Ashland University and Licking Memorial Health Systems signed a three-year corporate partner agreement on Jan. 6, 2021. According to Dan Lawson, Associate Vice President and Chief Corporate Officer at AU, the meaning of a corporate partner agreement is to give employees from different companies the opportunity to go to AU at discounted rates. 

“We started working with Licking Memorial because we knew there were people within the hospital system that wanted to become students at Ashland,” Rachel O’Connor, coordinator for external relations and OutReach at AU, said. 

O’Connor works for Corporate Connections at Ashland University, a program under adult and online studies. 

She said she spends most of her time talking to AU’s corporate partners. O’Connor goes to each company and talks to employees about the programs Ashland University offers and the many benefits of enrolling.

“My job is to tell people how awesome AU is and to help nontraditional learners, like employees who have been working for ten or 15 years, and give them more information on how they can up scale,” she said.

Licking Memorial is the 73 company to partner with Ashland University to provide tuition discounts. According to the university website, other companies AU has partnerships with are Brethren Care, Charles River, Huntington Bank and more.

“At Ashland, we believe in lifelong learning and transformative education and character development; and we think a lot of that comes through the educational process and just being able to be a lifelong learner,” O’Connor said.

Ashland University understands the time and money that is spent earning a degree and the Corporate Connections department tries to make everything more accessible she said. 

“The person who is seeking a graduate degree or a doctorate degree, they are going to get 10percent off of their tuition,”  O’Connor said. 

Undergraduate students can benefit from the program as well. 

“If you’re an undergrad, and say your mom worked for Licking Memorial, you could get a $500 scholarship each semester you go to Ashland,” O’Connor said.

She also said some of these companies are looking for interns or new talent and the department is able to set them up with students from AU. 

“We just want more people to know this exists,” O’Connor said. “The more people that are a part of it, the better.”

For more information on Corporate Connections, visit: https://www.ashland.edu/administration/corporate-connections