College consortium offers free online classes to Katrina victims

Colleges and universities across the nation are offering free online courses to students displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

The courses are offered through the Sloan Consortium, an affiliation of institutions and organizations that promote online learning.

"There are close to 900 students expressing interest," said Patti Giglio, spokeswoman for the Sloan semester steering committee.

The course catalogue became available Thursday, she said.

Interested students are primarily from Louisiana, specifically the New Orleans area, she said.

"The highest percentage of students signed up are from the University of New Orleans and Delgado Community College," Giglio said.

Other institutions in areas affected by Katrina can transfer students to satellite campuses to continue their studies, she said.

Four colleges in the UNC-system are listed as participants in the program: East Carolina University, N.C. State University, UNC-Greensboro and UNC-Charlotte.

Elmer Poe, associate vice chancellor for academic outreach for ECU, said the university is listing 10 courses and might offer up to 15.

He said most of the courses are offered at the undergraduate level and are in the areas of arts and sciences, business, and fine arts and communications.

More than 100 instructors with experience in teaching online courses responded when asked to participate in the program, Poe said.

"It's a good way to use this technology to meet this need," he said.

ECU and other participating schools will have abbreviated online courses that will run for eight weeks, Giglio said.

There is no quota for how many students a particular college must enroll or a limit to how many colleges at which a student can take classes.

But funding could be a problem depending on the popularity of the program.

So far, there is funding for 10,000 student seats, Giglio said.

"However, we would expect students to take more than one course," she said.

Students in the National Guard also will have the opportunity to sign up for courses through the consortium.

Although the courses and some of the textbooks are free, Internet access will be the responsibility of the students themselves.

"They would have to find computers on their own," Giglio said.

Giglio said the program was groundbreaking and would serve as a model if the need arises again for the temporary education of displaced students.

"We're going to find this effort can provide academic continuity," she said.

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University also is offering online courses to displaced students through the consortium.

"We want to help them get through this semester and get their life back together," said Thomas Wilkinson, director of the institute for distance and distributed learning at Va. Tech.

Va. Tech is prepared to offer 44 courses, Wilkinson said. The university is providing 15 courses.

"We'll probably be offering more courses later," he said.

Each class will have a range of three to 20 seats in it, Wilkinson said.

One-fourth of the courses offered by Va. Tech are undergraduate level, and the other three-fourths are graduate courses.

"Our selection reflects our portfolio of graduate courses," he said.

Most of the undergraduate selection for the program consists of specialty courses, such as travel and tourism management and catering management - two of the 15 courses Va. Tech is offering.

The specialized course offerings reflect popular undergraduate courses at the University of New Orleans, he said.

 

Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.