WCU Magazine Fall/Winter 2025

Dr. Paul Christ, longtime professor and retired head of the University’s MBA program, recognizes that for many students who want to pursue graduate education, money is the main barrier to access.

He’s focused on providing direct impact to students who have no financial support and are paying their own way.

The vision has been building for a long time. “My wife and I talked about doing this for a while, as West Chester meant so much to us. She passed away in 2024 after battling MS for more than 30 years. It’s a way to honor her legacy, and to honor what West Chester did not only for me but for our family.”

Paul and Carol had put together some ideas for a scholarship, pausing them when Carol’s health worsened. After she passed, he started building something to give back in a special way and the Carol and Paul Christ Graduate Business Scholarship was established. The scholarship will be awarded annually to a student enrolled in the MBA program within the College of Business and Public Management. It will support the cost of two MBA courses and standard University fees.

Most students who are aided by their employer or a third-party program can get 80% to 100% of their school costs reimbursed. In his experience as director of WCU’s MBA program, Dr. Christ remembers that the students who had nobody to help them financially were among the most committed.

“Some of them are juggling school with a family or a job, so they have a lot going on. They’re dedicated to those other things just as much as they are to their education. I find that very honorable.”

With the evolution of today’s technology, the skills needed for any job can change quickly and he sees a graduate degree as the main separator in the job market.

“We are seeing just a small part of what’s out there in the AI world right now. Because of that, everyone must possess the mindset that continuing to learn is critical to future success.” A graduate degree program is one way to promote lifelong learning — but with it comes a financial burden. Dr. Christ hopes to help students invest in the rest of their lives with this scholarship.

It was his forward-thinking intuition that anticipated the shift to online learning before the turn of the century.

“In 1999, I saw what was happening with the internet, especially with the evolution of e-commerce, so I proposed a special technology and e-commerce concentration within the WCU MBA.”

Then, in the early 2000s on vacation in the Florida Keys, he noticed how many young people were using their laptops in the middle of the day. Although this was before the advancement of tablets and mobile phones, Paul recognized that this was going to be the way people expected to communicate, and learn.

WCU had no other fully online programs at the time, and little was known about the potential the internet had to impact business. Several faculty accepted the challenge of teaching the new curriculum, inspired and bolstered by his vision, and the program took off.

For Dr. Christ, this is a way to honor his wife’s legacy, equip new leaders, and extend a helping hand to the student out there who wrote off an advanced degree because of the funds.

“I hope with this scholarship, they can receive a bit of hope and feel empowered to work harder. For most educators, helping students succeed is one of the main reasons we’re drawn to higher education. I am happy I had a small part in doing that.”