In the past year, President Carlos Campo has created the Ashland Rising 2020 Five Pillar Initiative in hopes to enhance the universities’ connection between the campus community and the city community.

Last academic year, Campo and his administration developed what he calls a “road map” to the university’s success.  

“The Ashland Rising strategic plan will help us as a university cohere our efforts and bring AU back to its tradition of success,” Campo said.

The strategic plan is focused around five pillars that were put in place in hopes of creating greater opportunities of spurring economic development in the city and a greater connection between AU’s campus and the city of Ashland Campo said. 

The first pillar of his strategic plan focuses on academic excellence and ensuring AU students are finding and creating success for themselves and their peers.  In the past year, Ashland’s retention rate has begun to increase creating what Campo believes to be a more vibrant campus community.

“We hope our new wellness campaign touches every student, faculty, staff member and even push into the community,” Campo said.

The second pillar focuses on Ashland’s unique Christian identity and emphasizing the spiritual aspects the university has to offer.

In the past few years, the university has gone through numerous struggles financially. This is why the third pillar focuses on better managing the university’s dollars.

“We had a really tough year and we are still recovering,” Campo said. “We want to make sure we are stewarding our dollars to make sure our money is going to the right places.”

Continuing to increase the university’s enrollment and retention numbers will give AU more economic stability.

AU’s Facilities Manager Rick Ewing believes in Campo’s first year, he has approached this challenge with excitement and is leading the university on the right path towards attracting more students to AU.

“What Campo is bringing with Ashland Rising 2020 is a sense of enthusiasm, vision and mission,” Ewing said. “This takes time. He has been here for a year and he has taken the time to figure out where the university needs to go and now it is time to get everyone going in that direction.”

Ashland has also implemented a wellness campaign, which stands as the fourth pillar of the strategic plan. This pillar is being executed through the campus community, but Campo also hopes it streams into the Ashland city community as well. 

“What we are here for is student success,” Campo said. “We are seeing this as our retention numbers have gone up significantly and this all plays into our hope for creating a more vibrant community here at Ashland.”

The final pillar of the Ashland Rising 2020 strategic plan is community engagement. Campo began his presidency at AU with a focus of learning about the community and what people wanted to see happen in the community in the future.

“Our community engagement pillar is already moving forward,” Campo said. “We have already had a number of community engagement events and we are seeing it even this fall with inviting fans to come early for football games and really get them engaged with the students and administration at AU.”

Growing up in Ashland, Ewing has had numerous connections throughout the city, allowing him to pull together a task force of both members from the university and those from the community to begin building this pillar.

“We are developing students who are not only cognizant of themselves, but they are learning how to make an impact in their communities and take what they learned at Ashland and use it to better the  world,” Ewing said.

With AU being the central employer of the city, it stands as the economic driver of the Ashland community. As a result, Ewing said one of their primary focuses is figuring out ways the university can benefit the community. 

“As Ashland University improves and grows, the city will continue to prosper as well,” Ewing said. “The two go hand in hand.”

In the past, the campus community and the community from the city of Ashland have been viewed as two separate entities. 

Campo says the concept of Ashland Rising 2020 is focusing on making the university seem as permeable and as attractive as possible to the Ashland city community members.

“We want the community to believe that this is also their university,” Campo said. “We want them to believe that this is their cultural hub so they continue to invest in our students and campus.”