CSCU president: No stigma, as more college classes go online
By Grace Duffield
Online does not mean second-class.
“I don’t believe that online courses means you dilute the quality of the educational experience with that quality being inferior because it is online,” Connecticut State Colleges and Universities President Mark Ojakian said.
For Ojakian, the stigma is gone.
CSCU is comprised of four state universities, 12 community colleges and one state college and they all quickly pivoted to distance learning during the coronavirus crisis. Only a week and a half after they were forced to close by Gov. Ned Lamont’s executive order to keep people safe, they had online courses up and running.
“You have the same faculty on campus that is providing online,” Ojakian said. “We have incredibly talented teachers who are hardworking and committed to promoting the highest-quality education.”
And the current pandemic may provide a window into the future of online learning for the state colleges system.
“Moving forward, you will see more of a blend of in-person and online courses,” Ojakian said. “I think you will see more hybrid instruction.”
Much of the technology for distance learning has already been put in place,
Ojakian said, since internet providers rapidly installed internet hotspots to ensure students had access to the information highway during the pandemic — good news given expected changes coming to the state colleges system.
As soon as 2023, the community colleges will be brought together under one accreditation. That means any of the 85,000 students studying at one of the community colleges will be able to take online classes hosted by any of the others, Ojakian said.
The number offered online will likely be plentiful as, Ojakian said, the recent pandemic has proven schools were able to adapt “more courses than we thought.”
“In addition to science labs, many of which have been able to continue remotely, our colleges have been able to deliver things like fine arts classes. The community colleges have even found alternatives to traditional galleries,” he said.
Though more can be done online than anticipated, Ojakian said distance learning will not supplant on-ground campuses in the future.
“I don’t think you will see fully online as part of public education,” he added. “I believe that we need to have in-person instruction, because I think there is no substitute for a professor in a classroom.”