Early hopes for Global Campus were as ambitious as its name: a distance-education venture that could draw 70,000 new students to the University of Illinois.
Now, facing unspectacular enrollment and a punishing recession, the Board of Trustees will consider a much humbler plan.
The board plans to take up a resolution, released late Monday, that calls for rebuilding the controversial project based on the blueprint laid out in a new report from a task force of faculty and administrators.
That plan would brake Global Campus’s current drive to become a separately accredited entity with its own programs. The venture wouldn’t compete with campus online efforts. Instead, “Global Campus 2.0” would shrink to a much cheaper office — from today’s $9-million budget down to $1.75-million — that supports those campus courses with centralized services like marketing, student recruitment, and technology help. The current Global Campus would be phased out this year. Its successor would open for business in January.
“It pushes the bulk of the initiative and the activities back down into the campuses,” said Nicholas Burbules, a professor in the department of educational-policy studies who worked on the report.
The scaled-back project appears to have broad support. The resolution that the board will address on Thursday notes that the university’s leaders — the president, chancellors, provosts, and vice presidents — have “reached consensus” that Global Campus 2.0 is the way to go.
But recent developments in Texas and elsewhere show that support-focused distance-education portals can run into financial trouble, too. —Marc Parry
