Private Colleges Opening Doors For Technology
Dec 30th, 2005
The group most resistant to online education-private colleges-are now accepting and helping to revolutionize the growing trend.
From Inside Higher Ed:
While there are already numerous alliances offering distance education and universities offering entire degrees online, the new consortium is designed for smaller private colleges – a sector of higher education that has been relatively slow (in many cases intentionally) to embrace distance education. The group aims to let colleges that have little or no distance presence begin to offer courses, while maintaining curricular control and holding on to current students who desire to have some of their education online.
Kennedy said that he expected the program to start small this semester, with only abOUT 150 students participating, and 350-450 next year. Within five years, organizers anticipate 2,500-3,000 participants a year.
The College of Notre Dame of Maryland is among those with minimal experience in distance education that are joining the consortium. Suzanne Shipley, vice president for academic affairs, said that following extensive faculty discussions, the college has decided not to offer distance education as part of its undergraduate program for women, but to explore possible limited use of distance education in the college's weekend programs for adult students in business and computer science.
Students who have decided to enroll at a place like the College of Notre Dame " don't want an online degree. They came to us because they want the sense of community,&lrquo; Shipley said. But they also have times that their family and professional obligations make it difficult for them to get to campus, and they want specialized training that the college can't always speedily deliver.It seems the last of the walls against ' technical' education are breaking down. Just how different will the college experience be in twenty years?
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