Date: Thursday, 6/3/10
Time: 12:00-1:30 PM Central Daylight Time
Cost: $199 ($224 after 5/27/10)
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Phone: 800-433-0499 / 608-227-8182
DER: The mission of a small liberal arts college is very different from a large public institution. How can we expand our mission without losing our identity?
Williams: I believe the key to keeping that identity is very careful course design. Through good instructional design, one can develop a course that is highly interactive, allowing students and teachers to get to know each other very well, and that also incorporates the signature values of the institution. Selecting instructors, whether full-time or part-time, that believe in the college's mission will also ensure that those values will be reinforced in the delivery of the course.
DER: The faculty prize the contact they have with students at our school. What are some of the rewards of teaching online that they might value just as much?
Williams: Most of our faculty tell us they have not lost contact with the students, although it comes in perhaps a different form. In fact, many feel they know their students better. Since every student must interact with fellow students and with the professor, faculty get to know all the students, not just those who would be bold enough to speak out in a face-to-face class. It also seems that students often reveal more of themselves in the written form than they do in typical conversation. Many of our faculty value the fact that the school's influence now spreads beyond its physical borders, that the school's mission reaches more people.
DER: Is it a better idea to hire new faculty specifically for our online programs?
Williams: There may be some of your current faculty who would welcome the opportunity to teach online and who are willing to learn the appropriate pedagogy. However, it is my observation that hiring faculty specifically for teaching in online programs works better, as they have the correct expectations from the beginning. It's also easier to hire them on non-traditional contracts, say a contract for 12 months but with the same load as traditional faculty in nine months.
DER: The marketing effort for an online program will be very different from the way we have previously marketed our school. As we switch from traditional undergraduates to adult students, what are the strengths that a smaller college can offer adult learners?
Williams: In many ways your strengths or values that you have had traditionally will be the same ones you market to adult students–your emphasis on quality, or your caring faculty, perhaps your religious heritage. All of these can be taken over to your online programs and will be attractive to your adult audience. However, one area that you will need to emphasize will be the applicability of your degrees to jobs and career advancement. That's what most adults will be interested in. The social clubs, athletics, and nice campus buildings will not be of much interest to adults.
Expert presenter
Carol Williams, Ph.D. has served as both dean of the Graduate School and associate provost for Distance Education at Abilene Christian University. She managed the transition of selected graduate programs to online platforms and oversaw growth from 66 students to over 464 in just four years. She continues to supervise the ongoing expansion of distance programs at ACU as the new associate provost for online programs.
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