Dive Brief:
- Henry Lucas, a faculty chair at the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business and author of Technology and the Disruption of Higher Education: Saving the American University, argues faculty must come around to online education to keep their universities alive.
- For the Washington Post, Lucas writes schools that do not embrace technology-enhanced education, and do so with strong faculty at the helm, will go out of business as students flock to more convenient and affordable programs.
- Lucas sees faculty as the ones who most have to change in favor of online education and the ones most resistant to it, urging administrators to go around them, if necessary.
Dive Insight:
In some circles, online education is still seen as inferior to in-person instruction. While top universities offer the same degrees to students who choose to study remotely, these programs are not held in equal esteem. But champions of online education are trying to change that, and studies continue to show online student learning can be equal to or even better than in-person courses, depending on the course design.
When it comes to using digital materials, many faculty are embracing the idea at a slower rate than chief information officers and those pushing for a disruption of higher ed. At community colleges, where more faculty are open to digital materials and students may benefit most from the cost savings, students don’t necessarily own the technology with which to access them from home.