March 26, 2002

Center Brings New Academic Programs to Life

Tuition Rates Set for 2002-03 Academic Year

Put WebsterWorksWorldwide8 on Your Calendar

Webster Voices

Kampus Kudos

St. Louis Calendar Highlight

Employees of the Month

New Employees

Center Brings New Academic Programs to Life

DISTANCE LEARNING MEANS NEW PROGRAMS, NEW STUDENTS, NEW OPPORTUNITIES

While the Academic Distance Learning Center may be keeping a low profile, it powers one of the University’s most important and ambitious strategies for growth. Using distance-learning techniques, the University can offer Webster students alternative ways to learn. Simultaneously, the University can attract new students interested in online courses and programs exclusively.

Led by Jahna Kahrhoff, who has held similar positions in distance learning at the University of California, Fullerton, and the University of Missouri, St. Louis, the Academic Distance Learning Center supports and provides the infrastructure for all of the University’s online educational efforts. These include the Online M.B.A. Program, the Web Certificate Program, and the Security Management Program—all in the School of Business and Technology—as well as Education’s Master of Arts in Teaching program and several Religion courses in Arts and Sciences. Ralph Olliges, assistant professor, Multidisciplinary Studies, who has taught online courses as well as regular courses that have been Web enhanced, says that the center has been "flawless" in its handling of his students’ needs and describes Jahna and her staff of four as foresighted, "hard working," "dedicated," and "exceptional."

Jahna says the center has multiple responsibilities:

• Help academic departments define and realize their distance-learning goals. The center has developed a set of preliminary guidelines, based on the University’s success in Business and Technology, for developing online programs. "They are going to have a business plan," says Jahna. "You have to understand what the market is, where your students are going to come from, what the need is, what kind of revenue will come, how that balances with the kind of investment that Webster is going to make into these programs. Academic Affairs understands that you can’t just create things without a strategy."
  
  
• Help the faculty to develop individual courses. The center has an instructional designer, Qian Li, a course developer, Mark Kohl, and a course trainer, Clayton Mitchell, who work one-on-one with the faculty, translating their course materials and their teaching style from the traditional classroom to the online environment. Many faculty members have already added a Web component to their regular classes on an ad hoc basis. Jahna would like to formalize the process and maintain a standard online platform.
  
  
• Provide technical support and maintain WebCT, the software program that the University has selected as the platform for its online course offerings. WebCT offers a suite of tools that help structure online courses, including, tools for assignments, quizzes, content, and. asynchronous discussions that make it possible for students and professors to communicate across time.
  
  
• Train the faculty in the use of WebCT. The center offers scheduled group training as well as individual, customized training.
  
  
• Coordinate services to students, especially online advising. Currently two faculty members help students online with their academic questions.
  
  

In contrast to many colleges and universities that are pulling out of online programs, Webster’s online program has been growing every semester. Associate Professor Dan Viele, director of the Online M.B.A., notes that the program, by far the largest of Webster’s online offerings, began in fall 1999 with three classes and about 32 students. This semester the program offers 50 sections with more than 700 students and about 1200 enrollments for Spring I and II. Web Site Development has about 100 enrollments, and Security Management, which just got under way this month, offers two courses with 25 enrollments.

"One of the things that makes Webster successful," says Jahna, "is that the University realized from the very beginning what a commitment it takes from the institution. It’s not something that you can just add on or tack on. . . . It was really built from within the academic departments, so it has a lot of academic integrity. . . . Another reason why it works well here is we already had a lot of experience working with nontraditional students, working with students who were at remote locations, working with adjunct faculty. So a lot of those systems that make online programs work well were already in place. . . . Online learning worked really well on top of that."

So well, in fact, that the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association, recently notified President Meyers that it has extended full accreditation to the Online M.B.A. program, noting "everything is in place to deliver the degree program."

The accrediting agency was able to give its approval because online courses are as demanding as traditional courses. Jahna says a common misconception about distance education is that it lacks the rigor of the traditional classroom. "Students do have to invest a lot of time, maybe more time than they would in a regular class, " she notes. "It’s not an independent study. It is a scheduled course. It had deadlines. You have to go week by week with the whole group."

