Strode aims for accessibility as WKU regional campuses director

Yahoo

09-04-2025

Derick Strode felt he was 'floating around' during his formative years at Western Kentucky University before putting an emphasis on English.
'I had two great English teachers in high school; but by the time I got to WKU, I had no idea I was going to be an English major,' Strode, 43, said. '(I was a) young student who was trying to find their way,' Strode said.
The 'lifelong Kentuckian' and Allen County-Scottsville High School graduate said it was during undergrad when he encountered 'a couple of very influential faculty members' who helped expose him to 'how great being an English student could be' — developing a keen interest in American literature.
'I fell into it,' he said, 'and loved it very much.'
Strode, a first-generation college student, had the opportunity to study abroad in England the summer before the start of his junior year — an experience he deemed 'influential.'
'... I had never been in the cities. I had never been outside of the U.S.,' he said. 'I didn't have a passport when I started college. ...I always put it into context historically — it was post-9/11, but this was still before the U.S. and other allies attacked Iraq, and went militarily into Iraq,' Strode said. 'It was a really political moment. The western world was really sort of reeling from 9/11 and there were a lot of protests because the coming war efforts were very established and publicized.
'I hadn't seen protests, peaceful protests, all these different ideas being exchanged,' Strode said. '... It was personal growth and confidence — that's what changed.
'I was never the same,' Strode said.
Following graduation in 2003, Strode worked for a 'large, corporate' law firm in Cincinnati for eight months while also freelancing as a writer and photographer. It was following his departure from the firm when working a front desk shift at the Residence Inn by Marriott Cincinnati Airport that renavigated his life course.
'... I was working (at the hotel) on the evening of July 4 … and I was not happy with how things were going in life, and I was looking for another job while I was working,' he said. 'I was looking at the classifieds … and I saw the WKU logo … and they were looking for a person who would live in northern Kentucky or Cincinnati and visit high schools as a recruiter.'
He found himself back with WKU in August 2004, this time employed as an admissions counselor — the first job in Strode's now-two-decade-plus career in education.
'It felt like it was important. It felt like I had purpose. My salary stunk, but I did not care,' he said. 'I never worked harder at a job than I did for those three years as a recruiter.'
The following year, Strode found himself back in the classroom as a graduate student in WKU's master's degree program for student affairs in higher education — all while working his full-time job.
After graduating in 2017, Strode went on to become an international student advisor.
'At the time, WKU had a large international student population. Our biggest population were Indian students at that point in time, but we had students from … well north of 40 countries …,' he said. '... It was a blast.'
After almost two years, Strode found himself at the then-recently opened Carol Martin Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Science in Kentucky, a state-funded, specialized early college entrance program.
Strode took on two roles during his near-13-year tenure — starting out as the coordinator of research, internships and scholarships in October 2008 before becoming the assistant director of academic services by March 2012.
'There's no reason except for it was special,' Strode chuckled in response to leaving his WKU post. '(Gatton) was one-year-old when I joined it, and the opportunities there were rich and plentiful.
'... It was new and everything there was ready to take off and grow,' Strode said. 'It was not what I (thought) would be my next move, but there it was — and it was the professional ride of my life.'
While Strode's time at Gatton still allowed him to connect and network with WKU faculty, he notes the new setting came with some learning curves.
'I didn't know how to create a research program. I didn't know how to create an internship program for people who aren't 18 years old yet,' he said. 'But there were two things — there was a vision that had been laid, and my first job was to bring it to life; and then second, there were peer schools around the country for us who had already been doing it that we got to learn from.
'I had a lot of support to take an idea, learn how to do it and bring it to life,' Strode said.
During this chapter, Strode enrolled at WKU two more times — receiving his master's in English in 2012 and a doctor of education in educational leadership in 2016.
About five years later, Strode found himself back at his alma mater, albeit not in one central area or building.
In August 2021, Strode became the director for regional campuses — overseeing the college's satellite locations in Elizabethtown, Fort Knox, Glasgow, Owensboro and Somerset.
'I was still having a great time at Gatton, so I wasn't in a huge hurry to leave there. But I just grew ready for a leadership role,' he said. '... At Gatton, I worked with this select group of Kentucky students to propel them to .. reach for things that otherwise they wouldn't have necessarily been easily able to.
'This job is more about the access for every person,' Strode said. 'That value of this job, making sure that no matter what one's personal circumstances (are) that they still have access to higher education wherever they live.
'It speaks to a lot of what I believe,' Strode said.
While Strode found his prior experiences in education have been helpful in the role, he said his past with admissions has been instrumental.
'... If we try to get people to pursue a degree, we have to find them, understand them and communicate back to them on how to get enrolled,' he said. 'The recruitment aspect of what I do and what we do with our staff here (in Owensboro) and at other regional campuses — it's every single day.'
And he's found leading the charge in different parts of the state has opened his eyes about how to best serve each campuses' students specifically.
'The needs between here (in Owensboro) and other communities … are not the same,' Strode said. 'There's a lot of gear switching in this job, and that's nice. I don't go to work in the same place tomorrow ever as I did today, and the challenges are always new.'
Strode started the role when education was still plagued by the coronavirus pandemic, though he noticed online course enrollment '(absorbed) a lot more of our students.'
'... We did a lot of evaluation first of what did students want? How did they want higher ed to take place? Did they want to be online? Did they want to be in-person?' he said. 'And the answer was everything above and in between — everybody had different feelings about it.
'... We started forging more ways for our regional program to be hybrid touches,' Strode said. 'We insist that we get students to our regional campuses so that we have relationships with them, and so that they have relationships with their faculty and with their peers. But we also, probably, have more of an online modality inside of what they do now than before Covid.
'I think we're finding some sweet spot in that — trying to take advantage of what online education can do for flexibility of degree progress, while insisting that the in-person components are really important to their development,' Strode said.
For the Owensboro campus, the city's only four-year public university, enrollment has been in a five-year high regarding on-campus students and 425 total students being enrolled as of fall 2024.
According to comprehensive data from fall 2023, the average out-of-pocket cost per semester is $1,842, with 57% of students receiving a Pell Grant, 61% receiving an automatic WKU merit scholarship — average $1,400 per semester, and 60% receiving additional scholarship support — averaging $2,771 per semester.
According to the data, 41% of WKU-Owensboro's full-time undergraduates ended up not paying anything.
'We work on that public education pipeline to help local residents complete bachelor's degrees and graduate degrees,' Strode said, 'and nobody else in Owensboro does that.'
The university is also Owensboro Community & Technical College's largest transfer partner, which Strode stresses he and the university 'work really hard to make it as smooth and seamless as possible' in an effort to 'create purposeful transitions.'
'We meet with their administration every month — it's a standing meeting — … and we nurture the good things we've got going,' he said. 'We constantly work to make sure that they're smooth for students, and that it's affordable and that their faculty know how to advise them ….'
Though the students enrolled with the satellite locations may not get the exact experience one would at WKU's main hub in Bowling Green, it doesn't deter the educational value.
'We're one Western Kentucky University; we just happen to have a different zip code,' Strode said of the Owensboro campus. 'The 13 degrees that we offer here (are) offered by the same departments and the same faculty at WKU — the same quality, the expectation, rigor, accreditation standards.
'Everything is measured by the same ruler …,' Strode said.
And though Strode stays busy traveling from one location to the next, his interactions with students — former and present — make it all worthwhile.
'I'm always going to be the happiest when I hear from a student,' he said. 'That's where my heart's at.'