by Christianna McCausland, Urbanite Baltimore
“Online courses are in some ways an electronic version of correspondence courses that have been around a long time,” says Terry Cooney, interim provost at Towson University, who still has the lesson plans from the nursing correspondence course his grandmother took almost 100 years ago. “It’s not that the idea of distance education is brand new … We’re all looking at what the best uses are of [online education] as it evolves.” University of Maryland University College, based in Adelphi, near Silver Spring, got its start in 1947 offering evening classes to military personnel returning from the war, then broadened its reach with courses on bases in Europe and Asia. Under that model, most of UMUC’s enrollment was overseas—until the 1990s, when the university became an early adopter of online learning. “We grew dramatically,” says Marie Cini, vice president and dean for the School of Undergraduate Studies. “We now have far more online students than face-to-face students, and our stateside enrollments are far greater than Europe and Asia.” Today, UMUC offers 107 degree and certificate programs entirely online. Eighty-five percent of undergrads are taking online courses or fully online degrees. The majority of the graduate classes are mostly or entirely online.
http://www.urbanitebaltimore.com/baltimore/getting-an-e-ducation/Content?oid=1462777
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