- September 3rd, 2006, 8:52 am
#28366
From the fishwrap:
Liberty University explores distance learninghttp://www.newsadvance.com/servlet/Sate ... 0390&path=
By Ron Brown
rbrown@newsadvance.com
September 2, 2006
Back in 1985, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Ron Godwin and Bill Paul, a Liberty University vice president, scratched out an idea on a napkin.
And within hours, the Liberty University School of LifeLong Learning - a pioneering, videotaped, at-home education program - was born.
“Dr. Falwell was so intrigued with the idea that he was soon on the telephone to the head of the SACS (the Southern Association of College and Schools, an agency that accredits colleges in 11 states),” said Godwin, now LU’s chief operating officer.
SACS officials agreed to meet with Falwell in Atlanta later that day.
“He gained permission to create a pilot program,” Godwin said.
What was once an idea discussed over breakfast at a now-defunct Howard Johnson motel restaurant has become a school that will this year serve about 16,000 students from 200 countries and most states.
Now, the Liberty University School of Distance Learning may be headed beyond Falwell’s original 25,000-student goal.
“In three years, we’re going to be very near 50,000 students,” Falwell said. “We’re just getting the machinery together to go.”
The federal government recently removed a restriction that disallowed a college’s distance-learning enrollment to top its residential student enrollment. The distance-learning program uses the Internet to bring instruction to students from all over the world.
About one-third of the enrolled students are in the military.
“Over the years, the program has been growing steadily,” Godwin said.
“We’re planning significantly greater enrollment growth this year and going forward. We are going to not only grow our head count, but we also plan to grow the number of credit hours our students will take. We want to apply the personnel and assets necessary to dramatically grow our distance-learning enrollment.”
Some studies have shown an estimated 70 million Americans are interested in distance-learning education, Godwin said.
“There’s a huge market out there,” he said.
For many adults seeking a college education, the goal is to get more pay for the work they do.
“There is a direct correlation between one more degree and a larger salary,” Godwin said.
The average age of a distance-learning student is 34 years old.
“These people have a job. They have a family. They have a mortgage,” Godwin said. “They are looking for a better life and better lifestyle and more career options. They can’t come back to campus. They can’t turn back the clock. They can acquire a degree through this particular avenue of study.”
Still, the program is a work in progress and needs tweaking to meet its students needs.
This spring, Godwin became aware that the distance-learning program offered only one complete course of study leading to a degree.
He decided that more than a master’s degree in business administration would need to be offered if the distance-learning program was going to grow.
School officials determined that if 81 courses could be offered via Internet, the school could offer 30 online degree programs instead of one.
The course titles range from accounting to nursing to Christian leadership. Students can earn anything from an associate’s to a master’s degree.
To make its Internet courses work, the school “hijacked” a department of campus computer technicians and used them over the summer to develop online courses.
“We created a computer course assembly line,” Godwin said. “In the course of one summer, we took 81 traditional courses and transposed them to online, interactive courses.”
More students meant a need for more faculty. Another 120 instructors were added after being recruited by an Atlanta firm run by a LU graduate.
“We have a virtual army now of about 250 adjunct faculty, who are teaching these online courses,” said Ron Hawkins, vice provost for distance learning and graduate programs. “About 125 of these people are at a distance from us. They are in Texas and California and other places. Our computer experts are helping them to interface with these online courses and monitoring their success.”
Over the summer, all courses were put into an identical format using Blackboard software, which essentially standardizes the way that course material is presented.
“The programs we’ve developed for Internet delivery are highly interactive,” Hawkins said. “Now, all courses are presented in the same way. By the time you do one of these courses, you’ll say, ‘Hey, I know what I’m doing.’ It’s replicated over and over. It provides continuity across courses and across curriculum. The students tell us time and again, ‘It’s so wonderful to be comfortable with this.’”
Students can get feedback from other students by entering an online discussion board focusing on class material or receive test results almost instantaneously on their home computers.
Student convenience is part of the equation in building a successful distance-learning program.
This year, students are able to register for courses and work out payment plans online.
Nine associate deans, specifically designated for online curriculums, now report directly to Hawkins.
Beyond faculty members, the school employs 150 people, who are specifically assigned to attend to online students’ needs.
“We’ve reorganized the organizational chart of the school,” Godwin said. “We now have a team that is completely focused on growing the distance learning programs and developing the quality of service. Our goal is grow this as rapidly and aggressively as we can while maintaining a quality service to our students.”
Ron Kennedy, the executive director of the distance-learning program, oversees day-to-day operations.
The support staff includes advisors, admission personnel, recruiters and marketers. They are located on the second floor of LU’s North Campus, which is housed in the renovated former Ericsson plant.
“We have about 42 to 44 full-time admissions counselors that handle graduate and undergraduate students,” Kennedy said. “They handle the student from the time he or she inquires about the program and say that want additional information.”
The admissions counselors try to convert those inquiries into actual applications for enrollment.
Students pay about $250 per credit hour for undergraduate courses. Graduate courses cost an average of $365 per credit hour.
Godwin said the distance-learning program simply makes good business sense.
“It is not as capital-intensive and infrastructure-intensive as residential enrollment,” he said. “We make substantially more net income from distance-learning students than we do from residential students.”
The school expects to take in about $50 million from distance-learning students this year.
Falwell said the distance-learning program could be a key ingredient for the 35-year-old school to build an endowment.
“The university resident program is always a drag on the cash,” he said. “It takes more money to educate young people on campus than their tuition and room and board fees will pay. Distance learning is different. We don’t have to build any buildings or feed the students. With distance learning, there is a substantial bottom line. If we get a strong enough distance-learning program going here, it can contribute greatly to the building of our permanent endowment. ”
Hawkins, the vice provost, said LU’s core values will remain part of the program as it grows.
“The most exciting thing about this is that Liberty has always been about equipping people to properly represent the Lord Jesus and evangelizing the lost and penetrating the culture,” he said. “What gets me up every day is the knowledge that, through our distance-learning program, we are involved with an ever-expanding number of people whose lives are going to be touched and transformed by the spirit of Liberty.”
. Somewhere I have Acts, but I'm not sure where those went.
- By ECC29