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The University of Arkansas Board of Trustees appointed Corey Alderdice as director of the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts in May 2012. He is the longest-serving director in the school’s nearly thirty-year history.

 

ASMSA’s 2025 Strategic Plan Sparking Innovation, Igniting Growth sets the stage for a shared vision that leads the school into its fourth decade of educational excellence.  The document and annual progress reports are available at asmsa.org/strategicplan.

 

Since joining ASMSA’s community of learning, Alderdice has worked to bring national prestige to the school while developing new programs in computer science, entrepreneurship, global learning, and visual arts that underscore the unique opportunities available through the school's early college experience.  The school has been recognized among the nation’s “Top 25” public high schools by Newsweek, The Daily Beast, and The Washington Post.  In addition, Code.org, Study.com, and the National Consortium of Secondary STEM School (NCSSS) have honored ASMSA for its commitment to both STEM education and advocacy under his leadership. The school has also appeared on education columnist and researcher Jay Matthews’ list of “Public Elite” high schools since 2015.

 

His advocacy work highlights ASMSA’s commitment to ensuring greater access to academic opportunities for rural and low-income students.  One-in-three ASMSA students come from low-income families, which is the highest among the nation’s 17 residential STEM high schools and double the average of ASMSA’s peers.  More than 30% of graduates from ASMSA are first-generation college students.  The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, a national leader in supporting high-ability, low-income students, recognized ASMSA and a new program established by Alderdice among six schools out more than 200 invited nationwide to demonstrate best practices for closing the “excellence gap” for talented students with limited resources who seek to learn to their full potential.  The initiative led to the further development of ASMSA’s “upwARd Promise,” a renewed articulation of the school’s longstanding commitment to equity in both access and success for students no matter their financial circumstances, as well as the launch of the HELIX Prep Academy program for sophomore entry to ASMSA.  HELIX references Helping Elevate Low-Income Students to Excellence.

 

Alongside campus stakeholders, Alderdice proposed the “Concurrent Core” curriculum, which ensures all ASMSA students graduate with at least 30 hours of college credit.  Each year, ASMSA graduates now earn an average of nearly 50 college credits—or three full semesters—by the time they complete high school. Through a partnership with the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, ASMSA students have access to 70 courses for college credit. An increase in the average graduating students’ ACT composite scores by 3.8 points (with a record mark of 30.6), a dramatic increase in student persistence rates (from 38% attrition to a record low of 11.5%), and substantial investment in new faculty and departmental support to fulfill ASMSA’s legislated Arts mission set in 2004—though dormant for nearly a decade—are only a few of the academic initiatives launched during Alderdice’s tenure.

 

Under his leadership, ASMSA has developed the Arkansas STEM Pathways program and Global Languages and Shared Societies (GLASS) Initiative.  The two digital learning experiences expand ASMSA’s scope beyond the residential program with focused blended learning experiences tailored to assist districts throughout Arkansas in providing appropriately challenging and engaging opportunities for motivated students in science, mathematics, and global languages.  In addition to being the only high school in Arkansas to offer local Japanese language courses, the school has signed formal partnership agreements with schools in Hanamaki and Osaka, Japan, as extensions of the work of the Hot Springs-Hanamaki Sister City Program.

 

Alderdice championed the development of ASMSA’s Global Learning Program.  From 2013 onward, nearly 500 students, faculty, and staff members have explored the world and engaged with other cultures, through this program that underwrites a portion of the costs for all travelers.  Participation in the Kakehashi Project, National Security Language Initiative for Youth, Confucius Institute, Youth for Understanding, CBYX, and school-sponsored trips to Costa Rica, Belize, Canada, Italy, Spain, Greece, Peru, China, Mexico, Japan, and the United Kingdom are highlights of the program.

 

Alderdice was also one of the earliest advocates for addressing Governor Hutchinson’s call for increased access to coding courses in Arkansas high schools. Prior to the General Assembly’s passage of Act 187 of 2015, he developed the Coding Arkansas’ Future initiative, which has served as a major resource to Arkansas schools over the past five years. Through this program, ASMSA residential and outreach experiences have accounted for 20% of the state’s computer science enrollment.  Moreover, the school has provided a one-year training program to one-quarter of all newly licensed CS teachers and some form of professional development to nearly 40% of CS teachers statewide. Governor Hutchinson has praised this initiative in public remarks and his weekly radio address as the kind of innovative steps necessary to prepare an engaged workforce in the coming decade.