Dan Viele, who helped write the self study for the Higher Learning Commission accreditation, says that as long as the University provides adequate technical support, the online programs have unlimited growth potential. "The infrastructure needs to be there to do it and to do it correctly, so I’m careful in how fast we turn that dial up," he says. But already about 60 members of the Business and Technology faculty, from throughout the Webster network, teach in the Online M.B.A. Program, and Dan would like to see as many as 1,000 students enrolled per term. In addition to educational benefits, he points out that online programs, more than individual courses, offer a potential source of revenue. It makes sense for the University to follow up on its initial successes in online education, and the Academic Distance Learning Center is bound to grow and provide the necessary support.

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Tuition Rates Set for 2002-03 Academic Year

The University has announced the following tuition rates for the new school year:

• St. Louis full-time tuition increases by 6.6 percent from $13,720 to $14,600. The actual increase is 5 percent because the $200 technology fee will be rolled into tuition.
  
  
• Part-time undergraduate tuition increases by 5 percent from $390/credit hour to $410/credit hour.
  
  
• Part-time graduate tuition increases by 4 percent from $398/credit hour to $415/credit hour.
  
  
• M.A.T. tuition increases 4 percent from $346/credit hour to $360/credit hour.
  
  
• Metropolitan graduate tuition increases 3 percent from $345/credit hour to $355/credit hour.
  
  
• Military graduate tuition remains flat at $249 /credit hour; however, the University anticipates a 2 percent increase will be effective with the start of Spring 03, bringing the tuition rate to $254/credit hour.
  
  
• Doctorate tuition increases 4 percent from $450/credit hour to $470/credit hour.
  

Put WebsterWorksWorldwide8 on Your Calendar

From Amy Schultz, Special Events Coordinator, University Communications

WebsterWorksWorldwide8, Webster University's annual community service day, is scheduled for Wednesday, October 2, 2002.

Last fall, more than 100 St. Louis-area volunteers participated in 10 WebsterWorksWorldwide7 projects at literacy-related institutions. Thanks to a multiyear gift from MasterCard International, WebsterWorksWorldwide8 projects that focus on literacy will receive a special boost. MasterCard will provide funding to support Webster’s Student Literacy Corps for volunteer training, supplies, international student internships, and an on-campus program coordinator. This will not only support the growing interest in literacy-related WebsterWorksWorldwide projects, but will enhance the year-round efforts of Webster’s blossoming Student Literacy Corps, which has grown from 3 to 33 students in the past year. For more information about Webster’s Student Literacy Corps, contact Kate Northcott , ext. 7479. To learn more about literacy issues, see the Webster Voices column in this week’s edition of Inside Webster.

Members of the 2002 WebsterWorksWorldwide Planning Committee are: Molly Alter, department associate, Academic Affairs; Stacey Auch, student; John Buck, coordinator, Residential Life; Peggy Brockmann, associate vice president, University Communications; Mary Ann Drake, associate professor, Nursing; Linda Nottestad, consultant and special assistant to the executive vice president for Academic Affairs; Ted Hoef, dean of Students, Student Affairs; Michael King, student; Mary Krchma, development officer, Alumni Programs; Kate Northcott, coordinator, Student Literacy Corps; Chelsea Phillips, student; Ginger Price, student; Suzanne Rohan, student employment coordinator, Career Services; Amy Schultz, special events coordinator; University Communications; Wayne Sheldon, assistant professor, Communications and Journalism; Patrick Stack, director, Counseling and Life Development; and Brandyn Woodard, advisor, coordinator of International Students.

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Webster Voices

Good News or No News: Read All About It

We asked Jeri Levesque, associate professor, Learning and Communication Arts, director, Literacy Center, to comment on a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The "good news" cheered by Dennis Barron in the Chronicle of Higher Education ("Will Anyone Accept the Good News on Literacy?" February 1, 2002) does little to boost the moral of over 200,000 adults residing in metropolitan St. Louis who are estimated to function at the two lowest levels of literacy. Barron is referring to a new report that revises national illiteracy estimates from nearly half of all American adults to a more comfortable 5 percent, a mere 10 million people.

According to the original 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS), "very few adults in the U.S. are truly illiterate"; yet, the survey finds, a disturbingly high number of American adults struggle with simple life skills that involve literacy. The NALS report rejected the misleading assumption that literacy is an "all or nothing" proposition. The goal of the NALS study was to acknowledge the complexity of the literacy dilemma and to create solutions to resolve this national problem. To determine the extent of adult literacy, NALS used test items reflecting daily life activities ranging from simple tasks, such as reading a food label, to more complex tasks involving integrating pieces of information from increasingly lengthy and difficult documents. NALS estimated nearly half (47 percent) of all Americans scored at the two lowest levels of literacy.

