The University of Phoenix, a national private university that opened a small learning center in Spokane last year, says it now plans to have a 12,000-square-foot building constructed for it here.


The Phoenix-based school, which serves about 213,000 students at more than 150 campuses and learning centers, has grown quickly here since it began offering classes locally last fall. It now serves about 150 students here and employs 15 people, plus another about 30 Spokane-area business people who work part time as adjunct faculty members, says Paul Green, its Spokane campus director.


The schools learning center here currently occupies about 3,000 square feet of space in the Rock Pointe Corporate Center, north of downtown, about 1,000 more square feet of space than it had when it opened last fall.


Green says the school has identified a piece of property where it plans to have a new structure built, but declines to say where the site is until an agreement has been reached with the developer of the building. He says, though, that the building will be located near Interstate 90, providing the school with the visibility it usually seeks for its branch campuses.


The university hopes to move quickly on its plans. Green says the school would like to occupy its new facility by next spring.


Typically, University of Phoenix campus buildings have 10 to 17 classrooms, plus a computer lab and offices for counselors and administrative personnel.


Nationally, the school offers a host of baccalaureate and graduate programs in business, information technology, education, social and behavioral sciences, and health sciences. Its students are considered nontraditional students and have an average age of 34.


Theyre working adults. They have busy lives. They have careers or are looking to change careers, says Green.


In Spokane, the university so far offers bachelors degrees in business management and information technology and a masters degree in business administration. Green says the school expects to add more degree-program offerings here within the next year, probably in the areas of education and health care.


Students who want to pursue degree programs that arent yet available at the Spokane center can do so through the University of Phoenix Online, a part of the university that offers classes directly out of Phoenix completely via the Internet, with no classroom instruction.


Green says that as the campus here adds degree programs and attracts more students, it will be hiring additional full-time employees and recruiting more adjunct faculty. He says he expects that by the end of next year, the Spokane campus will have about 350 students, an additional two or three employees, and an undetermined additional number of adjuncts.


The University of Phoenixs Spokane-campus students generally live in the Inland Northwest. The school uses an unusual, fast-paced model for its classes. Students take just one class at a time, and the classes last just five weeks. During that time, the students meet in a classroom with an instructor just twice, once at the beginning of the term and once at the end. In between, instruction, assignments, and testing all are done online, using the universitys sophisticated Web site and e-mail.


During the term of a class, students and instructors interact daily via the Internet, though they dont all have to be online at the same time, Green says. That model, he says, allows for working professionals to set their own schedules for class work, yet still be able to converse with fellow students and the instructor.


The schools Web site also provides an extensive online library for research, as well as computer simulations used in the classroom to test students solutions to problems.


Students typically can earn a bachelors degree in two to four years through the university, he says. The school charges $300 per credit, or about $900 per class, which makes it more costly than a public university here, but somewhat less than Whitworth College or Gonzaga University, which are private schools.


The school says about 60 percent of its students receive tuition help from their employers, and scholarships are available.


All of its instructors have a minimum of a masters degree and typically have about 15 years of experience in their field of work, Green says. Adjunct faculty members, whom the school calls faculty practitioners, undergo five to six weeks of training at the university before they begin teaching there, he says.


The university is accredited and has matriculation agreements with about 450 two-year colleges.


The school was founded in 1976 by John Sperling, a Cambridge-educated economist and professor. It is a subsidiary of Apollo Group Inc., a Phoenix-based publicly traded company that also owns the Institute for Professional Development, in Phoenix; the College for Financial Planning, of Greenwood Village, Colo.; and Western International University Inc., in Phoenix. It is not affiliated with Apollo College.