 

Alongside members of his development team, Alderdice has worked to secure more than $2.5 million in private gifts and grants that support ASMSA students, faculty, staff, and institutional programs.  He has also secured more than $6 million in state grants and support to advance ASMSA’s expanded mission of outreach, educator development, and digital learning.

 

Alderdice has led the charge for longitudinal solutions to address ASMSA’s physical campus and infrastructure needs.  He has prioritized annual budgeting that supports both short- and long-term investments in facilities.  Under Alderdice’s guidance, the school has retired nearly $3 million in debt related to the Student Center construction in 2012.  He oversaw the completion of the $4.7 million Creativity and Innovation Complex, the first new academic facility in school history.  The project was constructed with zero debt.  Combining capital support from the Governor with a Program Related Investment loan from a national nonprofit, Alderdice has created a pathway to increase residential student enrollment by 10% beginning in 2022.  As a result, ASMSA completed a $5.5 million restoration of the former chapel and convent as Selig Hall.  The new residence hall and auditorium honors the memory of former Mayor Helen Selig, who led the effort to locate ASMSA in Hot Springs.  Construction of a new $3.5 million Campus Administration Building will begin construction in fall 2022 and is scheduled for completion in early 2024. Alderdice has challenged the campus to seek avenues to grow enrollment from 230 to 260 to 300 students—the original vision for the school—over the next decade.

 

In 2013, the Bezos Family Foundation recognized him as one of twelve Educator Scholars from a pool of nationwide applicants.  In 2014, Arkansas Business named him to their annual list of “40 Under 40” leaders in business, education, and public policy.  The Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) recognized him in 2015 as one of five school administrators nationally for excellence in computer science advocacy. He is a 2016 graduate of the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Arkansas Class X and the Rotary District 6170 Jeff Farris Leadership Academy. In 2017, Code.org named him and ASMSA among their inaugural recipients of the Champions of Computer Science award. In 2019, the Hot Springs Metro Partnership recognized he and ASMSA as the recipient of the Downtown Trailblazer of the Year for the school’s capital investments in downtown. In 2020, Arkansas Money and Politics magazine named him to the inaugural “Future 50” list of up-and-comers in Arkansas business, policy, and culture.

 

Alderdice co-authored a chapter on public residential high schools as a form of academic acceleration in A Nation Empowered: Evidence Trumps the Excuses Holding Back America’s Brightest Students (2015), a follow-up to the landmark report A Nation Deceived (2004).  Alderdice’s work in utilizing social media and technology for admissions and campus external relations has previously been spotlighted in Education Week and The Washington Post. 

 

Director Alderdice serves on the executive board of the National Consortium of Specialized STEM Schools (2022-23 President-Elect), Women’s Foundation of Arkansas, Hot Springs-Hanamaki Sister City Program (Vice-Chair), Hot Springs Fifty for the Future (Treasurer), Arkansas Discovery Network Advisory Council, and Western Kentucky University Center for Gifted Studies Advisory Board.

 

Alderdice was also a core figure in the planning and realization of the Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Science, a school similar to ASMSA located on the Western Kentucky University campus in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The Gatton Academy was recognized as “America’s Best High School” in 2012, 2013, and 2014. Between 2007 and 2012, he served as the assistant director for admissions and public relations of the Gatton Academy. Under his application, the Gatton Academy was recognized by Intel as one of three national finalists in high school science in the company’s annual Schools of Distinction Program. Alderdice also authored a grant to establish the i4 Initiative and Innovate Kentucky, programs focusing on STEM awareness and cultivating entrepreneurial thought in students. The program received a $500,000 gift of support from the James Graham Brown Foundation.

 

He is married to Stephanie Patterson Alderdice, an accomplished communications coach and owner of SixtyOne Celsius, a boutique marketing and digital strategy agency named after Hot Springs’ thermal waters.  They have a son, Elliott, who is twelve years old.