FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
June16, 2003

CONTACT:
Lisa Lacher, Drake University, (515) 271-3119, lisa.lacher@drake.edu
Tristan Davies, Drury University, (417) 862-6926, tdavies@drury.edu

DRAKE UNIVERSITY JOINS DRURY UNIVERSITY IN PILOT PROGRAM ON DISTANCE LEARNING

Eighteen Drake University students are taking selected online courses this summer at Drury University in Springfield, Mo., while 50 Drury students are enrolled in selected online courses at Drake as part of a pilot program in distance learning.

The pilot program was established by Associated New American Colleges (ANAC), a national consortium of 20 mid-size, private comprehensive colleges and universities dedicated to the integration of liberal arts and professional studies.

As members of ANAC, Drake and Drury were the logical ones to conduct the pilot program because they have similar programs and each institution has more than five years experience offering online courses, said Jan McMahill, chair of the ANAC Distance Learning Task Force and associate dean of Drake's School of Education. In addition to representatives from Drake and Drury, the task force is made up of representatives of the University of Hartford, North Central College, the Sage Colleges and Valparaiso University.

"One of our goals is to increase opportunities for students by enabling them to take courses that aren't offered by their college or university," McMahill said. "Another goal is to broaden the student base in each class so that we have students from different colleges and states interacting with each other.

"The fact that we have nearly 70 students trying something new this summer is magnificent," she added. "We will be surveying the students to see how they like the pilot program. We will then carefully evaluate the program in hopes of expanding it to include other ANAC colleges in the future."

More than 20 people at the two institutions were involved in working out the arrangements for the pilot program, which included dealing with differences in tuition rates, financial aid and procedures for registration, grading and accessing library resources.

"The counterparts at both Drake and Drury have worked hard to select courses that are beneficial to their students' needs," said Gary Rader, director of online programs at Drury University. "Drury then linked each online course to an equivalent Drake course, and Drake did the same for us. The result is an enhanced online schedule for students at both universities, without the need for lots of paperwork to transfer class credits back and forth."
Both Drake and Drury are each offering 10 online courses through the pilot program this summer. Drake's classes are:

Introduction to Accounting I and II
Calculus I
Expedition of Lewis and Clark
Management Operations
Modern Latin America
Peacebuilding and Post-Conflict Justice
Revisiting the Vietnam War
The Classics Then and Now
Women in Politics

The Drury classes are:

Abnormal Psychology
Creative Writing
Introduction to Criminology
Introduction to Law for the Legal Assistant
Gangs
Lewis and Clark
Media Writing
Minority Groups
Religions of the World: Far East
Virology

Drake's online courses are posted at http://www.multimedia1.drake.edu/summer/

Drury's online courses are posted at http://www.drury.edu/cgcs/online/

In addition to Drake and Drury, ANAC is made up of Belmont University, Butler University, University of Dayton, University of Evansville, Elon University, Hamline University, Hampton University, Ithaca College, University of Hartford, Mercer University, North Central College, Pacific Lutheran University, Quinnipiac University, University of Redlands, the Sage Colleges, Simmons College, Susquehanna University and Valparaiso University. For more information about ANAC, visit http://anac.vir.org.