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NEW BACHELOR'S OF APPLIED SCIENCE IN APPLIED LEADERSHIP

By Chuck Wasserstrom

For a traditional college student pursuing an undergraduate degree, life sometimes gets in the way.

Perhaps the student earned an associate degree and didn’t continue along a higher-education path. Or maybe the person started at a four-year institution and only made it partway through before being forced to stop.

Whatever the reason—family, economics, job status—it wasn’t feasible to complete a degree at the time.

But what if that person—now an adult and in the working world—could get a credential that might be a life-changer, allowing career advancement not possible before?

Nontraditional students are the inspiration for a new degree program started this fall at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. The Bachelor of Applied Science in Applied Leadership, housed in the College of Health, Education and Professional Studies (CHEPS), is a fully online program that serves students also known as adult learners with previous college, military or work experience who want to complete their degrees.

Efforts behind the conceptualization and design of the program were led by Beth Crawford, UC Foundation professor and program advisor, and David Rausch, associate dean of CHEPS and professor and director of learning and leadership programs at UTC.

“Our target audience is working adults and adults between jobs,” Crawford says. “They have some college credits but have not been able to finish a degree, and there are still so many companies and organizations that require a bachelor’s degree for any type of advancement.”

The online component is essential for the program’s success. Many adult learners can’t get to a brick-and-mortar campus during standard business hours due to their jobs. They might live in the region, but getting to and from downtown Chattanooga after work can be a problem in rush-hour traffic. And don’t forget, UTC is fewer than 20 miles from the Central time zone.

Crawford and Rausch have been working in the online student programming environment for years.

“We were doing Skype advising 10 years ago and switched to Zoom when Zoom came out. We like to joke that we were using Zoom before Zoom was cool,” Crawford says.

Students in the Bachelor of Applied Science in Applied Leadership program, no matter their specialty, have responsibilities that involve some type of leadership role or process in their workplace, Rausch says. The program’s coursework helps students develop the skills and knowledge they need to solve problems, communicate effectively and resolve conflict in diverse environments.

“We try to take all of these courses a step further and say, ‘How would it apply in your workplace, in what you’re doing, in your life?’ and then let’s talk about how you weave this information we’re covering with your practice with what you’re doing. How will it make a difference?” Rausch says. “How will you be able to take something out of any course you take here and put it in place in the coming days?

“A very diverse group of learners will take this course, and that’s why I get fired up when I talk about it,” he continues. “They are much more diverse than the students we traditionally attract because this is a group of people who are all over the map in terms of what they do, where they do it and what their backgrounds have been.

“I think it’s great for the University because we’re servicing people who didn’t have access to a program like this before. It makes us a better community partner being able to offer something of this nature.”

While Rausch uses the phrase “fired up” multiple times in talking about the introduction of the degree program, Crawford calls the debut of the Bachelor of Applied Science in Applied Leadership “a lifetime dream for both of us in different ways.”

“Dr. Rausch has been all over the country during his professional career doing online learning and all of those kinds of things,” she says. “I’ve been here at UTC my entire career in various roles, and one of those roles was in continuing education where we were constantly trying to develop an adult, feasible degree.

“So I’ve watched it for years and years and years, and this is the first time that we’ve been able to work through the whole process with the state, the system, and THEC and build a degree that we believe will work for working adults.”

Life might have gotten in the way before. Rausch cautions all student participants that life will remain the most significant issue. “Don’t allow yourself not to be successful. Don’t mess up an opportunity because you bit off too much too fast,” he says.

“Our participants still have family and community commitments, so it takes management of time and discipline. It’s as important for us to help coach folks through that as it is to make sure they understand the subject matter.”