Tuesday, September 12, 2000

Arizona's Regents Plan an Online Institution That Would Offer Degrees By DAN CARNEVALE The Arizona Board of Regents is hoping to create a virtual public institution by coordinating the efforts of the state's existing distance-education programs. The new institution, named Arizona Regents University, is expected to grow for two or three years and may eventually offer its own degree programs, says Don Ulrich, president of the Arizona Board of Regents. "We're kind of breaking new ground now," Mr. Ulrich says. "Whether it will be doable or not, we don't know." The regents oversee the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and Northern Arizona University. All three already have distance-education programs up and running. Although the virtual-university project is still in the early planning stages, the idea for the new university is to combine the distance-education courses from the three public universities and maybe add some distance courses from other institutions, including Harvard and Columbia Universities, Mr. Ulrich says. The board has hired Sally Johnstone, director of the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications, as a consultant on the project. Ms. Johnstone says few public distance-education institutions offer their own degrees, although online degrees are available from private distance-education institutions and from traditional public universities with online programs. Several consortia of public colleges provide online coursework and have articulation agreements, she says, but don't have degrees under one consortium's banner. The regents hope to expand access to higher education in the state, says Chris Herstam, an Arizona regent. "We just want to know what the setting is here in Arizona," Mr. Herstam says. "The next step, of course, is to find out how far away we are from providing degree programs to not only Arizona, but people around the world." Right now Arizona Regents University is merely a site on the World Wide Web that provides a directory to the three member institutions' distance-course listings. To offer its own degrees, the virtual institution would need approval from the state Legislature, Mr. Ulrich says. But getting such approval shouldn't be a problem, since the governor and some lawmakers are already showing interest in the completion of the program, he says. "We've already got the legislators on board with us," he says. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

Report calls postdocs "neglected" and proposes a series of reforms to the system Panel to study ways to help high-school students make the leap to college or career For president of Indiana U., coach's firing was unavoidable Faculty strike ends at Eastern Michigan U. Students want judge to order end to faculty strike at Gogebic Community College Polytechnics in New Zealand seek to create degree-granting university U. of North Carolina gets $4-million to expand "public library of the Internet" Arizona's regents plan an online institution that would offer degrees