But today, ironically, during a period of neo-conservative concern that schools don’t expect high enough learning outcomes, statisticians say the NALS literacy scholars set the bar too high for literacy proficiency. The revised estimation reduces item proficiency from the traditional mastery level of 80 percent to a moderate 65 percent and thus shrinks the estimation of low-scoring adults from roughly 90 million to a modest 10 million people.

Let’s look at NALS to answer the question, "Why don’t "illiterates" get tutors or enroll in adult education to fix their problems? NALS found that people scoring at the lowest literacy levels do not consider themselves "at risk " or "illiterate." More than two thirds of those scoring at the lowest level and about 95 percent of those in the second-lowest tier rank themselves as "good readers" who read and speak English "very well." Nearly a quarter of these optimistic respondents are recent immigrants to America. A significant number have vision disabilities because they cannot afford eyeglasses or because advanced age has left them with poor eyesight. Another 26 percent endure physical, mental, or health disabilities that limit exposure to daily work, school, and community activities assessed by NALS. Sixty-two percent dropped out of school and give little credence to the value of tests or literacy in their daily lives.

There are significant repercussions to any news that literacy just isn’t that big of a problem in America. President George W. Bush’s recent nominees to the board of directors for the National Institute for Literacy are exclusively of nonadult literacy professionals who represent early childhood to higher education systems. Literacy leaders and practitioners across the country have lodged a protest because the roster does not reflect understanding of the distinct issues associated with adult literacy. The situation was recently further exacerbated when President Bush cut $50 million from the budget of the Even Start Family Literacy program, which serves poverty-level parents (and their young children) with low-literacy skills. The administration is directing the bulk of its literacy budget for early childhood and K-12 reading programs (Read First). Illiteracy is believed to be the ultimate failure of classroom teaching.

The most disturbing news is that, by our most generous estimates, there are millions of able-bodied adults who are not suited to the workplace demands of local employers because they cannot read or write well enough to do the job. Hospitals are overwhelmed with adults who cannot communicate with health providers or comply with Medicare paperwork and then often succumb to chronic illness at an early age. Schools struggle to communicate with parents who cannot read classroom newsletters and fill out field trip permission slips. Local businesses across the country are facing their own red ink when sales plummet as more rather than less people compete for fewer jobs and bring home slimmer paychecks.

You can "read all about it." At best, 10 million Americans cannot read—or maybe you’d be more motivated to volunteer or encourage your congressional representatives to fund adult literacy if you believe ten times that figure. Illiteracy is costing all of us "big bucks" because what the federal government doesn’t invest into adult education it makes up in higher costs to health, human services, and welfare.

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Adjunct Professor Connie Fuller, Crystal Lake, Ill., metro campus, has written a new book.

Connie Fuller, adjunct professor, Human Resources Development and Management, Crystal Lake, Ill., metro campus, has been appointed human resources manager for AG Communications Systems, a subsidiary of Lucent Technologies. Fuller joined AGCS in 1997 as an organization development specialist and has been instrumental in developing and supporting self-directed work teams, management development, succession planning, and employee training and development. She is certified as a Senior HR professional by the Society for Human Resource Management. She coauthored Bridging the Boomer-Xer Gap: Creating Authentic Teams for High Performance at Work (Davies-Black, 2001). The book addresses how to create high-performing teams that build on the values that each generation brings to the workplace.

"The Donut King," a short film by Chris Sagovac ’96, work supervisor, Media Center, Jeremy Mehrle ’00, Paul Nadjmabadi ’00, and Angela Ottinger ’00 was screened at the Sundance Film Festival. Mehrle edited the film; Nadjamabodi shot it; Ottinger directed; and Sagovac developed the storyboard. The film, about a boy who receives a gift of a doughnut, was made as a student project.

Bob Goss, assistant professor and chair, Religious Studies, presented "Become a Catholic Priest and Find a Wife: Catholic Anxieties over (Fe)Male Priests" and "Marcella Althaus-Reid Obscenity # 1: The Bi/Christ" at a meeting of the American Academy of Religion. The latter paper will also be published in the Journal of Feminist Studies. His Templeton Prize-winning course, "The Problem of Evil: Theodicies from the Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, and Comparative Religions," has been named one of the outstanding courses of the last decade by the Berkeley-based Center for Theology and Natural Sciences. The course will become part of the center’s Web site. The syllabus and related materials will be translated into Chinese and made available to Chinese scholars of religion and science.

