Recording the Development of an Online University: APUS 25th Anniversary Oral History Project

By Michael Montalbano, MA, MLIS, CA – University Archivist and Special Collections Manager

The American Public University System (APUS), a leader in distance-education, was founded in 1991 by retired Marine Corps officer James Etter, as American Military University (AMU) with the goal of serving the education needs of service members. In 2002, seeing the need to extend the same high-quality education to the public, the American Public University (APU) started. Today the university boasts more than 100,000 students from across the world and is the nation’s largest provider of higher education to the armed forces of the United States. In preparation of APUS’ 25^th anniversary, APUS Scholar in Residence and SAA Fellow Fred Stielow, assisted by archivists Michael Montalbano and Bradley Wiles, have been conducting interviews of key members of the institution in an effort to capture the vision, the approach, the challenges, and the successes of the individuals who have shaped the university.

In addition to documenting the history of APUS, the project will help to build academic reputation, foster alumni relations, build internal brand affinity, and serve to differentiate it from the competition. As a pioneer and innovator in online education, the project records the various advances made by APUS in areas such as institutional analytics, electronic course material, and online language instruction. By documenting these advances and recording how and when they were developed, APUS can bolster its reputation in the competitive field of online higher education. 

As most traditional institutions have a robust alumni community with a shared connection to a specific geographic location, a wholly online university, such as APUS, lacks such a location, making it difficult to foster a sense of pride in their alma mater. It is hoped that by capturing the memories of students the project will build a structure that engages alumni to foster those shared experiences similar to those found on traditional campuses. 

Today, the university has grown in size and scope, and documenting the history of this growth is timely. The community will have access to the historical progress of the institution and the efforts to maintain high-quality instruction and service to our students.  

Another significant aspect of the project is, of course, its use as a marketing asset for the present and the future. Few, if any, competitors in online higher education have conducted efforts to document and codify their history. APUS’ recognition of its past and the desire to build on that legacy is one aspect that separates it from other online institutions.

Lastly, the project serves to raise awareness of the archives’ role within the institution. By taking advantage of its unique position as the institutional memory of the university, the archive reaches across the campus to collaborate with the various departments and voices that make up the composite parts of the APUS community. So the archive becomes more than just a place for the old records and marketing assets to be placed when no longer needed but a focal point of that community.

The project will include a purpose built website and timeline that will contain portions of the interviews germane to specific developments of the university along with an analytical report on the first 25 years of APUS and its role in the creating a new type of university.