The Liberal Studies program, originally called the Individual Option program, was one of the first degrees offered by UIS, originally called Sangamon State University In the fall of 1999, it became the first online undergraduate program offered by UIS.
I started with the LIS program in the middle of that first semester and man oh man how things have changed. Back in the olden days of 1999, I spent a lot of time trying to convince students that online classes were real classes and that the diploma was the same diploma they might earn on campus and not something printed on a graham cracker. When we admitted students, we went through a 45 minute interview process to determine if they had the necessary technical skills. I was doing about 200 of these interviews a year so I was VERY happy when online learning started becoming “normal.”
One of my favorite memories of those early days was a visit from our dean. He was describing the proposal process for this new online venture in Liberal Studies. In his words, he said they set an enrollment goal semester one, semester two, semester three and then a miracle would happen. He was telling me this in the semester in which the miracle was proposed to happen – it had happened. LIS went from a pretty small degree program to one that was admitting 120 new students a year. The online program even jump-started the campus-based program so that now we are able to have strong groups learning in both options.
If you’d like a small glimpse of the early LIS online days, go the registration website. The smiling students you see there are some of the Spring 2002 LIS graduates.
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4 comments:
Happy '10th' Birthday, LIS! Yeah!!! Now, if only we had some virtual cake to go around. I like yellow cake with chocolate frosting, lol.
I'm so happy for you, Andy and for the entire staff and faculty who made this program possible. Without the dedication or commitment of all of you, us students would not have the opportunity to take online classes and receive online degrees from the privacy of our own personal spaces. We can still work, go to school, and tend to our families by taking this non-traditional route. I want to say 'thank you' for making all of this possible and congratulations on a job well done.
On behalf of everyone, shucks.
Lol.....you're too funny!
Andy, as the Cookie Monster might observe . . .never print a diploma on to a graham cracker, it’ll just end up as his afternoon snack. I originally looked into the earlier version of the CPL and actually spoke with you several times. But I never followed through with my plan (now I’m playing catch-up).
BTW, re: Online Studies. One evening this past spring, we were waiting for our communications professor when I turned to my class mates and suggested that I’d like to take a survey of their perception of online studies vs. a classroom environment.
Interestingly, those who responded (most of the students) reported that they prefer a classroom structure because they can interact with the instructor and other students and that they retain more information.
They feel lonely when a class is totally on-line. They also feel online studies requires more discipline, focus and commitment to complete the assignments in a timely manner (these comments suggests that they look for (or require) more leadership from instructors.
Cheers,
Stan
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