Posted: 15 Aug 2010 03:10 AM PDT

Published: Sunday, August 15, 2010 at 6:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, August 14, 2010 at 9:52 p.m.

The University of Florida's distance-learning programs extend around the world, but they're also being offered close to home.

UF and Santa Fe College are offering joint online degree programs in business and sports management, with plans for three more programs in the next year. UF used stimulus money to pay for the creation of a facility on the Santa Fe campus - dubbed the "Gator den" - where students taking or planning to enter the programs can study and meet advisers.

"These students are students at the University of Florida but they may or may not ever step foot on campus," said interim Santa Fe Provost Ed Bonahue.

For some Santa Fe students, the programs will continue an education already filled with online classes. Nearly one-third of about 10,000 students taking the college's classes this summer took at least one online course. About half of those students didn't take classes on campus at all, and it's now possible to earn an associate degree from the school entirely online.

The classes are well-suited for students who have full-time jobs or families, said Kim Kendall, an assistant vice president working with its online courses.

"It's providing access, there's a lot of time shifting," he said. "It's serving a real need."

The joint UF programs are meant for students who earned associate degrees at any state college. But Santa Fe's location means they're particularly geared to its students, who may have moved to Gainesville with plans to attend UF but were kept out by enrollment limits.

"There are so many students that we're turning away that are high-quality students," said Don Chaney, assistant dean for distance education and outreach for UF's College of Health and Human Performance.

The college operates the online bachelor's degree in sports management. The program started in July with just three students and plans to have about 25 students in the fall.

Bonahue said Santa Fe gets a large number of students - about 200 at last count - interested in sports management. With state funding cuts no longer providing an incentive for UF to increase enrollment, he said the joint program allows Santa Fe students to have a better chance of enrolling there.

"We want to continue to be a feeder school," he said.

Health and human performance plans two more joint programs next year: bachelor's degrees in physiology and kinesiology with a specialization in fitness and wellness, and a bachelor's in health education. A third program in the College of Fine Arts, a digital arts and sciences degree, also is in the works.

In the joint programs, students take classes online but tests are monitored by a proctor at Santa Fe or other state colleges. Students earn a UF degree identical to the one they would get if taking classes on campus. While enrolled, students can be part of university groups such as fraternities and have access to university facilities such as recreation centers.

The UF facility at Santa Fe will provide another physical space for students. The project, funded with nearly $272,000 in federal stimulus money, is being decorated in a UF motif.

A full-time recruiter and adviser for Santa Fe's bachelor's degree and distance education programs will be stationed there. While the facility is officially known as the UF@SF Center, Bonahue said it is already being called by the "Gator den" nickname.

"It will help us to continue to identify ourselves as the gateway to the Gators," he said.

Contact Nathan Crabbe at 338-3176 or nathan.crabbe@gvillesun.com.

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Education expands for health-care professions

Posted: 15 Aug 2010 11:26 AM PDT

The first area nursing school students graduated from Richmond's St. Stephen's Hospital's school in 1901.

Today, students are still receiving various nursing and health-care degrees in Richmond through Indiana University East, Ivy Tech Community College and Reid Hospital.

The St. Stephen's program began in 1899 and merged with the Reid Memorial Hospital School of Nursing in 1904. Reid's program continued through 1958.

The gap in local nursing training was filled in 1974 when IU East began offering a cooperative program in nursing that allowed students to complete training at IU's nursing school in Indianapolis.

Many students took advantage of that program, taking a shuttle bus from Richmond to Indianapolis for classes, said Karen Clark, dean of the IU East School of Nursing.

In 1983, IU East began offering an associate's degree in nursing at the Richmond campus. In 1985, the program offered additional training that would bring an LPN (licensed practical nurse) to RN (registered nurse) level, and in 1988, a bachelor's degree in nursing became available, Clark said.

Likewise, Ivy Tech started offering an LPN program that developed first into an associate degree in the 1980s and then into an RN program in the 1990s.

"We've been in the nursing business for a long time," said Jill Anderson, dean of Ivy Tech's School of Health Sciences, Public and Social Services and Education.

Ivy Tech also offers a two-year program in medical assisting. It focuses on clerical and administrative skills for working in health care without the challenge of the nursing program, which only selects a specific number of students each year.

"Medical assisting has become a very popular program," Anderson said.

Additionally, Ivy Tech offers an associate degree for respiratory care therapists and the college has a partnership with Reid Hospital to provide the classroom training for Reid's School of Radiologic Technology. Radiologic program director Roger Preston selects just eight students annually to take the 24-month training, Anderson said.

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New at Ivy Tech this year is the health-care support program in which students can earn certification as a phlebotomist, pharmacy technician, emergency medical technician and as a certified nursing assistant (CNA).

"We've tried to get more and more of our community to get degrees, to get people into health care," Anderson said. "It's just a growing area and very rewarding career area."

This fall, Anderson expects Ivy Tech to have more than 450 students in its varied health-care classes.

At IU East, the School of Nursing will welcome its largest class in the college's history, with 90 students, Clark said.

