University Business - November/December 2011 - (Page 36)

to make education more accessible to more people. What role does it play in the success of your institution? Templin: It is the fastest growing part of our enrollment, up 12 percent to 15 percent each year. This year, we’ll have more than 20,000 students engaged in distance learning, and we’ll offer our An alarming number of young people are graduating high distance learning platform to other colleges in the Virginia comschool ill-prepared for college studies. What programs do you munity college system. Through a shared-services format, we can make distance education available to rural and remote locations have in place to help these students succeed? Templin: The fastest growing part of our student population is where they may not have the capacity or the kinds of offerings recent high school grads, and more than half of them are entering that we can make available. We have a proprietary structure, in NOVA not prepared to do college-level work. Over the past six partnership with a few private providers, where we’ve woven toyears, NOVA has been working with the region’s school divisions gether 24/7 online learning, as well as around-the-clock tech supon a program called Pathway to the Baccalaureate. The college port and tutoring services. taps first-generation students who are likely not prepared while Wee: We have a strong online program. It provides another option for students who might not be able to ‘We monitor and solicit feedback from faculty and students come to our college in person. More than 25 percent of our enrollment is online. All our for quality, consistency, and improvement’s sake.’ faculty that teach online must go through our —Liang Chee Wee, Northeast Iowa Community College training program, and students must complete an online tutorial before registering for their first online class. We monitor and solicit feedthey are still sophomores or juniors to participate in a program back from faculty and students for quality, consistency, and imdesigned to accelerate their readiness for college. This year, we provement’s sake. Our retention and completion are strong for will have more than 40 high schools and some 6,500 students online students. involved in this program, and the results we’ve seen so far are Dukes: There are many things you can do online, but there are pretty spectacular. They are entering NOVA usually with college some things we have to commit to delivering in person, where a credit because they begin their college experience when they are student can come in and sit and engage in a dialogue about their still high school students, and they are graduating at twice the rate goals and aspirations, and how the institution can help them get there. I think we are sometimes naive that everything can happen of our other students. Dukes: About 70 percent of the people who apply to attend for for students online. There are definitely times when you need to the first time have a need for developmental courses. Not every stu- come onsite to be successful. dent has a need to take every subject. By far, the subject most students have to take is math. We offer two-week math review courses. What kind of relationship does your institution have with local If students sign up for those courses, they will often jump one or and regional industry? Do you actively collaborate on protwo levels in terms of their math background, so it reduces the time grams to prepare your students for the needs of business? they have to spend in those classes, and they can move on to taking Shaink: Our numbers might be different from the others. Michigan has lost over 100,000 jobs in recent years from the auto the courses that apply to the degrees they are pursuing. industry decline. We have advisory committees from various But shouldn’t these things be done earlier, that is, in high school? Industry ‘advisory committees help us identify needs Dukes: Clearly that should be done in high school, but I think we have to explain that. Most high school and develop a workforce that can meet those needs.’ students are finished with their math requirements —Dick Shaink, Mott Community College no later than their junior year. So if they finish early, the vast majority are not engaging in any kind of math work in their senior year. Most of us don’t walk away from industries that help us identify needs and develop a workforce high school dealing with quadratic equations. We add, subtract, that can meet those needs. For example, very early on we got word divide, and multiply. These students need to be reintroduced to from our automotive advisory committee that one of the things that would set our automotive graduates apart from others was the things they have forgotten. training in the new hybrid vehicles that were about to come out. Technology—particularly online learning—is touted as a way We sent our faculty to get training in hybrid technology and we 36 | November/December 2011 universitybusiness.com gious organization as the Aspen Group verify the fact that we are doing what we say we are doing for student success. The pride within the college and the community is incredible. Particularly for an area like Flint, Mich., it is very gratifying and very positive. http://www.universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - November/December 2011

University Business - November/December 2011
Contents
Editor's Note
College Index
Ad Index
Behind the News
Financial Aid
Viewpoint
Education Gateways
Models of Efficiency
Business Intelligence Gets Smarter
Internet Technology
Independent Outlook
End Note

University Business - November/December 2011