Lower standards not likely for distance ed., admin., faculty say

USU campuses are popping up all over Utah, with three regional campuses, four centers and at least 12 other locations.

These distance education locations offer dozens of programs, ranging from certificate programs and associate degrees to four-year and master’s degrees. A student in Delta can study elementary education, entrepreneurship or pick from several other disciplines, and a student in Tooele can work on a bachelor’s in psychology or a master’s in public administration.

With some USU students and faculty so far away from the main campus in Logan, it raises the question of whether the quality of education is affected. The smaller satellite campuses often don’t have the resources to provide labs for degrees such as engineering or chemistry. The lack of some of these resources has led some faculty to ask whether the standards of the curricula will be lowered to match the amount of available resources.

Ronda Menlove, associate provost for regional campuses, assured The Statesman this was not the case.

“I don’t have any complaints,” she said. The classes taught at regional campuses are designed by USU faculty, not just anyone with a superficial knowledge of the subject, she said.

With close to 200 online classes and many others being taught via satellite, in which students and professors can see and talk with each other from different parts of the state, Menlove said the curriculum never leaves the control of the faculty. Though there are faculty who are located at regional locations rather than Logan, many classes at those locations are taught by professors at the main campus, and some classes at Logan are taught by professors in other parts of the state, she said.

“Any time there’s a big institutional change, people start to feel nervous,” Menlove said. Concern that curriculum would get out of the faculty’s hands or that a lack of labs would lead to poorer teaching standards is probably based on feelings of fear, she said.

“In the realm of possibilities, could that happen? Yes,” she said. “Are we doing everything we can to make sure that doesn’t happen? Yes.”

Menlove said a lack of labs does make it infeasible to offer a four-year engineering degree at regional campuses, for example, but students can complete their first two years at a campus closer to home before coming up to Logan to finish the degree. Other adjustments to the curriculum have to be made when group assignments are harder to arrange with classmates scattered across the state, she said.

Faculty Senate President Doug Ramsey said because the faculty are responsible for certain curricula, they have a vested interest in making sure it isn’t watered down.

“If (something) would degrade the curriculum, I don’t think they would let it happen,” Ramsey said.

Menlove said the first step in sending a program to a regional campus is to talk to the faculty at Logan to find out if they think it can be properly taught from a distance and if they are willing to have it delivered off campus. Sometimes, she said, academic departments approach administration with a degree they think could be offered in a different location.

Ramsey said this is another safeguard against lowered educational standards.

“If regional campuses want to promote a certain degree, they will try to make sure those resources are there,” he said.

As for Ramsey’s department, wildland resources in the College of Natural Resources, he said there haven’t been any problems of that sort.

“Administrators don’t teach classes and they know that, so they go back to the faculty to work with them on issues of curriculum,” he said.

Another USU professor, Rich Etchberger, a wildland resources instructor like Ramsey, but at the Uintah Basin Regional Campus, said he was surprised to hear that other faculty members had expressed concern about the curriculum.

“We often hear this idea of watered-down courses, but it’s often from people who aren’t informed of the process,” Etchberger said. “It’s the exact same teaching process as what we use on campus.”

Ramsey said though it’s not a problem right now, it’s not a totally unreasonable concern. Asking questions makes sure people are aware of it, he said.

“It’s just making sure it’s on the radar screen and people are thinking about it,” he said.

-elizabeth.lawyer@aggiemail.usu.edu