Tuesday, March 14, 2000

A For-Profit Subsidiary Will Market Cornell's Distance Programs By SARAH CARR Cornell University has announced plans to create a for-profit subsidiary to create and market its distance-learning programs. The move has sparked concern on Cornell's campus over the implications of the university's sponsoring a money-making venture. According to a news release issued by the university, the university's trustees approved a recommendation on Friday to create the subsidiary, called e-Cornell. Profits from the new entity will be used to underwrite existing on-campus programs, according to the release. No one in the office of the university's provost was available Monday to comment on the decision. The release says the vote authorizes Cornell administrators to take the necessary steps to create e-Cornell, but specifies that the resolution does not include any "material" financial commitment by the university. Jacquie Powers, a university spokeswoman, says e-Cornell currently exists solely as a "dummy corporation." "There is no money attached to it," she says. After the university finishes the paperwork creating the new company, she says the "next step would be to go to investors and see what response we get." "If they are interested, then it will appear that we are on the right track, and if they see flaws in the plan that we have come up with, we'll have to go back to the drawing board." She says the plans are still relatively inchoate. "While the trustees want to move quickly because a lot is happening in this area, a lot still needs to be done." Despite the newness of the plan, a number of faculty members have already voiced concerns about it, says J. Robert Cooke, the dean of the university's faculty. Mr. Cooke organized a university-wide faculty forum last month to discuss the proposal. He says faculty members spent most of the time talking about the for-profit nature of the entity. "That is the part of it that is most disturbing and unsettling for the faculty," he says. He says other faculty members are concerned about the rapid pace of decision-making. "Clearly there is a very deep concern about the opportunity for faculty to process what is being proposed and what the ramifications are for the institution." Mr. Cooke adds that while Cornell has historically offered distance-education courses, this represents the first "centralized effort." He says that over the next few months the university's Faculty Senate will examine how the university should approach distance learning and may possibly "propose alternative mechanisms" to the trustees. "My expectation is that we will endorse a strong outreach program of some kind, but the for-profit part is most jarring because we just don't know what that will do. There is the imagination that the best faculty will be induced to work with students who are off-campus and that will be to the detriment of on-campus programs." According to the Cornell news release, the trustees' resolution calls for the details of the new venture to be worked out in consultation with faculty groups, including the Faculty Senate's Committee on Academic Programs and Policies and the Faculty Advisory Board on Information Technology. The release also indicates that avenues other than e-Cornell will still be used to create and market the university's distance-education programs. "The goal is to create mechanisms to realize many of the good ideas proposed by previous distance-learning committees and by colleges and individual faculty members," Mary Sansalone, the university's vice provost, is quoted as saying. "But e-Cornell is just one of those mechanisms." Other universities, including Columbia University and the University of Maryland, have already created comparable for-profit subsidiaries. Background articles from The Chronicle: U. of Maryland University College Creates For-Profit Arm to Market Its On-Line Courses (12/17/1999) For-Profit Venture to Market Distance-Education Courses Stirs Concern at Temple (12/17/1999) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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