Western Governors University (WGU)

  Western Governors University (WGU)              
 is a private, nonprofit, online American university based in Salt Lake City, Utah. The university was founded by 19 U.S. governors in 1997 after the idea was formulated at a 1995 meeting of the Western Governors Association. The university uses a competency-based learning model, with students working online in coordination with faculty mentors, with whom frequent phone communication is kept, and taking proctored tests online via webcam and other online proctoring technologies. Robert Mendenhall is the current university president. The university has the distinction of having been the first and only university to receive regional accreditation simultaneously from four regional accrediting commissions.Today its accreditation is through the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. It was also the first online university to have its teacher-preparation programs accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), the specialized accrediting body for teacher preparation.

HISTORY

WGU was officially founded in 1997 in the United States by the governors of 19 U.S. states.[4] It was first proposed by then-governor of Utah Mike Leavitt at the annual meeting of the Western Governors Association in June 1995. It was formally proposed the following November and officially founded in June 1996, with each signing state governor committing $100,000 toward the launch of the new competency-based university. While the seed money was provided from government sources, the school was to be established as a self-supporting private, nonprofit institution. In January 1997, 13 governors were on hand to sign the articles of incorporation formally beginning the new university.

In 2001, the United States Department of Education awarded $10 million to found the Teachers College, and the first programs were offered in Information Technology. In 2003, the university became the first school to be accredited in four different regions by the Interregional Accrediting Committee. In 2006, the fourth college, the College of Health Professions, was founded, and the school's Teachers College became the first online teacher-preparation program to receive NCATE accreditation. In 2010, the first state-established offshoot WGU Indiana, was founded by Mitch Daniels, governor of Indiana, and the school reached 20,000 students for the first time. In 2011, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided $4.5 million for WGU Indiana and the creation of WGU Texas and WGU Washington.

On January 8, 2013, Bill Haslam, governor of Tennessee, announced the creation of the state-affiliated WGU Tennessee. On January 28, 2013, Jay Nixon of Missouri, in his annual State of the State address, announced the founding of WGU Missouri, creating the fifth state-affiliated campus. The state-affiliated offshoots of WGU share the same academic model, faculty, services, accreditation, and curricula as WGU and were established to give official state endorsement and increased name recognition to WGU in those states; however, WGU has students and graduates in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories, parts of Canada, and on U.S. military bases worldwide.