Frisco | October 2024

Education

BY ALEX REECE

Higher Education Edition 2024

Welcome to Community Impact’s annual Higher Education Edition. This guide features the latest updates and resources about local higher education institutions in your community. All the stories were written by our team of local journalists. In this year’s edition, our team of reporters bring you stories about the University of North Texas, Amberton University and Collin College.

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Samantha Douty Senior Editor sdouty@ communityimpact.com

The University of Texas at Dallas www.utdallas.edu 9728832111 The Future Demands Dierent

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What's inside

Collin College continues to see program growth (Page 23)

Find a local college, university in North Texas (Page 24)

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Amberton University sees new president, looks to future

Frisco’s oldest university, Amberton University, is under new leadership. Amberton University President Carol Palmer stepped into her new position June 1, according to a university news release. In the months since, every day has been a little bit dierent, she said. “Right now, I’m spending a lot of time looking at the future of our academic programs and building a new strategic plan and seeing where we want to go from here,” Palmer said. Palmer is the university system’s third president and second female president. She rst joined Amberton University as an adjunct business professor in 2010 before working her way up to full-time and eventually served as an Amberton University dean, director and vice president. Staying competitive Amberton University started oering online classes in the mid-1990s and recently began oering a hybrid project management degree for

Frisco students, Palmer said. The university will begin oering an Applied Articial Intelligence for Business course this winter and incorporate conversations about AI in all of its classes starting in 2025. “Articial intelligence is huge in our world,” Palmer said. “We’re looking at how we teach our students to work with it and not work against it because it’s here to stay.” Other future oerings include a heavier empha- sis on information technology, counseling and skills certications. Palmer said ocials either add new university courses or update existing ones frequently to stay modern. The context Amberton University was founded in Garland in 1971. The institution’s Frisco campus, located on Parkwood Boulevard, opened in 2007. The university is slightly dierent from other local higher education options, Palmer said.

“I follow in pretty large footsteps. I feel very honored for that but I also have

my own plan and my own thoughts about where we can take the university from here going forward.” CAROL PALMER, AMBERTON UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT

Classes are mostly online, mostly for graduate programs and geared toward working adults. Despite operating in Frisco for nearly two decades, not many people seem to know about the university, Palmer said. “We’re kind of a well-kept secret, like a little hidden gem that we would love more people to know about,” she said.

FRISCO EDITION