WGU Advancement June 2021 Bulletin

Thanks to the generous support of a multi-year grant from the Merkin Family Foundation, in October of 2019 WGU began enrolling students in the Bachelor of Science in Health Services Coordination (BSHSC) program. The Merkin Family Foundation is led by Richard Merkin, MD, Founder and CEO of Heritage Provider Network, (HPN), one of the nation's leading physician-led managed care organizations.

Graduates of the BSHSC program are prepared to coordinate with health care providers, patients, caregivers, and medical services to improve the effectiveness, safety, and efficiency of an increasingly complex health care system. The new program in WGU’s College of Health Professions has thrived with nearly 800 students currently enrolled and 16 graduates to date including Kourtney M. from Michigan (photo) and Jayne H. from California.

WGU’s very first Giving Day was celebrated on April 21, 2021. Support from the entire Night Owl community was outstanding and donations continued to pour in the rest of the month.

In total, more than $86,000 was raised for several important scholarships and the student emergency aid fund! We received 1,095 gifts from 933 donors and hundreds of proud Night Owl names spread across our donor wall and #WGUGivingDay #NightOwlsUnite messages inundated social media feeds in April.

As WGU President Scott Pulsipher mentioned, “Your overwhelming generosity exceeded our expectations and set a high bar for future WGU Giving Days.”

Thank you to all of our #WGUGivingDay donors for making a difference in the lives of WGU students and we look forward to celebrating WGU Giving Day with you again next year! 

Thanks to a generous $850,000 grant from Walmart, the Open Skills Network (OSN) is poised for a significant expansion of its mission to accelerate the adoption of skills-based education and hiring by reducing technological and operational barriers and opening more pathways to learning and career opportunities for workers.

This is the second grant the OSN, in partnership with WGU Advancement, has received from Walmart. A previous grant of $250,000 arrived last year and supported the launch of the OSN in September 2020. Since then, the Network has grown to become a coalition of more than 530 employers, educational organizations, and technology providers committed to establishing a network of open skills libraries and skills data.

Currently, job seekers rely on résumés, job applications, credentials, and transcripts to communicate their skills and work experience. However, these outdated methods fail to capture the full spectrum of an individual’s range of skills acquired in the classroom or on the job. 

The OSN was created to drive a paradigm shift toward skills-based education and hiring. Because skills data is not easily accessible or machine-actionable, making the switch to skills-based practices is a manual, expensive process for most employers and education institutions. The OSN is trying to solve this problem by creating a decentralized national network of open, accessible, machine-actionable skills libraries. Walmart’s newest round of funding will support that work.

You can learn more about the OSN by visiting their website at openskillsnetwork.org.

Every year WGU is proud to provide thousands of students, like Mariah, with scholarship and emergency aid support so they can focus on their degree programs and get one step closer to graduating.

Thank you for generously supporting WGU students. Please consider paying it forward once again so more students in need can achieve their dreams. Make your gift now by visiting wgu.edu/GiveNow.