Extraordinary transformation: high point university reaches new heights by building on a vision.

• Position: HIGH POINT UNIVERSITY

Nido R. Qitbein became president of High Point University in 2005, bringing with him a distinguished career in leadership, communication, and business. He and his team of faculty and staff have transformed the university into a highly recognized institution with differentiated value and distinctive academics. Their plan for the next decade is impressive.

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Since 2005, High Point University has experienced extraordinary growth. Undergraduate enrollment has gone from 1,450 to 4,100 this coming Fall. SAT scorns of incoming freshmen are up 100 points on average. The school has added 150 full-time faculty members. With an investment of more than $700 million, the campus has grown from 91 to 308 acres, and 47 buildings have been constructed--all in the midst of one of the worst recessions in 50 years. Meanwhile, it has gone from No. 15 to No. 3 in US. News & World Reports ranking of the best regional colleges in the South.

History

Founded in 1924, the United Methodist Church-affiliated school started with three buildings, nine faculty members and 122 students. It eventually grew into a locally respected liberal arts college but by 2005 appeared similar to many other medium-size colleges. That's when trustees named Nido R. Qubein the school's seventh president.

"To exit the ocean of sameness and enter the lake of differentiation, we defined a clear vision." Qubein says. "We are student-focused, and we don't make a single decision without asking how this serves the best needs of the student." With what Qubein calls "incisive precision," HPU focuses on a student's experience inside and outside the classroom and beyond college.

Unlike some schools, a majority of its undergraduates--more than 93%--live on campus. There, they have access to state-of-the-art classrooms and technology, a student center that includes a bakery, sports grill, cinema and a study area open 24 hours a day and staffed with full-time librarians. There's also an athletic and convocation center that features an arena, indoor competition pool, tennis courts, campus TV and radio stations, and Wi-Fi. In August, 180 students moved into a newly completed $20 million residential complex. The lush campus has manicured landscaping, fountains, life-size bronze sculptures of historical leaders, hammocks stretching between majestic oaks, winding brick pathways, an arboretum and 19 botanical gardens.

Innovation

But students can take advantage of more than just the university's aesthetics. "We care not only about the mind of the student, which we are whole-heartedly focused on in the classroom, but also heart and soul of the students," Qubein says. "At High Point University, we want every student to be transformed by a holistic educational experience." The university is doing that by combining a traditional education with an innovative experiential-learning program.

Students take traditional courses in composition, history, literature, ethical reasoning, languages, quantitative reasoning, and natural and social sciences to ground their knowledge of liberal arts and science. The university recently added a new program that allows students to devote a quarter of their class time to experiential learning, where they take what they learn in the classroom and apply it to a real-life situation. The program was reinforced with an $80 million investment in technology. For example, the Plato Wilson School of Commerce has a real-time stock ticker, and students work with the same trading software Wall Street brokers use. In the David R. Hay-worth College of Arts and Sciences, students are developing iPad, iPod touch and Android applications. Music, art and graphic-design laboratories equip students with practical skills needed in cheir future professions. "Everything has its own experiential-learning component," Qubein says. "It's the foundation for all students learn and do." Much quoted on campus is the Chinese proverb, "I hear, I forget. I see, I remember. I do, and I understand.

Application

Internships are an essential component to student life at HPU. Students majoring in graphic design go to New York City and work with advertising or public relations agencies. Communications students work with television and film...