The increase has been coming gradually, with 60 students entering the program in fall 2008 and more than 40 of them graduating this year with bachelor's degrees.

Because of the potential for duplication between IU East and Ivy Tech, IU East ceased offering an associate degree in nursing in 2008. Instead, it has increased its emphasis on helping LPNs and RNs move forward with bachelor's degrees, or BSNs.

Because of that, the two schools have an agreement that any Ivy Tech student who earns an associate degree may immediately go to IU East for further education.

Clark expected that this fall IU East, along with its partnerships at Good Samaritan Hospital in Dayton, Ohio, and at the Ivy Tech campus in Lawrenceburg, Ind., will have about 275 students.

Clark explained that graduates of two-, three- and four-year nursing programs all must sit for the same licensing test, which requires each candidate have minimal competency within a structured setting. A bachelor's degree, Clark said, expands the nurse's training so that he or she may work within or outside a structured setting, in wellness or as a foundation for other roles such as in education or administration.

The next step for IU East is to add an online option for students who are RNs and who want to receive their bachelor's degrees. Clark said the program is in development and will be an aid to those who have time or location limitations.

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Clark said IU East is in the process of being approved to offer a master's degree in nursing in another effort to meet the needs of the region.

With the two schools adjacent to one another and to Reid Hospital, all three are working together as part of a Nursing Collaboration Task Force. The group's mission is to share resources without duplicating services to students and to improve the image of nursing, Anderson said.

Clark said the collaboration sponsors health and nursing camps for youth, has done nursing awareness outreach in the community and has organized a healthy eating cookbook that will soon be sold.

Additionally, the group has overseen the compilation, with WCTV, of a nursing recruitment video.

Kay Cartwright, Reid vice president and chief nursing officer, said, "We cannot emphasize enough the importance of health care/nursing education at the local level.

"To be able to maintain a pool of highly qualified nursing professionals that come from the region we serve is a wonderful asset that promotes stability and also helps us recruit and keep good people," Cartwright said. "Our proximity has also allowed us to further build on what was already a close relationship by working together to improve the health of the community."

Clark and Anderson said that although the recession might have slowed the hiring of nurses, there is still a critical need for more, and more will be needed in the near future as baby boomers age and current nurses retire.

Both deans said their students are finding jobs, although the job may not be the exact job the student had hoped for at graduation.

The demand for nurses with bachelor's degrees will grow, Clark said, as hospitals seek to improve their standing. To be a "magnet" hospital, the facility must have a certain percentage of nurses with bachelor's degrees on staff because they have more training in problem solving and critical thinking.

"A higher percentage of bachelor's degree nurses equals a lower mortality rate," Clark said.

Training for nurses and in the health-care field is much more complex than it was for the St. Stephen's nurses in 1901 or the last class of Reid graduates in 1958.

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"My great-aunt was a Reid nursing school graduate. She said the blood pressure cuff was a highly technical piece of equipment they weren't allowed to touch," Clark said.

"The preparation we did for nurses then doesn't get us to what health care looks like to today."

Today's students at IU East and Ivy Tech learn in the classroom and simulator laboratories. Both schools have mannequins that can be programmed to respond just like a person would in a health-care crisis. The adult and children simulators can even talk.

Anderson said that for its EMT program, Ivy Tech has an ambulance simulator in its laboratory.

"They provide a real world experience in a safe environment," Clark said.

During a laboratory, the simulator can be reprogrammed so that it reacts if the wrong medication is given or develops a heart attack, something few students encounter while doing clinical work in area hospitals, doctor's offices and other health-care facilities.

"They're having to think on their feet," Clark said. "We videotape them and have them go back and watch themselves."

The simulations increase students' critical thinking skills and give them confidence. Clark said one student told her that when she encountered a patient's real health crisis, she was better able to handle it because of a similar experience with the simulator.

Away from the classroom, area students also work in hospitals and other situations for experience. IU East has clinical contracts with Reid, Good Samaritan, Ball Hospital in Muncie and Richmond State Hospital. Students also do clinicals at Hand-in-Hand Adult Day Care, at schools, in occupational health settings and in the school's Center for Health Promotion, Clark said.

Ivy Tech students do clinicals at Reid, McCullough-Hyde Hospital in Oxford, Ohio, and sometimes at hospitals in Fayette and Henry counties and at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis. Students also have the opportunity to do clinical work in extended care facilities.

IU East's students also can do travel experiences. Each year, a group goes to Washington, D.C., to work in poverty and homeless situations, offering health care and education in shelters and other community settings.

Clark said she also takes six students each spring break to the Navajo Reservation in Arizona where they do similar work during a cultural immersion experience.

"Both of them are life-changing experiences for students," Clark said.

Clark and Anderson said many of their faculty members keep up with the changing trends in nursing by continuing to work, at least part time. Many of the professors also are graduates of IU East and Ivy Tech.

"They know what it's like to be students here," Anderson said.

