- It was happening at ECU before it was happening anywhere else.

We were one of the early movers in the online education space.

- And why was that?

- You know, I think our leadership during that time recognized that ECU was a place that was focused on innovation, that was ready to build the technological infrastructure during a time in which we felt like we could reach more students from an online learning standpoint, that the market was there.

And so that was something that the leadership invested in and that we began to sustain, and we had the infrastructure and the people that understood and had the foresight to look forward to see that it was something that could add value.

And I think that speaks to the very essence of what ECU has done since its founding.

We've evolved to meet the state's needs.

We were founded as a teacher's training school back in 1907 as a way to meet the needs of the state of North Carolina.

We evolved to become East Carolina College, which was a need to expand our undergraduate programs to be able to meet the needs of the state at that time.

We needed more education professionals beyond just teachers.

We needed more business leaders and entrepreneurial thought leaders.

We needed nurses.

And so the institution adapted to meet those needs.

In 1967, we became East Carolina University where our core health science programs began to take off.

And in the late '90s and early 2000s, online education was something that we felt like we could put a stake in the market and really own it.

And you know, I think one of the challenges is that, when you put a stake in the ground or a flag in the ground, you have to continue to find a way to be iteratively adaptive and reinvent around it.

And for a period of time, especially as we came through the COVID pandemic years, there were other institutions that caught up and that began to move in this particular space.

And thanks to the good leadership in the North Carolina General Assembly and the system office, ECU's also been a first mover in the Project Kitty Hawk space.

And we've, over the last couple of years, launched four online programs in that market, which are producing the most number of students through the Project Kitty Hawk platform.

And we're on target to reach, gosh, close to 650, beginning of the fall, which is a big boost to our enrollment.

And it just gives us an opportunity to reach a different type of learner in the adult market and to be able to serve those needs that are so intense in our state.