Pictured above: HPU President Dr. Nido Qubein (center) mentors students in the collaborative spaces located across campus. He often stops to catch up with students and to provide encouragement during their studies.
This story is featured in the Fall 2019 edition of the HPU Magazine.
Transformation can take many forms for those willing to embrace it.
A caterpillar can change into a butterfly.
A shy student can grow into a professional leader.
A quiet college can flourish into a hub of innovation.
A teenager can come to America to start a new life.
When HPU President Nido Qubein leads his weekly Freshman Seminar on Life Skills, he tells stories such as these. He knows what it’s like to start a new life. He came to America when he was just 17 years old.
New students, all of whom take his course, fill the Hayworth Fine Arts Center to learn from Qubein.
They’re just beginning their academic journey at HPU, but after almost 15 years of serving as HPU’s president, Qubein knows the many opportunities that await.
“High Point University knows a thing or two about transformation,” Qubein tells students in the seminar. “And transformation creates opportunity if you are willing to embrace it.”
Qubein leads a team of faculty and staff who model adaptability, persistence and a growth mindset. When he first arrived, things on campus were different. In those days, one reporter referred to HPU as “a dusty old college.”
That changed when he became president in 2005. Qubein has led HPU on a meteoric rise that includes a $3 billion investment. His vision led to more than tripling enrollment from 1,450 to 4,600 undergraduate students, more than quadrupling campus from 91 to 500 acres, taking HPU to doctoral degree-granting status and establishing six new academic schools, for a total of nine academic schools now at HPU.
Today, growth doesn’t come in phases for Qubein and HPU. It’s a continual journey.
There’s a total of $200 million in active construction on campus with more to come.
Transformation, Qubein knows, is possible for any person or any organization willing to embrace it.
But the transformational environment students experience at HPU isn’t one they’ll find elsewhere.