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Press Releases
UNITED STATES DISTANCE
LEARNING ASSOCIATION
8 Winter Street, Boston, MA 02108 •
800-275-5162
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE:
June 16, 2003
DRAKE
UNIVERSITY JOINS DRURY UNIVERSITY IN PILOT PROGRAM ON DISTANCE
LEARNING
CONTACT:
Lisa Lacher, Drake University, 515.271.3119, lisa.lacher@drake.edu
Tristan Davies, Drury University, 417.862.6926, tdavies@drury.edu
Eighteen Drake University
students are taking selected online courses this summer at
Drury University in Springfield, Mo., while 50 Drury students
are enrolled in selected online courses at Drake as part of
a pilot program in distance learning.
The pilot program
was established by Associated New American Colleges (ANAC),
a national consortium of 20 mid-size, private comprehensive
colleges and universities dedicated to the integration of
liberal arts and professional studies.
As members of ANAC,
Drake and Drury were the logical ones to conduct the pilot
program because they have similar programs and each institution
has more than five years experience offering online
courses, said Jan McMahill, chair of the ANAC Distance Learning
Task Force and associate dean of Drake's School of Education.
In addition to representatives from Drake and Drury, the task
force is made up of representatives of the University of Hartford,
North Central College, the Sage Colleges and Valparaiso University.
"One of our
goals is to increase opportunities for students by enabling
them to take courses that aren't offered by their college
or university," McMahill said. "Another goal is
to broaden the student
base in each class so that we have students from different
colleges and states interacting with each other.
"The fact that
we have nearly 70 students trying something new this summer
is magnificent," she added. "We will be surveying
the students to see how they like the pilot program. We will
then carefully evaluate the program in hopes of expanding
it to include other ANAC colleges in the future."
More than 20 people
at the two institutions were involved in working out the arrangements
for the pilot program, which included dealing with differences
in tuition rates, financial aid and procedures for
registration, grading and accessing library resources.
"The counterparts
at both Drake and Drury have worked hard to select courses
that are beneficial to their students' needs," said Gary
Rader, director of online programs at Drury University. "Drury
then
linked each online course to an equivalent Drake course, and
Drake did the same for us. The result is an enhanced online
schedule for students at both universities, without the need
for lots of paperwork
to transfer class credits back and forth."
Both Drake and Drury
are each offering 10 online courses through the pilot program
this summer. Drake's classes are:
Introduction to
Accounting I and II
Calculus I
Expedition of Lewis and Clark
Management Operations
Modern Latin America
Peacebuilding and Post-Conflict Justice
Revisiting the Vietnam War
The Classics Then and Now
Women in Politics
The Drury classes
are:
Abnormal Psychology
Creative Writing
Introduction to Criminology
Introduction to Law for the Legal Assistant
Gangs
Lewis and Clark
Media Writing
Minority Groups
Religions of the World: Far East
Virology
Drake's online courses
are posted at www.multimedia1.drake.edu/summer.
Drury's online courses are posted at www.drury.edu/cgcs/online.
In addition to Drake
and Drury, ANAC is made up of Belmont University, Butler University,
University of Dayton, University of Evansville, Elon University,
Hamline University, Hampton University, Ithaca College, University
of Hartford, Mercer University, North Central College, Pacific
Lutheran University, Quinnipiac University, University of
Redlands, the Sage Colleges, Simmons College, Susquehanna
University and Valparaiso University. For more information
about ANAC, visit http://anac.vir.org.
United States Distance Learning
Association
8 Winter Street, Suite 508
Boston, MA 02108
Tel. 800.275.5162
Fax. 617.399.1771
www.usdla.org
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