Since its launch earlier this year, the World Campus -- Penn State's virtual university -- has enrolled more than 250 students into its four programs and has received more than 2,600 inquiries from all 50 states and 47 countries. Now, 14 national leaders are joining the World Campus team to help guide its planning.
Senior executives from professional associations, research organizations and corporations like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, AT&T Labs, IBM and Newsweek are now part of the World Campus Advisory Board which meets for the first time Oct. 15-16. The World Campus is a technology-based delivery unit that is extending some of Penn State's signature academic programs to learners around the world.
The insights and perspectives of the newest members of its advisory board are expected to generate an understanding of the learning needs of today's workforce and the application of new technologies, to help the World Campus meet its target of offering 300 courses by the year 2002. The board, chaired by James Ryan, vice president for Outreach and Cooperative Extension, will meet two times a year and members will serve two-year terms.
Currently, the World Campus offers four programs: chemical dependency counselor education, fundamentals of engineering, noise control engineering and turfgrass management. Eight more will be added during 1998-99, and by the end of its fifth year, the World Campus will offer 25 to 30 new programs.
From its beginnings as an idea in 1996, Penn State's 25th campus has evolved rapidly, taking advantage of the University's century-old tradition of independent learning and national preeminence in information technology, as well as more than $2 million in grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
For more information about the Penn State World Campus, call 1-800-252-3592 or visit the Web at http://www.worldcampus.psu.edu.