U. of Illinois to Lay Off Staff of Global Campus Program

The University of Illinois has notified the staff of Global Campus, the ambitious stand-alone distance-learning program that it decided in May to phase out in favor of a version run by the system’s three campuses, that they will not be reappointed, The News-Gazette, a newspaper in Champaign, Ill., reported. Twenty of the 32 employees were given six months’ notice, and the remainder will be laid off in a year.

Originally envisioned as a separate corporation that would ultimately draw 70,000 students from all over the world, the project raised faculty concerns and was approved instead as an academic unit of the university.