Recent News

Fall enrollment at East Central University is up by 5.6 percent over fall 2008, ECU officials said. ECU has 4,633 undergraduate and graduate students this fall, or 244 more than a year ago.

Even though they live on opposite sides of the world, the excitement, anxiety and concerns are the same -- at least for the parents of three college students.

Its work with military veterans has earned East Central University a plaque and a spot on G.I. Jobs magazine's list of military-friendly schools for 2010.

ECU ranks in the magazine's top 15 percent of colleges, universities and trade schools which are doing the most to embrace America's veterans as students.

Reggie Whitten admits he once thought drug and alcohol addicts were bad people who made bad choices and who didn't want to quit their habit -- and that he was in denial long after he discovered his own "nearly perfect" son was a drug and alcohol addict.

"Why don't you just stop?" he said he asked his son, Brandon.

Later, addictions killed his son, he said.

New faculty members in kinesiology, accounting, math, education, nursing, biology, computer science, social work and communications have begun teaching at East Central University. A new librarian, an academic adviser in McAlester and a new director of institutional research also have been added.

The new faculty members are:

Riley W. Bailey

A state senator, district judge, district attorney and the director of prevention services for the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (ODMHA) will join Oklahoma City attorney Reggie Whitten for a presentation on addiction and substance abuse Tuesday [AUG. 25] at East Central University.

The first Project Invest Book Drive, a community effort to collect books for children up to the age of four, is underway in Ada during August and September.

East Central University's Child Care Resource & Referral Agency, in collaboration with Smart Start South Central, is hosting the book drive.

The Community Education Program at East Central University is now accepting online registration for its fall non-credit classes and trips.

"This means that anyone can enroll in a class and charge the fee to a credit card 24 hours a day, seven days a week," said Charlee Lanis, coordinator of the Community Education Program.