Sustained Growth in Distance Education: What Were We Thinking?

As distance education programs mature and increase in size, often the sponsoring institutions experience new and frequently conflicting metrics.  The horticulture program in the Department of Plant and Soil Science at Texas Tech University currently has a twenty year high in enrollment while club membership is at a several year low.  This spring, several courses had greater enrollment in online sections when compared to face to face sections.  Increasingly, students are people who travel to their degree granting institution just to walk across the stage at graduation.  What kind of impact does this environment have on a vibrant horticulture program and faculty members who are teaching at a distance? Perhaps we have a paradigm shift in what constitutes a collegiate experience. Several opportunities present themselves to help bridge the distance gap.  Increased communication, intentional interaction with students, and faculty training to aid in remediating the impact of distance education on the on-campus experience are some considerations.  In addition, course constructs, recruitment and retention practices, and long term planning are concerns which should be addressed.