Thanks to a newly signed partnership with Mississippi University for Women, students completing technical programs at Mississippi Delta Community College no longer have to start back at the beginning to earn a four-year degree.
MUW and MDCC signed an agreement Wednesday to create a seamless transition for technical students to pursue a bachelor”s degree via online courses. MDCC President Dr. Larry Bailey was on hand with several of his faculty to co-sign the agreement with MUW President Dr. Claudia Limbert. Dr. Bill Mayfield, dean of the School of Professional Studies at MUW, who coordinated MUW”s e-college and developed the partnership with MDCC, was also on hand.
Mayfield said a similar agreement with East Mississippi Community College is forthcoming.
The agreement will allow MUW to extend its area of expertise beyond its general 100-mile radius, Limbert said.
“We keep winning awards for our teaching, and that”s what (students) are going to get online. Our emphasis is on teaching,” she said. “This is something we”ve been wanting to do for the eight years I”ve been here. With Dr. Mayfield coming (in July 2009), we were able to form an e-college under his direction. Also, he”s been visiting community colleges to let them know we do want to work with them.”
One of Bailey”s faculty heard Mayfield speak at a Career-Technical Deans Association seminar in Jackson during the spring semester and invited him to visit the MDCC campus.
“He came and visited and the more we heard, the more we liked,” said Bailey.
MUW”s e-college will accept 43 hours of technical courses from MDCC toward a specific list of bachelors of technology degrees such as business administration, entrepreneurship and business and resource management. The courses will offer students the opportunity to earn a bachelor”s degree from home in as few as 18 months.
“We”re trying to answer a paradigm shift for universities,” said Mayfield. “Back in the ”60s and ”70s, universities were very faculty-centric. Now we”ve got people not coming to universities because there are no degrees for them. There”s a demand we haven”t met, so now we”re becoming demand-centric.”
Online master”s degrees are soon to follow, along with a wider variety of bachelor”s degrees, Mayfield said. Being one of the first Mississippi universities to offer online technical degrees could help MUW grab a larger share of the community college graduate market.
“There”s 1,200 community colleges in this country. There are 11 million students enrolled in those. Seven million fit our descriptor for students we wish to seek. If I can get a quarter of one percent, that”s 17,000 students,” said Mayfield. “I can”t bring them to campus because we don”t have the dormitory space, but I can bring them online.”
MUW will utilize a combination of regular and adjunct faculty to lead the online courses. One online instructor, he said, splits her time between Germany and the United States, but will suffer no break in availability.
Online students will participate in group projects just as traditional classroom students would, but they”ll communicate from across the state or across the country.
“Right now I”m seeing students play “Halo” and some other online video games and they”re accomplishing (teamwork) just as well as they”ll accomplish it here. We”re taking a lot of our model and technology and content disbursement from the video game industry. So if people believe students can”t make strategic decisions, I”m going to point at “Halo” or “World of Warcraft,” because students are doing that with team members spread across the world,” said Mayfield.
Tuition for the online courses will cost roughly $224 per course, plus an $10 Institutions of Higher Learning fee.
Online courses are ideal for technical students who are often already employed and sent to school by their employers, Bailey said.
“Many of those students are sent to us by construction companies or architectural firms. They come out of school and they already have a job making good wages. But we still want that student to have an opportunity to work toward a four-year degree,” said Bailey. “Two-year colleges serve a distinct purpose, but the ultimate idea is we want them to obtain the highest degree they can obtain.
“Students are often hesitant about entering a two-year program because traditionally they don”t transfer for a bachelor”s degree, so they”ll end up going another route to receive a bachelor”s degree. This is a tremendous advantage for them because now they keep their job, they stay at home, and they get to see the end in 18 months. (Technical graduates) are thinking ”I”m not going to spend the next four years of my life trying to earn another degree.””
Bailey touts degrees such as the entrepreneurship degree, which includes the managerial and financial components of running a business for many students who will end up owning their own business. The technical curriculums, which are based on state curriculum, he said, often don”t include such “job enhancement skills.”
The two schools will also share resources, such as software acquired through grants, as part of the agreement.
Jason Browne was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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