| Columbia Southern University | |
|---|---|
| Motto | Superior Service. Flexible Programs. Extraordinary Value. |
| Established | 1993 |
| Type | Online University |
| President | Robert Mayes, Jr., MBA |
| Vice-president | Joe Manjone, Ed.D. |
| Students | 28,360 [1] |
| Undergraduates | 25,390 |
| Postgraduates | 2,970 |
| Location | Orange Beach, Alabama, United States of America |
| Nickname | CSU |
| Website | http://www.columbiasouthern.edu |
Columbia Southern University, in Orange Beach, Alabama, USA, is a privately held for-profit online-only institution of higher education.[2] It offers associate, bachelor, graduate and postgraduate programs in fields including fire science, criminal justice, business administration, information technology, human resource management, organizational leadership, and occupational safety and health.
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Columbia Southern has been accredited by Distance Education and Training Council (DETC) since 2001.[3][4] DETC is an accreditation agency recognized by both the U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). Columbia Southern is also a member of the Higher Education Transfer Alliance (HETA), a voluntary group of accredited institutions that are concerned with the importance of student mobility, enhancing success in transfer of credit, and affirming the responsibility and prerogative of individual institutions with respect to acceptance of transfer credits. It is one of the few accredited institutions selected by the DETC to start offering accredited online Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA), one of eight pilot doctorate programs being implemented by the DETC.[5]
Currently Columbia Southern University has more than 270 full-time faculty and staff. It enrolls and graduates thousands of students annually on both national and international level. Columbia Southern University also established agreements with University of North Alabama, Waldorf College, and University of West Florida to offer creative online degree programs through these traditional universities.
The school was founded in 1993 by Dr. Robert G. Mayes, Sr.,.[4][6] The university developed its first degree programs in Environmental Engineering and Occupational Safety and Health in 1994.
By 1996, the infrastructure to administer these programs was firmly in place and additional degree programs were developed and offered. The Bachelor of Science in Business Administration was the first to be offered before Computer Science, Criminal Justice Administration and Health Administration were also made available.[4]
Dr. Mayes headed the institution until his death in 2005, when his son, Robert Mayes, Jr., assumed the presidency.[6]
Columbia Southern University is one of six Academic Partners of Delta Air Lines and one of approximately 140 schools approved to offer up-front tuition assistance through the U.S. Army’s centralized tuition assistance portal, GoArmyEd.[7]