University Alliance Online in the News
The
Arizona Daily Star
March 11, 2001
Distance-learning
explosion
Online classes, video conferencing open doors
to higher ed for many
By Paola Banchero
When Shirley Rollins attends college classes, she logs
on to the Internet from her Tucson home and joins her
"classmates" and an instructor in an online
seminar on the material.
Rollins' experience is becoming more common as colleges
and for-profit companies seek ways to make undergraduate,
graduate and professional education accessible to a
wider audience.
The information economy demands that people have more
education, higher skills and wider knowledge levels
than in the past.
Increasingly, the demand for continuing education and
"anytime, anyplace" distance learning will
expand, say educational experts.
The shift to nontraditional instruction is forcing the
state's educational institutions and their faculty members
to respond to the demand for distance learning.
"Growth has been phenomenal," said Fred Hurst,
dean of distributed learning at Northern Arizona University,
a national leader in distance learning. "We're
growing at 10 percent annually at a time when higher
education is not growing at all or very little."
Today's distance-learning options outshine those available
just a few years ago because they can create interaction
between student and teacher and an esprit de corps among
classmates.
That advantage will become more evident as the technology
improves and institutions expand their reach far beyond
their campuses, said Bill Noyes, founder and president
of Magellan University.
Noyes is building an online educational institution
that caters to working adults.
"I've been enamored of trying to reach people at
a distance for a long time. By 1990, I started to see
that we had the technology to reach people when they
learn, which is at all times of day and night,"
said Noyes in a interview at Magellan's office above
a men's clothing store in St. Philip's Plaza, 4320 N.
Campbell Ave.
Magellan University offers instructor-led classes to
those who want to earn certificates in Linux programming,
Internet design and other information technology. The
business also offers accounting classes led by tax lawyers,
the head of the accounting department at the University
of Miami and other experts.
The company and others like it are trying to carve out
a niche among an ever-growing number of providers. A
quick Internet search for "distance learning"
unearths more than a million sites.
Rollins skipped researching all those sites. Instead,
she found her program when University Alliance Online, a leading
for-profit distance-learning provider, sent her an e-mail
solicitation. University Alliance Online is accredited because
of its affiliation with two Catholic colleges, St. Leo
University outside Tampa, Fla., and Regis University
in Denver.
"I have a goal. I'm going to cross whatever bridge
there is to achieve it," said Rollins, who is working
on completing her bachelor's degree in accounting. She
had put the degree on hold as she raised kids and worked.
Now 50, Rollins found many of the positions she wanted
required a bachelor's degree. Distance learning presented
the quickest way to bolster her career.
Rollins is typical of many distance learners. They tend
to be women over age 28 with full-time jobs or children
at home. By taking self-paced classes online or through
video conferencing, they can mold their class schedule
to their work and family lives.
Distance learning "creates access where there was
none before," said Randy Accetta, director of professional
education at Magellan.
A Ph.D. in English who keeps a copy of Virgil's "Aeneid"
in his office, Accetta took the job at Magellan because
he wanted to develop courses that encourage students
to go deeply into the material, rather than just spit
out predigested information.
"People crave being in a community. There are limitations
if a program makes people feel alienated in time and
space from others," he said.
Some of the pluses of a traditional college education,
such as learning how to speak in public and understanding
different perspectives, can be lost in the rush to get
a degree or to obtain training that will lead to a pay
raise.
With those aspects of learning in mind, the University
of Arizona Eller Graduate School of Management signed
on with a company called TeleSuite Corp. to provide
a dual-location evening MBA program.
Students in Tucson and Santa Clara, Calif., in Silicon
Valley, attend classes at the same time. A classroom
equipped with cameras and a high-speed Internet connection
that pipes clear, real-time pictures of instructor and
students from one point to the other is at the heart
of the program.
Besides the MBA program, UA's Extended University offers
online programs such as master's degrees in optical
sciences, and information resources and library sciences.
Northern Arizona's "distributed learning"
offers a glimpse of the future. More than a quarter
of the university's students are enrolled in the program.
NAU has asked the Arizona Board of Regents for $4 million
annually from Proposition 301, the sales tax increase
passed by Arizona voters last year to fund education.
* Contact Star Business reporter Paula Banchero at 573-4237
or at banchero@azstarnet.com
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