A Public University’s Online Journey: Hunt Lambert of CSU (Part 6)

SM: What role does the faculty play in your program? Do they largely focus on putting the courses together?

HL: There are two roles. We have a course development team that builds the course. We also have a faculty member assigned to every 20 undergrad students and 17 grad students who are expected to be intensely interactive with the students. They have scheduled discussion times, blog interactions, chat room interactions, and interaction around assignments and comments.

We find that we have to keep our class sizes smaller because our faculty is required to spend much more time with each student. Teachers end up spending more time with each student online than they do in the classroom. You cannot hide in the back of the class online. Every student has to interact with the faculty member.

SM: How many faculty would it take to cater to your business plan at scale with 100,000 concurrent students?

HL: In September, with a projection of 1,000 students we will have 54 faculty covering them. The average is slightly under 20. If you went to 100,000 students, you would have 5,000 faculty.

SM: Is your faculty all based at the Colorado campus?

HL: No. They are wherever they are. We just look for the best wherever they are in the world. We do have faculty meetings, but they are all done with web tools online as well as with video.

SM: How do you recruit your faculty?

HL: We recruit for academic qualifications, meaning at least one degree level above the degree they are teaching, and they must have practical experience in the area they teach. We advertise for that on the Internet and through our website. What we are finding is that there are a huge volume of people like that who have been raised and trained to teach for private schools. They are very attracted to us because our programs are of a higher quality. They desire a high-quality teaching environment because that is what they are passionate about.

SM: In this environment, there are a lot of people with advanced degrees and real-world qualifications who do not have jobs. Teaching could be a very good way to engage them.

HL: In our first year, we required them to have taught online in the past, because we did not want to absorb the cost of teaching them online. We still have online teaching training tools as well as a master’s degree in online teaching and learning. We still put the faculty through our version of how to teach online. Next year we will get to the point where we can start to train our own as we will have reached that scale.

SM: In the long term, will this remain a program focused on Colorado?

HL: I think the important point on that is that we are Colorado State University. Our core mission is to serve the state. That being said, online does not understand geographic boundaries. We will intensely follow our alumni and military first. We will choose wisely after that, and go where there is not a state competitor whose business we would interrupt, and where there is an obvious need.

This segment is part 6 in the series : A Public University’s Online Journey: Hunt Lambert of CSU
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