Interim President Stockwell Day Announces New Plans With Primacorp and King’s

Stockwell Day I Photo Courtesy of The King’s College

At the town hall meeting on Friday, Sept. 9, Interim President Stockwell Day announced publicly that The King’s College is partnering with Primacorp Ventures to create the King’s Online program for the upcoming 2023-2024 school year.

Primacorp, the largest provider of post-secondary education in Canada, according to Day, believes in “changing the world through education.” Primacorp projects that after five years, 6,000 students will be attending King’s Online. At this time, The King’s College and Primacorp have a “revenue chain” that allows the college to get a percentage of the revenue Primacorp earns from King’s Online. 

“This will be a very substantial revenue flow for the first time in King’s history,” said Day. “This will reduce, but not eliminate, the need for fundraising, but instead allow for stable, long-term fundraising.”

Primacorp, however, has “no jurisdiction over the curriculum,” according to Day. Primacorp agreed with King’s that the school would not back off from its vision of a Christ-centered worldview.

“The King’s College will be driving curriculum,” said Day. “We are not lowering our standards to admit more students. If anything, it will be more rigorous to get into the King’s Online program.”

Although this will be a major change for King’s, Mattilyn Winburn, the Student Body President, addressed the confusion behind this new program. 

Day also shared the idea of the Global Rotation program, where King’s students will have the opportunity to take part in the King’s Online program in three different countries across the world. The Global Rotation program would be a different program from King’s Online.

According to the plan with Primacorp, the first group of students to participate in this program—about 25 students—would be at the New York City campus for a term. Students would then go overseas and do a year’s worth of studies in South Korea, India or Israel where they would be enabled to “impart to the world a biblical worldview,” according to Day.

In fact, the Handong Global University in South Korea heard about this program and will be visiting King’s on Sept. 29. Day stated that they are “interested in the vision and commitment of this campus” and want some of their students to be a part of this program.

Max Pleban, a PPE senior of the House of Ronald Reagan, had concerns about how King’s Online would affect the admissions rate of the NYC campus. 

He asked, “How much is the online system, which we know will be getting a lot of attention, going to take away or increase the emphasis of on-campus students?”

Day elaborated on the admissions numbers this year compared to last year. According to Day, there were a total of 42 serious applications to attend King’s on-campus last September. Now, according to the admissions office, King’s currently has a total of 174 serious applications for attending on-campus — over three times the amount from this time last year. This figure does not include the number of students who have registered to participate in King’s Online. 

King’s is in the process of looking for a new school president. According to Day, the advertisement for the job position was released on Sept. 9. “The type of president we are looking for meets the educational requirements but also has experience in this kind of hybrid operation and experience in dealing with radically shifting financial dealings,” said Day. 

“He has made a commitment to this school to act as the shepherd during the process of merging with Primacorp until they can find someone to step into the position permanently,” said Winburn, addressing the period in which Day will act as Interim President. 

A presidential search committee has been formed and consists of a total of 10 people, including students, faculty, administration, alumni and the Board of Trustees.

“Three weeks ago, I was totally freaking out. I received the email [about the presidential changes] with the rest of the student body,” Winburn said. “Now that I’m having consistent meetings with President Day, sitting in on the cabinet meetings and having conversations with the student development team and administration, I am a lot more comfortable with how I think the year is going to go. I am seeing firsthand how President Day and his team, the administration and the faculty and staff here at King’s have my back and the backs of the student body. At the end of the day, they are just trying to do what is best for us and the school.”

Emma Rice is a reporter for the Empire State Tribune. She is a freshman at The King’s College majoring in English.