The Need for Administrative Commitment.
"Distance learning will fail at traditional universities," according to my colleague Hortensia.
There, she said it! Now fire her! (Just kidding! She's tenured)
What I left off was the "unless" part. So, now I can pass on some comments from my very, VERY smart colleague who is tenured, distinguished scholar, and she's also as interested in DL (Distance Learning) as I am.
Hortensia LaEstudiosa has bee trying to goad her university, a Research I public university located north of the Mason-Dixon line and East, WAY EAST of the Mississippi, into designing a robust and aggressive DL program.
Her every effort in pushing DL has been praised up and down the admin ladder. She has been given awards for innovation in delivering education, she has been featured as a pioneer, etc.
BUT, no one seems to know how to take a hugh oil tanker and change its course (a metaphor for the university in case you are confused).
Even though there is genuine support for a more complete and visible distance education initiative the two things that stops anything substantial from happening are:
A. The management "boxes" on the org table are all in the wrong place for distance learning. Hortensia says that there is no synergism. The silos that are in place don't need to or want to flatten and become more horizontally integrated. Why should they? It would be a threat to them and no one has spelled out the advantages for colleges, departments, programs, and other traditional units.
B. There is no real power at the center or the top. Universities just hate to make hard decisions. We don't like to offend people and often acadmics are excellent in-fighters which my colleague says has stymied many good initiatives at her school. This means that changes are normally made collegially - everyone is consulted; everyone has to sign off. At least this is my colleagues experience at her instituion. See point A above re why silos don't wand to come down.
There are, Hortensia has shared with me, also the accumulation of other issues, some of which I've adressed in this blog. The lack of a DL business plan. The lack of high respect levels for DL in a research I institution. The "why should I do this" attitute of most faculty who, correctly so, see DL as a very time consuming and hard way to design, redesign, and deliver classes. The lack of material (that's real money not prizes and "Atta' Boys/Girls") incentives, annual bonuses for achievement, and other rewards for people who carry out successful projects or classes. This is not a "raise" but performance rewards for exceeding targets. So, it could go to a staff person who does an exceptional job in marketing. Someone who is in design of classes, a professor (these people should be rewarded anyway for taking the plunge or people shopuld be hired who's job description is distance education classes).
So, the administrative commitment that is needed for DL to fly high in a large university is -
1. Reorganize the missions of the silos.
2. Be agile and speedy in making decisions.
3. Reengineer as new data comes in and be driven by hard information - be metric!
4. Generously reward the frontier pushers like Hortensia and the folks who work in Continuing Education pushing the envelope beyond the job expectation, who deserve hard compensation for her incredible commitment to the cause.
Distance learning will mostly fail [to catch on and become a major force] at large research universities, .... unless. And like IF, that's a BIG "unless"!