University of Phoenix Opens Tutoring and Social Centers for Online Students

By Goldie Blumenstyk in The Chronicle of Higher Education's 'Buildings & Grounds Blog':

[T]he University of Phoenix has begun to develop new drop-in centers for its distance-education students. The specially-designed centers house tutoring services and double as social spaces. About 200,000 of the university’s 330,000 students take courses online.

U. of Phoenix

The first of the centers, conceived as “a cross between a library and a Starbucks,” opened about a year ago in Plano, Tex., says William J. Pepicello, the university’s president. University leaders determined that Plano would be a good site after analyzing ZIP codes of distance-education students and finding that the location was central to many of them.