High Noone: Dr. Laura Palmer Noone Leaves the University of Phoenix
On May 1, 2006, Apollo Group, Inc., the parent corporation of the University of Phoenix, announced the resignation of its president, Dr. Laura Palmer Noone, who has been with the university since 1987 and served as its president since 2000. Although Dr. Palmer Noone is scheduled to step down from her post in July, she will continue to serve as president emerita, and also to represent the university on a variety of academic policy boards.
Apollo’s news release contained a statement from Apollo’s founder, John G. Sperling, expressing gratitude to Dr. Palmer Noone for her longtime contributions to the university: “We wish to express our appreciation to Laura for her many years of service and her unwavering focus on the mission of the University of Phoenix. We are also delighted that we will continue to benefit from her broad range of institutional knowledge, as well as her deep political and academic expertise in her new role as president emerita.”
In an interview with the Adjunct Advocate, Dr. Palmer Noone remarked that her decision to leave the university was “an entirely personal one. I have young children…and although I know they still enjoy spending time with me now, that won’t last forever. These are special years….”
Dr. Palmer Noone’s accomplishments as president of the nation’s largest private for-profit university have been significant. She came to her presidency with a remarkable set of academic credentials and real-world professional experience, including an M.B.A. and J.D. from the University of Iowa, a Ph.D. from the Union Institute, ten years of experience as a practicing attorney, and more than six years of service to the university as Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs. Under her watch, the university has experienced the kind of growth that most not-for-profit institutions can only dream of. Dr. Palmer Noone confirmed for TAA that the university employs 24,750 faculty (the “vast majority” of whom are part-time, and “about half” of whom teach online), and that total enrollment has climbed from approximately 72,000 in 2000 to more than 283,000 today—a staggering increase of 293 percent. As enrollment has grown, so has the use of part-time faculty, Dr. Palmer Noone verified.
“Since our average class size is about 15 students…we have to have sufficient faculty recruited, trained and available as the student demand dictates,” she said.
But is all this growth such a good thing? Perhaps not, according to Gary A. Berg, dean of extended education at California State University Channel Islands and a former faculty member at the University of Phoenix. In a March 28, 2005 interview with Inside HigherEd.com, Berg noted the downside of growth: “[T]he extreme growth occurring at the University of Phoenix over the past decade…[has] brought forth management problems that it is very consciously wrestling with as an organization.”
Indeed, University of Phoenix’s expansion under Dr. Palmer Noone has also been shadowed by controversy. In 2004, the U.S. Department of Education conducted an investigation into the university’s recruiting practices. That same year, the university settled two lawsuits filed against it by the U.S. Department of Labor alleging the university’s violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act in failing to pay overtime to employees.
A September 14, 2004 article in AZCentral.com about the Department of Education’s investigation into the university’s recruitment practices reported that the university resolved the matter by paying a fine of 9.8 million dollars—a pittance compared to what the university’s parent corporation, Apollo Group, Inc. shelled out for marketing that same year (383 million, according to a September 8, 2005 report in the Economist.)
Dr. Palmer Noone told TAA that “much of what has been reported has been…a result of a settlement with the U.S. Department of Education that was reached to avoid a protracted negotiation. It is important to note that the settlement found no wrongdoing on the part of the university, but as a part of a publicly traded company, there were fiduciary responsibilities and the decision was made by Apollo Group, Inc. officers that it was in the best interests of the company to settle.”
As for the two lawsuits settled with the Department of Labor, Dr. Palmer Noone noted that “[t]he university actually self-reported that there might be an issue and again, we moved as quickly as possible to bring the matter to resolution so that our employees and, most importantly, our students would not be harmed….”
In addition to its brief skirmishes with the federal government, the University of Phoenix has, like all of its for-profit counterparts, been dogged by a public perception of academic inferiority compared to not-for-profit universities, whose administrators, faculty and students are notoriously (and, some might argue, irrationally) obsessed with status and rankings. Noted Gary Berg in his March, 2005 interview with InsideHigherEd.com, “[University of Phoenix’s] weaknesses are a poor academic reputation, faculty, general education, and maintaining quality while growing at a fast rate….the criticism from traditional institutions of the University of Phoenix is relentless.”
TAA asked Dr. Palmer Noone to respond to the popular belief that the mission of for-profit universities is inherently conflicted because of its need to satisfy the interests of both corporate shareholders and students.
“The simple truth of the matter,” she said, “is that every institution has to take in at least as much money as it spends in order to survive. The difference between a for-profit and a not-for-profit is what happens to the extra money at the end. A for-profit pays taxes on it.”
Dr. Palmer Noone also emphasized that, due to the commitment of significant funds to sports and other non-academic pursuits, not-for-profits often spend less per student on academics than University of Phoenix.
“Anyone that believes that not-for-profits aren’t concerned with the bottom line is simply not being intellectually honest with themselves,” she observed.
When asked what she saw as her proudest accomplishments as president of the university, Dr. Palmer Noone was modest, stating simply that “everything that I have accomplished here has been a team effort and it would not be appropriate for me to count them as personal accomplishments.” One of the challenges of leading the university, she commented, has been to convey a “consistent and continuous” message to a variety of constituencies. “Especially in a high growth environment, communication cannot be merely episodic. What you tell one group this week must be repeated next week, because the composition of the group will change.” Asked how she sees her legacy as president, Dr. Palmer Noone told TAA: “I hope that people will remember me as a leader who led with passion, integrity, commitment and an unwavering focus on what mattered most—our students, faculty and staff.”
At present, the university appears to have resolved the federal government’s concerns about its administrative practices, and is poised to continue growing at the same time it provides educational opportunities to students at a price that is far below that offered by most not-for-profit institutions.
Said Dr. Palmer Noone: “I can’t imagine University of Phoenix going anywhere but up.”