Chris Parr, associate professor, Religious Studies, presented "Is It Always the Media’s Fault? Islam, Protestantism, and Media (Mis-)Representations" at a meeting of the American Academy of Religion. He was also a respondent on a panel covering "Christian Spirituality and Poetic Imagination."

Dennis Klass, professor, Religious Studies, presented "Contemporary Perspectives on Dying, Death, and Bereavement," at a meeting of the American Academy of Religion. Klass was the keynote speaker at a conference on child loss, sponsored by the Loss and Life Transition Program of the Samaritan Counseling Center, in Lancaster, Pa. He was also featured in a New York Times article, "Closure: Coming to Grips with a Popular Cure-All." Klass said that those who had lost loved ones on September 11 could not expect to find closure. "‘Maybe we put a contested election behind us. But we do not put death behind us. We do not put disaster—or call it trauma—behind us. We put either behind us at our own peril.’"

Keep us posted on your professional activities and send us your story ideas by completing the UFO form.

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St. Louis Calendar Highlight

What Would You Do for $6 Million?

Poor Harry aims to get rich by taking his dead uncle on a vacation, but the lady from the Dog Home tries to thwart his plans. That’s the plot of Lucky Stiff, a musical farce, opening March 27, at the Stage III Theatre. Performances through March 31 and again April 3-7. All shows at 7:30 p.m., except Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. Faculty and staff can reserve two free tickets by calling the Fine Arts Hotline, ex. 7128. For more information, click here.

For more information on St. Louis events, check the online calendar.

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Employees of the Month

The "Wonderful Susans" Win Spotlight Award for March

From Marianne Kirk, Inside Webster Contributor

Susan ("Susie") Daily, director, Health Services, and Susan Wilborn, department associate, Health Services, share the Employee Spotlight Award for March.

Susie and Susan were nominated for recent assistance they gave to the family of Joseph Mburu, a Kenyan graduate student, who died as a result of injuries received in a car accident. According to their nominator, "Susan and Susie did an amazing job of helping the friends and family of the deceased student." Especially helpful was their handling and coordination of details related to the funeral service and repatriation of the body back to Kenya. Through connections made with Gerber Chapel, these issues were worked out and the family was shielded from that complex process.

Susan Wilborn says she and Susie were a piece of a large puzzle that helped to resolve a tragic situation. They credit Bob Polydys of Gerber Chapel as being extremely resourceful and efficient within a limited budget. Susan remembers briefly meeting Joseph Mburu when he stopped by her office and mentioned his wife was expecting their first child. "Everything seemed wonderful," Susan said, "then before we knew it, we were thrust into the position of creating a memorial service for Joseph’s wife, family, and friends."

Susan and Susie say they could not have accomplished what they did without help from Ted Hoef and Brandyn Woodard. Ted gave them the freedom to do what was necessary, and Brandyn spoke eloquently at the memorial service, where Joseph’s uncle asked Susan and Susie to stand so that "everyone could see the wonderful Susans and recognize all that they had done to help with the arrangements."

Susan Wilborn notes that Joseph’s wife is continuing her recovery at home with her sister and that her newborn son, Allen, is "a healthy, happy baby."

Susan Daily, who has been with the University for 13 years chose a day off with pay as her prize. Susan Wilborn, a three-year veteran, chose the $100 savings bond.

Webster employees everywhere are eligible for the Employee Spotlight Award. To make a nomination, click here.

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New Employees

A warm welcome to the newest members of the Webster Family:

Charlea A. Allen, general clerk, Ft Jackson, 803-738-0603 or speed dial #6 049, replaces Darryl Morgan.

Gregory M. Keim, general clerk, Ft Jackson, 803-738-0603 or speed dial #6 049, replaces Gregory Hickerson.

Kathryn Louise Ritz, department associate, New River MCAS, N.C., 910-451-0952 or speed dial #6 071, replaces Elizabeth Marotto.

Norman W. Senaldi, database programmer analyst, University Computer Center, replaces Michelle Williams, who now works part time.

To learn more about job opportunities at Webster, go to the Human Resources Jobs site.

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