by Kent Chamberlin

As some of you may know, I've been involved with the Far View distance learning program in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences for the past five years. The objective of this program is to deliver courses outside of the Durham campus using Internet technology, and the positive feedback from students and instructors has encouraged us to expand our course offerings.

Over the years there have been other forays into distance education by various departments on campus, and most have been created on an ad hoc basis. When I say "ad hoc", I mean that the programs were developed by departments without a mandate or guidance from the university administration. The good part about building programs from the bottom-up is that there is often a lot more personal interest and creativity that go into them when compared with programs that are developed using a top-down approach. However, there are also downsides to bottom-up programs such as small-scale inefficiency, lack of coordination on promotion and marketing, and the fact that the success of such programs often hinges on the energies and interests of only a few faculty members.

To define a university vision on distance learning, and to remedy some of the downsides to our existing distance education offerings, a half-time faculty fellow position has been created in the Provost's Office. In part due to my experiences with Far View, I have been asked to fill that position. Defining a vision will be my main goal, and I hope to discern it through consultations with university administrators, faculty, alumnus and regional businesses. In that process, we also hope to identify opportunities and efficiencies that can make our existing programs work more effectively. In the end, we hope to have a clearly-articulated university strategic plan with regards to distance education.

I suspect that many of you reading this have your own ideas and insights about distance education, and I encourage you to share them with me (kent.chamberlin@unh.edu). We are looking for ways to grow our program, and we need to do so in a manner that does not sacrifice quality and does not require a large investment. One promising approach is for us to form partnerships with companies, in which we provide continuing education, and we do so in a way that is cost effective and convenient. Partnering companies can get education tailored to their needs, and we get the tuition revenue needed to develop our program. This is the type of win-win situation we’re trying to cultivate.

We can also grow our program simply by letting people know about it. Perhaps you or others in your company would benefit from taking some of our courses without having to come to campus. If you feel that might be the case, please let us know what types of courses you are interested in taking (this doesn’t apply only to electrical engineering course, since Far View is a college-wide program). If you would like to get more information about Far View, and see what specific courses are being offered, please check out our web site (www.unh.edu/farview).