ADP at FHSU

Should we assume that the curricular programming and course work at any institution of higher education, but especially AASCU institutions, can be repurposed to meet the primary goal of the ADP, i.e. increasing the number of undergraduate students who understand and are prepared to exercise the responsibilities of freedom and the civic engagement needs of American democracy?
Provost Larry Gould
*At FHSU at least, and I do not speak for any other institution, we believe that the assumption upon which the question is predicated is tenuous and the best answer we can offer at this point, and in the spirit of the electoral season, is a qualified “maybe.” We believe this is accurate, however, for many AASCU institutions, not just FHSU. Why?
*Let me offer two crucial points
— The steady growth in distance learning in terms of institutions that offer programming and students taking course work has to be considered when thinking about the primary goal of the ADP. For example, the Sloan C Online Learning Survey for 2003 reports that 85% of all IHEs offered online courses and at least two million students took at least one online course during the 2002 academic year.
When we relax the stricture on delivery mode and include all types of distance learning, e.g. Videotape, CD-Rom, ITV, etc, and look at the 2001 academic year data provided by the National Center for Education Statistics, we find 97% of all public IHEs have offered at least one distance education course, and over three million students took at least one course. Of those institutions offering course work, 50% have offered a complete distance education program of some type.
This is a sidebar, but it’s important to note for purposes that go beyond this discussion that this does not include ONLY what we think of as traditional 18-22 year old students. Those taking distance education courses go far beyond what we what we have historically defined as first-time, full-time traditional students. Why is this important? Because the ADP has been aimed primarily at this latter group and, in many cases, focuses on the residential student (witness the Colgate story), we are ignoring a dynamic that ought to be given greater attention in the ADP initiative. Bottom line: we are MISSING a lot more POTENTIAL students interested in distance education course work at all types of institutions. Increasingly, they want to transfer this course work, especially distance education delivered course work, into AASCU institutions…..which leads me to my second point.
— The impact of student mobility, defined in terms of both physical and course/program transfer, and especially with regard to distance education, is playing havoc with curricular coherence. In much of what we’ve heard, the ADP assumes a residential student taking ALL 124 hours at a single institution. Along with this goes the premise that all we need to do is correct the curriculum, add co-curricular and extra-curricular activities and civic attributes and initiative will develop. But unless we think about the inclusion of civic engagement goals and content in BOTH on- and off-campus sequencing and delivery of courses and programs, we’ll miss the needs of literally millions of learners participating in higher education that do not look like the 18- 22 year old student. For example, less than 60% of the 2004 graduates of FHSU earned all their credits at our institution. This was defined as a student taking from 1-94 hours at another institution (FHSU has a 30 hour residency requirement). Only 4800 out of 8,037 students last year at FHSU could be classified as on-campus students. In addition, 1 out of 3 of FHSU on-campus students took at least one course through our distance education delivery unit, the Virtual College.
Although these are local examples, the impact of social mobility and distance education on general education programs and civic engagement initiatives is a nation wide phenomenon, continues to grow and should be considered and addressed in ADP goals and strategy.
There are other factors to consider as we shape our strategy to succeed with the ADP, but the impact of the growth in distance learning and its ancillary trend, the impact of social mobility, make it imperative that we figure out how to include civic engagement learning experiences in the programming that enrolls an ever-increasing number of our students. The people on this panel are going to provide some examples that demonstrate we are making progress, but still have a long way to go.

Larry Gould
Provost