Forsee reflects on 2009, prioritizes future initiatives

The UM system president wants MU to explore ways to expand e-learning options.

By Michael Sewall

Published Jan. 29, 2010

*See below for an interactive graphic illustrating the themes of UM system President Gary Forsee's State of the University address.

KANSAS CITY — UM system President Gary Forsee outlined the success and challenges of the last year, and he assigned each campus a priority to evaluate in 2010.

MU will team will the UM system office, also located in Columbia, to explore e-learning opportunities in the next year and report its findings to the rest of the system.

The other three system campuses will also evaluate priorities Forsee outlined during his State of the University speech at the Board of Curators meeting Friday in Kansas City. UM-St. Louis will explore degree completion strategies, UM-Kansas City will focus on easier pathways from high school to college and Missouri University of Science & Technology will look at workforce needs, such as math, science and technology.

MU's role in expanding e-learning opportunities will be further determined this year, but the curators discussed the importance of expanding the technologies used in teaching.

"It is a wave of the future and we need to be on board with this in a major way," Curator Bo Fraser said.

Curator David Bradley said the UM system's main competitor in expanding its online options and distance learning courses will be private, online universities, such as the University of Phoenix, which boasts an enrollment of more than 400,000 undergraduate students.

"One thing they have way better than the public universities is customer service," Bradley said.

E-learning is something in which student representative Laura Confer has taken an interest at her university, the Missouri S&T. She started an advisory board to meet with department chairpersons and plan ways to increase the number of ways professors are teaching courses online and the ways they're communicating with students.

"Getting the faculty on board will be the largest issue," Confer said. "They like their chalk and don't like to change their ways. But I'm trying to bring the realization that musty textbooks sitting on the bookcase isn't the best thing. Everybody learns differently."

She said it's important to acknowledge that e-learning isn't just about more online courses and distance education, but also about increasing the technological capabilities of teaching and interacting online. Confer said more online options would make a strong financial impact.

For instance, she said "blended" classrooms would save space and time. This class format would be when a class meets in person sometimes and works online other times. The example Confer used was class that typically meets Monday, Wednesday and Friday as one section could be turned into three sections — each day being one in-class section — while the rest of the work is done online.

Forsee said the UM system will determine how exactly to invest in e-learning in the weeks to come, but some steps he mentioned were creating a technology infrastructure that would serve as a one-stop shop for courses and services, as well as increased faculty and fellow mentoring in e-learning through conferences.

UM Center for Distance and Independent Study enrolled more than 20,000 students in fiscal year 2009, including a 30 percent increase in university enrollments since 2007. The center opened 81 new courses in 2009, twice the number of the previous year.

Confer said standardizing and sharing online courses could benefit the four system campuses.

"With more online learning we can share our strengths rather than try to recreate it," she said.