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Press Releases

UNITED STATES DISTANCE LEARNING ASSOCIATION
140 Gould Street, Needham, MA 02494 800-275-5162

USDLA Honors Former U. S Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley With 2002 Eagle Award,
Distance Learning Pioneers Moore and Silverman Recognized with Hall of Fame Awards

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Monday, April 8, 2002

Washington, D.C. April 10 – The United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) today presented its prestigious 2002 Eagle Award to the Honorable Richard W. Riley, former U.S. Secretary of Education and former Governor of South Carolina. USDLA also honored two outstanding individuals with the USDLA Hall of Fame Award, recognizing the contributions to distance learning of Michael G. Moore, Ph.D. and Professor Stan Silverman.

The 11th Annual USDLA Eagle Award was presented to former U.S. Secretary William W. Riley in recognition of his leadership and vision in public education policy. As former U.S. Secretary of Education and Governor of South Carolina, he has supported technology and distance learning at the highest level. His unswerving support for the E-rate amendment as part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act resulted in an explosion of Internet and distance learning opportunities for schools through out America. The Christian Science Monitor said that many Americans regard Dick Riley as “one of the great statesmen of education in this century.” David Broder, columnist for The Washington Post, called him one of the “most decent and honorable people in public life.

Since leaving his national post in January 2002, Riley has rejoined the law firm of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough with offices throughout South Carolina as well as in Atlanta, Charlotte and Munich. He has been appointed Distinguished Professor at his alma mater, Furman University and will serve as Advisory Board Chair of the Richard W. Riley Institute of Government, Politics and Public Leadership. In addition, Riley has been named Distinguished Professor at the University of South Carolina and Distinguished Fellow at NAFSA: Association of International Educators.

At the same ceremony two outstanding distance learning professionals were honored with the USDLA Hall of Fame Awards. In alphabetical order, they are:

* Michael G. Moore, Ph.D., Founding Director of the American Center for Study of Distance Education, and Associate Professor of Education at The Pennsylvania State University. Moore is widely recognized for his two decades as a distance learning pioneer, during which time he founded The American Journal of Distance Education, the country’s first and principal scholarly journal in the field. Dr. Moore developed the first international Internet conference on distance education, The Distance Education Online Symposium, now having members in over 70 countries. He has been a member of the Penn State University Task Force on Distance Education to establish policy regarding distance education, leading eventually to establishment of the World Campus and has been a Visiting Fellow at the World Bank as well as Visiting Professor at the University of Maryland University College.

Among Dr. Moore’s significant contributions was bringing the World Conference of the International Council for Distance Education to Penn State in 1997, and the implementation of teacher education programs that delivers training to some 27,000 unqualified teachers in 3000 schools in 13 states in the most underdeveloped regions of Brazil and, at the other extreme, the first distance learning course for the International Monetary Fund, which provides training for international bankers in more than twenty countries. He has written end edited numerous books on technology and education serving the distance education field.

* Stan Silverman is Associate Professor School of Education at New York Institute of Technology as well as the present Director of Technology Based Learning Systems Department and present Chair of the Online Distance Learning Program at NYIT. Professor Silverman is widely regarded as a pioneer and national leader in distance learning. He combines an engineer’s thorough knowledge of technological hardware with a teacher’s insights into how they can be applied to enhance learning. He is one of the founders of CultureNet, the concept of connecting cultural institutions to schools to foster virtual hands on education using the resources of museums and other cultural organizations. This initiative was realized in the late 90’s as the Education Enterprise Zone (EEZ), of which Silverman is at present Director. The EEZ consists of approximately 50 museums connected to 1000 schools via two-way ISDN based video. One of the great benefits of the EEZ program is that it facilitates teachers and museum curators to work together to develop standards based curriculum lesson plans that are truly integrated into the student’s learning.

Professor Silverman is author of numerous publications concerning technology and education, and has served as the project director for many research and technology projects funded by a wide variety of organizations including the Verizon ADSL Research Lab, Science Technology Entry Program, Nassau BOCES – Distance Learning Advisory Committee and Chair of the NYS Teacher Center Technology Committee.

The other special presentation made on April 10, 2002 were the 2002 USDLA Distance Learning Awards created to acknowledge major accomplishments in distance learning. Awards were presented for Excellence in Distance Learning Teaching, Excellence in Distance Learning Programming and Most Outstanding Achievement by an Individual in the areas of K-12 Education, Higher Education, Corporate/Business, and Government.

About USDLA

The United States Distance Learning Association is a non-profit organization founded in 1987 to promote the development and application of distance learning for education and training. USDLA represents 2000 members from pre-K through 12 education and higher education, continuing education, corporate, military and government training, home schooling and telemedicine. USDLA is a leading source of information and policy for distance learning that focuses on all legislation impacting the distance learning community and its varied constituencies. Since 1993 USDLA has continued to establish state chapters in all fifty states.

For more information about USDLA visit the organization’s website at www.usdla.org.

Contact:
USDLA: Kathleen Clemens - 800.275.5162 or kclemens@usdla.org

For Individual Award Winner Information Contact:

•	Dr. Allan Gray, Purdue University - 765.494.4327 or gray @purdue.edu
•	Tech. Sgt. Matthew D. Jackson, USAF/Keesler Air Force Base - 228.377.3024 or
	matthew. Jackson@keesler.af.mil
•	Mary Kay Stewart, StarNet ESC, Region 20 - 800.234.1245 or
	marykay.stewart@esc20.net
•	Jennifer Rees, UT TeleCampus - 512.499.4409 or jrees@ytsystem.edu
•	Mr. Richard Reed, Defense Acquisition University - 703.805.4640 or
	reed_rich@dau.mil
•	Julie Young, Florida Virtual School - 407.317.3326 x 2742 or jyoung@flvs.net
•	William White, Ph.D., Colonial Williamsburg - 757.220.7152 or Wwhite@CWF.org
•	Sandy Beiner, Arizona Health Sciences Center - 520-626-2493 or
	beinars@u.arizona.edu
•	Sarah Vaivoda, AdvanceWork International - 315.443.2271 or
	marketing@advancework.com
•	Marcelo Vera, Ph.D., University of South Florida – 813.974.7035 or
	vera@chumal.cas.usf.edu
•	John Hickok, Defense Acquisition University - 703.805.4640 or john.hickok@dau.mil