Printer Friendly
Fifteen years ago, online learning was not just new – it was obscure. Very few people in education or the media appreciated its potential. Yet Jacqueline Moloney, executive vice chancellor of UMass Lowell, began pioneering a program that has achieved a national reputation for excellence.
Moloney will be recognized for her leadership as the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) presents her with the 2009 award for Most Outstanding Achievement in Online Learning by an Individual at the organization’s October conference.
Through her direction and encouragement, many UMass Lowell programs and individuals have received prior Sloan-C awards for online learning. In 2005, these included the consulting team program she created: Distance Faculty Developers, for excellence in faculty development; the Continuing Studies, Corporate and Distance Education division, for institution-wide online teaching and programming and Assoc. Prof. Joan Cannon of the Psychology Department, for excellence in online teaching. In 2008, the Behavioral Intervention in Autism Program was recognized as the most outstanding online learning and teaching program.
Moloney remembers the first Sloan-C conference she and her small team attended. (The Sloan Consortium is funded by the Sloan Foundation to develop online education and the improved access to educational opportunity that it offers.)
“We were attending with representatives of leading universities – such as University of Illinois, SUNY and Penn State – that were investing major resources at the time,” she says. “But Sloan had developed the frameworks for excellence and created a series of awards based on them, so I laid out the challenge to our team: ‘We will win all five of those awards.’ ”
With this year’s award to Moloney, that goal has been met.
UMass Lowell Chancellor Marty Meehan says, “We’re very pleased that Jacquie and the program she developed at UMass Lowell have received this well-deserved recognition. Jacquie has the ability to think creatively ahead of the curve and, at the same time, build the institutional strength to sustain a program that is far-reaching in its educational impact. This has made her a national leader in online and alternative learning, and a most valued member of my leadership team.”
UMass Lowell’s program has been built around a critical decision to invest in faculty development for online teaching, according to Moloney.
“Asynchronous learning was a new way to think about education,” she says. “What should be the class size, how would discussions and chats be set up, what were the issues of accountability – these were all unknowns. The design and development of our programs have been informed by faculty experience right from the start, by their creativity and commitment.”
Now a program that began with 400 students has become a powerhouse that is incorporated into UMass Online. The UMass program is growing rapidly, generates more than $24 million in revenues and currently has 12,000 students enrolled.
What’s on the horizon? Blended learning is the new frontier in online education: a combination of web-based and in-person formats.
“The asynchronous model of ‘any time, anywhere’ has been pushed out as far as it can go in the fields where it works,” says Moloney. “It is not ideal in health care, engineering and some of the sciences, in which instructors must observe people doing the work in labs or clinicals.”
In 2006, Moloney and her team won a Sloan Foundation grant to implement blended learning across the UMass system. As a result, two programs have been developed on each of the five campuses. At UMass Lowell, this includes the master’s degree program in Health Management and Policy, managed by A. James Lee, associate professor in the Community Health and Sustainability Department.
“This is a non-traditional program in which most students are mid-career professionals who work full-time and attended class in the evenings and Saturday morning,” says Lee. “With Jacquie and the Sloan Foundation’s support, we have transformed our graduate program and begun teaching all courses on a ‘blended’ basis.”
The results: larger enrollment – from 20 to 25 students to more than 100 in the program – and a geographically expanded definition of the “local university.”
“Our studies show that commuting graduate students will travel 30 miles to attend class twice a week,” says Moloney. “With the blended format, that has extended to 90 miles, which helps us achieve the expanded access to higher education that the Sloan Foundation is seeking.”
Online learning may be mainstream, at least as far as the media are concerned, but Moloney sees many challenges and possibilities ahead.
“Online learning is a problem-solver on multiple fronts,” she says. “Web-enhanced courses increase freshman retention rates, especially for our students at risk. Also, I’d like to see online and blended learning truly commonplace – part of every calculus course, for example – along with the faculty development support that is needed to make that happen.”
Moloney also sees the usefulness of online technologies in planning for alternative learning during a pandemic or other disaster. She worked with the Sloan Foundation to set up the “Sloan Semester” of online education for faculty and students displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Thousands of students were able to continue their education.
Perhaps that typifies Moloney’s approach – the embracing of innovative technology, tempered by rigorous research, within the context of a deep commitment to helping students and faculty reach their full potential.
As Ray Schroeder, director of the Center for Online Learning, Research and Service at the University of Illinois, wrote about her, “It is, I think, her accomplishments in converting those who had not yet caught the vision, in inspiring many to seek to become leaders in our field and in being a steadfast beacon of reasoned enthusiasm for us all … that qualifies her for recognition for this award.”