Forum Initiates Discussion on Staff Sabbaticals

Tina Alvarez
April 19, 2000


Members of the Governor's Task Force on Higher Education said they are excited about the idea of an Arizona online university, but several said the universities would have to move quickly or be left out of the potential benefits.

The idea presented by UA President Peter Likins and Clara Lovett, president of Northern Arizona University, showed a three-year plan by the three state universities to create joint-degree programs over the Internet.

Lovett said the concept was based on three assumptions: rely on existing technology - the Internet; share intellectual capital among the three universities; open university access to courses anytime anywhere, both degree and non-degree.

She said the concept was in the first phase. The second phase to start later this year would establish the support services to enroll and advise students and begin admitting students online. The third phase in the year 2003 would determine whether or not the concept would spin off into a separate university, known at this point as Arizona Regents University (ARU).

Regent Chris Herstam, a task force member, said the concept of an online university was a big priority for the regents. "For a variety of reasons, sooner rather than later, there are students who will want to get their degrees through the Internet," he said.

Task force chair Warren Rustand said the time line for organizing the online university was way too long. "Three years is an eternity in the high technology field," he said.

Member Kathy Munro, a partner in the Tahoma fund, said, "Competitors are already in the marketplace."

Likins said there were many barriers in the way of a fast-track plan, some of them financial and some of them legal.

Rustand said the ARU proposal was "the perfect opportunity to create a public-private partnership. Munro agreed saying the universities needed to create a business plan and seek venture capital. "There is plenty of venture capital our there (to fund) for-profit education," she said. "I heard the CEO of Cisco Systems speak. He said the next big push of the Internet is education."

Task force member John Oppedahl, CEO of the Arizona Republic, said there were two questions that the universities needed to answer. What courses could they provide that would attract paying customers, and what if ARU did take off? "How does that affect your core business?" he asked.

Rather than being an add-on presentation for the task force, he said ARU was central to the larger question that the task force needed to answer: where will the universities be in the year 2020?

Chaiman Rustand said he had scheduled a presentation by Internet pioneer Arthur Esch on Wednesday, May 24, to discuss technology and the future.

The task force heard a presentation of member Don Ulrich's proposal to provide free tuition to students attending two years of community college. Members were enthusiastic about the general idea that Ulrich suggested to increase access to higher education and improve workforce training. See "Governor's Task Force to examine free community college proposal" posted in LQP OnLine April 12.

Oppedahl said an unintended consequence of the free tuition proposal would be better prepared students attending the universities, thus also improving the quality of upper division education in those institutions.

Share

Resources for the media