WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Gerry McCartney said he was fully aware of what he’d told Purdue trustees a year ago, nearly to the day, when they assigned him to rework university’s digital offerings so the West Lafayette campus could catch up rather than get lapped by other schools.

That day in 2017, McCartney had told the trustees about a quip from a colleague who’d learned about the assignment about to be given to Purdue’s chief information officer: “The entire future and survival of Purdue University will rest on your shoulders in this assignment. Best of luck.”

“I remember,” McCartney said Friday morning, moments after Purdue’s trustees formally created Purdue Online, a new division of the West Lafayette campus. “Still feels that way.”

Purdue Online is not Purdue Global, the product of Purdue’s acquisition of the former for-profit, and largely online, Kaplan University.

But the inspiration comes from that deal initiated in April 2017 and finalized in April 2018. President Mitch Daniels touted that deal as an extension of Purdue’s land grant mission to educate masses, by reaching the sort of non-traditional students Kaplan traditionally taught and that would mostly likely never have a chance to break away from family and jobs to come to the West Lafayette campus.

In the face of skepticism about the deal from faculty – who protested that Purdue’s reputation might suffer being connected to the vestiges of Kaplan’s for-profit days – Daniels returned often to the subtext of the deal: Purdue suddenly had access to the online infrastructure and expertise to bound past other universities on the digital field.

Purdue Online will launch Jan. 1 with that task.

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Rather than a particular education program, Mike Berghoff, chairman of the trustees, compared Purdue Online to another division of the university – such as housing or the treasurer’s office – which works across the whole campus.

“This is going to be different than (Purdue) Global, which is heading to a completely different population, with folks trying to get on the second or third rung,” Daniels said. “Meanwhile, we’ve had this unexploited or unsupported potential here. And gathering our resources together in one place, under one common leadership, is just essential. It took us too long to get there, and that’s on me.”

McCartney said online programs, featuring Purdue courses, weren’t novel. They just were scattered.

“Some people might reasonably say we’re a little late in getting to this market, because other people have got in there ahead of us,” McCartney said. “And that’s true. But this is an entrepreneurial place by its nature. And colleagues have been stepping in and doing stuff.”

First up for Purdue Online, he said: Develop what he called a one-stop portal to show what Purdue has to offer.

McCartney said Purdue Online would look to play off Purdue’s strengths, offering tailored graduate degrees and classes aimed to “up-skilling” and employee development of corporate partners. He said it also might be possible to offer Purdue courses through other universities that might not teach a particular class.

“We need to clarify all of that now and understand, What are we going to focus on?” McCartney said. “Because to develop high-quality material costs money. You can’t back every horse in every race. So how are we going to make those choices?”

Daniels said he’s heard from faculty members who had been anxious to tap into something like Purdue Online.

“It’s really clear there’s a pent-up potential,” Daniels said. “We’ve got to get good in a hurry at helping them get that together – and helping them find a market for it. Trying to do that scattered across 10 colleges, we weren’t getting anywhere.”

Reach Dave Bangert at 765-420-5258 or at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.