Colleges embrace online education

Posted: 14 Aug 2010 11:02 PM PDT

Alissa Dimock gazes into her laptop and studies a litigation lesson from a Los Angeles community college - all in the comfort of her South Pasadena bedroom.

Dimock has never met her professor. She's also never sat in his class or set eyes on her fellow paralegal students at Los Angeles Mission College.

Instead, her studies rely on a virtual pedagogic exchange, tapped out every day on a keyboard 25 miles from the Sylmar campus.

"It's terrific," said Dimock, 44, seated next to a stack of law books. "I never have to go to school. It's great."

Her class, Law 11-Civil Litigation, is among the steadily growing number of online courses being taught at community colleges throughout Los Angeles and California. In fact, community colleges are leading the way in online education, with annual online enrollments growing about 20 percent nationally over the past few years.

The two-year colleges are following the successes of private universities like the University of Phoenix and National University that have conferred online degrees for years. They're also setting an example for four-year universities that are now kicking their online studies programs into high gear.

The growth in online learning is a response to the demands of a busy public, desperate to acquire new skills in a fast-changing jobs market that will make most Americans take on multiple careers throughout their lifetimes. And in Los Angeles, it's a reaction to traffic

gridlock.

Ironically, the push for online learning comes as Los Angeles community colleges complete a $6 billion campus construction makeover. The expansion of brick-and-mortar classrooms is in full swing as the nine campuses position themselves to offer all transferable classes on the Internet.

In the past decade, students enrolled in online courses across the Los Angeles Community College District have risen from a handful to nearly

11 percent of the student body, according to the district.

"You can see the trend - steep," said Gary Columbo, vice chancellor of institutional effectiveness for the nation's largest community college district. "It's all changed. Harvard and MIT (now) offer courses online. "It's a whole new world."

Across the state, a growing number of the 112 community colleges have notified accreditors that more than half their lower division courses could be taught online.

A report by community colleges Chancellor Jack Scott last year reported nearly 18 percent growth in distance education enrollment in 2008, to nearly 500,000 students.

Proponents of online instruction tout many benefits, including more overall class participation and singular attention by professors.

Distance learning also grants greater access to nontraditional students, they say, allowing more flexibility to hit the books instead of fighting heavy L.A. traffic en route to campus. It also presents a digital medium familiar to younger students, while adding a powerful multimedia tool to traditional face-to-face classes.

More common are hybrid courses of traditional and online learning, as well as a growing number of hybrid students who take both online and traditional classes.

"It's service to students," said then-Interim Chancellor Tyree Wieder. "Our students need the opportunity to be able to enroll in online classes, so it's fulfilling our mission of providing those classes."

While virtual instruction can potentially save the community college district in classroom costs, administrators say it costs upward of $500,000 a year in licenses to use online learning software.

Another downside, some say, is that computer classes require too much discipline from students, especially those prone to procrastinate or drop courses when they study online.

Then there is the general criticism that computer course work simply cannot recreate the unique dynamic of a traditional classroom or campus life. Some online students have complained they feel isolated and virtually on their own.

Online students, on average, also don't do as well as their face-to-face classroom counterparts, according to the LACCD. An average 58 percent of purely online distance learners earned a C or better last year, compared with 68 percent of regular class students. The dually enrolled students did slightly worse. In addition, up to 10 percent more students who study online fail to complete their classes.

When Alisa Dimock first thought about online studies, she imagined it would be like the nighttime TV infomercials she had seen advertising some questionable school. Now she's thrilled with the rigor - and flexibility - of the program.

"I couldn't be happier," said Dimock, a native of Minnesota. "Online, you do the research yourself. It's sink or swim. You also have to work harder. ... Taking these classes, you know every area of the law. If and when I go to law school, I can fast-track."

The University of California has also jumped on the online bandwagon. Last month, its regents agreed to develop an Internet-based undergraduate degree program that will save money and expand access to tuition-paying students.

Also, students like Dimock no longer have to drive long distances to enroll in a specific program offered only at one school. Unconstrained by geography, the colleges could draw students from out of state - along with hefty out-of-state tuition.

The growth of online programs is seemingly endless, but Los Angeles administrators say each school has caps on the number of students funded by the state. So while online enrollments soared from nearly 2,700 in 2000 to 55,000 last year, administrators predict a plateau in online growth.

Nothing tells the story of how popular the courses have become better than the numbers. More than 4.6 million students across the U.S. studied online in the fall of 2008, a 17percent jump over the previous year, according to a Sloan Survey of Online Learning.

That means one college student in four now takes an online class, according to the survey of 2,500 colleges published earlier this year. And three out of four public universities see online growth as critical to their long-term strategy.

Dimock, however, acknowledges it's not for anyone.

"Would I recommend my son take an online program? Absolutely not," she said. "I want him to meet friends, play sports, live in the dorm, have the typical college experience. But as an older student, it's perfect. I'm not going to meet friends."

dana.bartholomew@dailynews.com

Online Education

Sunday, August 15, 2010

“UF, Santa Fe offer joint online degree programs” plus 2 more

“UF, Santa Fe offer joint online degree programs” plus 2 more

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