The University of Phoenix -- one of the most renowned and innovative schools in the nation -- will be celebrating its 40th anniversary this month.
Dr. John Sterling founded the University of Phoenix four decades ago to help students who wanted to take nontraditional educational and career paths. More than one million adults have achieved their educational goals at the university before going on to enter the workforce.
“This is a tremendous milestone for the University of Phoenix family,” University of Phoenix President Timothy Slottow said. “It calls on us all to celebrate our founder John Sperling’s legacy of innovation and service in higher education, and to further dedicate ourselves to serving nontraditional students as we rise to our vision of becoming the most trusted provider of career-relevant higher education for working adults.”
Before he founded the University of Phoenix, Sperling educated local police officers and teachers in California. From this, he took away two important observations that would help him shape the university he would found: he discovered that working adults did not have a university that was tailored to their needs and that adults learned in a different manner than younger students.
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