposed to begin in the fall of 2016. In September, the trustees’ Executive Committee approved a feasibility study recommending the establishment of the university’s eighth school: the School of Engineering.
“In recent years Campbell has become a regional leader in providing health education and in expanding access to health care in underserved areas, particularly rural communities,” says President Jerry Wallace. “[Engineering] will provide another important dimension, allowing the university to support a scientifically- and technically-trained workforce critical to the state’s welfare.”
4. Nursing program launches in the fall
Last spring, the founding director of Campbell’s new nursing program said she expected about 50 students in the fall looking to become the University’s first Bachelor of Science in Nursing graduates by 2018. When the numbers came in, Nancy Duffy saw 85 names enrolled in the fall’s inaugural pre-nursing seminar course.
The program had arrived.
“I knew the numbers would eventually be substantial, but I did not anticipate this response so soon,” says Duffy, the former associate professor and director of undergraduate programs at the University of South Carolina’s College of Nursing. “I believe the community has been waiting for Campbell to add nursing to its degree programs, and students jumped at the opportunity. My hat is off to the admissions team for a remarkable recruitment effort.”
Nursing is the most recent in a suddenly long line of new health science programs at Campbell over the last few years. Campbell’s first nursing students will receive two years of general education followed by clinical rotations beginning in the fall of 2016. The N.C. Board of Nursing will re-survey Campbell’s nursing program in 2018, when the first nursing students are expected to graduate. At that time, the university is a candidate to receive full approval status.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics has estimated that the RN workforce needs to grow by 26 percent between 2010 and 2020. The Institute of Medicine also has the desire for 80 percent of the nursing workforce to be BSN-educated by 2020.
CLICK HERE: 85 enroll in first nursing seminar
5. Record enrollment at Campbell
Campbell welcome 1,185 new undergraduate students to Buies Creek this fall — marking the largest freshman class in school history (a 10 percent increase from a year ago). Campbell Law also welcomed a big class — its 186 new first-year students is the second-largest class in the school’s history.
The record numbers aren’t just a flash in the pan. According to an independent analysis conducted by Mic, a news site geared toward the Millennial Generation, Campbell University ranks No. 4 in the nation based on growth in admissions applications over the past decade (2003-2013).
Over that period, Campbell had a 289-percent increase in applications. No other private college or university in North Carolina was ranked on Mic’s list of the Top 25 universities based on gains in applications.
Speaking of our state, a 2013-14 N.C. Independent Colleges and Universities’ Statistical Report revealed Campbell has enrolled undergraduate students from North Carolina than any of the 36 private colleges and universities in the state.
“I’ve been at Campbell University for more than 44 years, and the pride and excitement on campus has never been higher as we have opened a medical school and expanded our academic portfolio across the liberal arts, sciences and professions over the past several years,” said Campbell President Jerry Wallace. “That pride and excitement is bubbling over, and it’s reflected in the record number of first-year undergraduates we have at Campbell.”
6. Among the nation’s best
Who are these orange-and-white-clad young women at the NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Championship this week?
Not from Tennessee, Clemson or nearby Oklahoma State.
Those are different colors of orange and these women are a different story: the Fighting Camels of Campbell finally are, uh, over the NCAA tournament hump.
— Denise Maloof, NCAA.com
Campbell’s women’s golf team earned a spot in the 24-team NCAA Championship in Tulsa, Okla., in May after finishing eighth in the NCAA East Regional, edging 14-ranked Pepperdine by one stroke for the final spot. It was the second NCAA berth in the program’s history (1997) and made more impressive by the fact that four of the five team members were underclassmen (Kaylin Yost the lone senior).
Campbell, the lowest-ranked team (45) in the field going in, finished the tournament tied for 20th with 20th-ranked Michigan State. The Camels bested three teams ranked in the top 30 in the nation — California, Iowa State and Kansas.
CLICK HERE: NCAA.com article on Lady Camels
7. Baseball’s next big step
Three consecutive 40-plus win seasons is impressive on its own, but Campbell University’s baseball program officially “arrived” in 2014 after winning the Big South Conference Tournament and winning the program’s first-ever NCAA Tournament game when it defeated Old Dominion, 4-1.
