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January 18, 2007, 02:58 PM ET
Still Global, But Not So Corporate
B. Joseph White, the president of the University of Illinois, had big plans for Global Campus -- a proposed online institution that was to function as its own corporation, taking on for-profit juggernauts like the University of Phoenix and Capella University.
But professors and trustees never shared Mr. White's vision. They worried that a for-profit university would be more interested in marketshare than in academic quality control, and that a less-than-rigorous online wing might damage the reputation of the bricks-and-mortar institution.
Now the skeptics have scored a major victory: Mr. White has scaled back his plans for Global Campus, pitching it as an academic unit within the university, not as a separate corporate entity. The president has also scotched plans to seek independent accreditation for the online institution -- a move that would have allowed Global Campus to adopt a fairly freewheeling curricular model by quickly adding and eliminating programs based on student demand.
The university has already spent more than $1-million on Global Campus, and it plans to move forward with the project. Mr. White says he expects to start enrolling students by next January, according to the Chicago Tribune. --Brock Read
Categories: Company-Watch, Leadership
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