Shining a Light On: Dr. Eileen Hulme

Indiana Wesleyan University National and Global Campus Chancellor talks about Kokomo and the Thriving Center's new role in the community

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Dr. Eileen Hulme is the newly minted chancellor of Indiana Wesleyan University’s National & Global Campus, focused on off-campus and online learning. As such, the IWU Kokomo Thriving Center falls under her jurisdiction.

Since the Kokomo Thriving Center itself is a new addition to the community, few know what to expect from the university. Dr. Hulme made it clear that it won’t be a traditional classroom experience. IWU tried that 20 years ago with limited success. This time around, people should expect something different, something tailored to Kokomo’s needs, something that makes an impact.

Dr. Hulme sat with the Kokomo Lantern and answered questions during the Global Leadership Conference at Crossroads Community Church last week. Following is a recap of that conversation.

KL: What is your vision for the Kokomo Thriving Center?

Hulme: When we started a year and a half ago really rethinking our regional centers, we were trying to decide which ones we want to work in. We have 10. We decided to embed ourselves in the communities and try to understand what the needs are and then see if we have anything that would relate or be helpful to those needs and bring the two together.

When we started working in Kokomo, we realized it had a problem that most of Indiana has with opioid addictions and with mental health, which is a problem all across America. We have a really robust counseling and addictions program, so we thought maybe we could be helpful.

Our goal is never to compete, but just to support. We built the program from there, but we didn’t want it to be just Indiana Wesleyan. We wanted there to be an association with thriving. We brought on Liz Kerns to be our director, and it formed organically from there.

Usually I’m the type of leader who has this vision. I’m beginning to learn that in higher education there is too much of that. We don’t try to embed in the community and try to be helpful. While I still have a vision in the back of my mind, I’m letting Kokomo lead the way. We have faculty who live in the area. Liz lives here. We want to lead from within.

KL: And what kind of response have you received from Kokomo?

Hulme: It’s been really wonderful. We didn’t know, because we have been here for 20 years, but we really haven’t been contributing members of Kokomo in recent years. But people have embraced us. Part of it is we have people who are a part of Kokomo, which has helped us.

Crossroads Community Church is a perfect example. They were going to host the GLC and asked if we wanted to be involved. Of course! Thanks for asking! We have found a lot of people who are willing to partner and allow us to be a part of the community.

KL: If I am a prospective student of IWU in Kokomo, what should I expect?

Hulme: One of the things we are trying to do with our regional centers is offer a hybrid education. What we heard coming out of the pandemic is that people are really wanting the convenience of taking the class online, but they still want some kind of community connection.

We are fortunate because we have these regional centers. So, you will have the opportunity to experience part of your class face-to-face, likely at the start, and then you’ll be able experience the class online.

We’ll also have a lot of other things besides degree programs. You might be coming in to do a life coaching certificate or a think tank or Leadership Kokomo. If we’re going to do a hybrid class, and we’re having them come to the thriving center, there had better be a really interesting class that they couldn’t experience online. So, our hybrid classes will be more interactive. It won’t be a traditional lecture.

One of the things we are working on is game-ifying learning. We’re just in the testing phase, but we think it will be fun. You’re going to see us trying different modalities over the next four or five years.

KL: As a student of IWU, who am I?

Hulme: That is an interesting question because there is such a wide range. We have some students who are 18-24 years old, but they don’t want to go to a traditional college campus. I think we will see more of those because there are more students tasking high school online.

But our bread-and-butter student is in their 30s or early 40s. Oftentimes, they are second-chancers. Maybe they needed to get their kids out the door before they pursued a college degree. Maybe they started young but weren’t very successful. But now they are in a different place in life and want to come back. We get a lot of different folks from different walks of life. And they all have interesting or even stunning life stories. We graduated someone who was 76 and someone who was 21 last semester.

KL: If there is one thing IWU can do to impact Kokomo, what do you want it to be?

Hulme: I have three. We have a really strong counseling and behavioral addiction program. If we could interest more people to go into those fields, so they could fill into those service areas in Kokomo, I would feel really great. The impact we could have on this area by having more people trained with those skills is one of the central goals we started with.

Mental health issues are to the point where everybody needs to be paying attention and be part of the solution, so if we had more people coming out of our programs with life coaching skills and counseling skills, we would love to have that impact.

And if we could get more integrated in leadership here, we would love to have an influence and be a part of that.