And the Camels won that nationally televised game in dramatic fashion with RBI singles by Elijah Trail and Brooks Borders in the 12th inning, breaking a 1-1 tie. All-American and current minor league pitcher Ryan Thompson pitched five innings of 1-hit relief ball to keep Campbell in it.
Campbell finished the year 41-21, winning its third-ever BIg South Tournament title (the Camels won the crown previously in 1998 and 1990). The NCAA Tournament appearance was Campbell’s second, having made the field before in 1990.
8. What’s new at Campbell?
The answer in 2014 was “a lot.”
After Campbell University completed constructing the Anna Gardner and Robert B. Butler Chapel in 2009, the university challenged planners and landscape architects to re-imagine the look of the Academic Circle. Five years later, on the morning of Homecoming 2014, the university formally dedicated the results of that challenge: D. Rich Commons.
Over the summer, the university transformed the Academic Circle near the entrances to Taylor Hall and D. Rich Memorial Hall – one of the most trafficked areas on campus. New seating walls were installed; areas were leveled and smoothed; new shrubs were planted; bricks were replaced; the entrance to D. Rich Memorial Hall was extended; and a blue stone area was added to serve as host for a new bronzed university seal.
Measuring eight feet across, the seal features Campbell’s motto “Ad Astra Per Aspera,” or “to the stars through difficulties.”
That same morning, Campbell opened a full-service Starbucks cafe, located on the first floor of Wiggins Memorial Library. Also over the summer, the university completed the construction of new brick sidewalks, gutters and parking lots on Main Street, which was also repaired and repaved. The renovated street was the site for last fall’s Homecoming parade, which had previously been held on Leslie Campbell Avenue between the campus’ two roundabouts.
The projects marked the end of President Jerry Wallace’s campus revitalization plan, which was a big part of the master plan he adopted after his inauguration in 2003. Wallace announced in 2014 that the 2014-15 academic year would be his last as president.
VIDEO: Campbell Homecoming 2014, A Bird’s Eye View
9. Therapy finds a home at Campbell
In January, Campbell welcomed its first physical therapy students in the new Doctor of Physical Therapy program. In August, the University Board of Trustees’ Executive Committee approved a proposal to establish a Doctor of Occupational Therapy program.
Both programs are/will be housed under Campbell’s College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences, which also launched nursing (more on that later) in 2014 and a Master of Physician Assistant Practice degree program in 2011. And both programs were created to fill a need — the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a 30-percent increase in physical therapist positions from 2008-2018, much faster than the average for all occupations. The growth for occupational therapist positions will grow by 29 percent from 2012 to 2022.
“The bottom line is that we want to create competent therapists with big hearts and a strong purpose,” President Jerry Wallace said during the physical therapy program’s first orientation session in January. “And in all things, to give glory to God.”
FULL STORY: Physical Therapy
FULL STORY: Occupational Therapy
10. Doc’s research goes global
When Dr. Robert Hasty, the associate dean for postgraduate affairs at the Jerry M. Wallace School of Osteopathic Medicine, and his team of former students in Florida researched the 10 most searched medical conditions on the hugely popular website Wikipedia, their findings hit a nerve globally this past spring.
Hasty was the lead author of “Wikipedia vs Peer-Reviewed Medical Literature for Information About the 10 Most Costly Medical Conditions,” the first study in the country to examine the accuracy of Wikipedia content for common medical conditions. His findings were published in The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association in May, and throughout the month, Hasty was cited and quoted in stories published by media in several countries.
The BBC, Huffington Post, The Atlantic, The New York Daily News and The (U.K.) Telegraph were but a few of the media outlets telling the world that medical entries in Wikipedia weren’t always accurate. Most importantly for Campbell, their reporting put Dr. Hasty and a brand new school of medicine in the spotlight, adding more credibility to North Carolina’s first new medical school in over 35 years.
FULL STORY: CLICK HERE