Gary Schnabl said:
The world-wide mail-order USAFI courses were administered by the
University of Wisconsin Extension in Madison until the military
discontinued the program in the 1970s. The entire distribution operation
was located in the basement of a failing strip mall - Park Plaza on South
Park Street. I toured the basement after the mall went south. No much
there but a fork-lift...
The following is a (rather lengthy) report on DX education at UW:
http://www.uwex.edu/disted/gooch.htm
They Blazed the Trail for Distance Education
by James Gooch
Last Update: November 11, 1998
In this paper on trends in continuing education the author, who was formerly
program information director for outreach services at the University of
Wisconsin in Madison, reviews delivery systems that have made distance
education possible and practical. The review begins with the introduction of
correspondence study classes for off-campus students in 1891 and extends to
today's computerized and satellite-delivered systems that make extension
classes available to adult students worldwide.
Today's much discussed distance education movement is not a new phenomenon.
The University of Wisconsin and other major universities have utilized
correspondence study courses since the 1890s to provide off-campus learning
opportunities for millions of adults.
During the 1960s, more than 70 years after the United States borrowed from
Oxford and Cambridge Universities the concept of offering extension classes,
a team of Wisconsin Extension consultants helped Great Britain develop
off-campus teaching systems needed to establish the British Open University.
It was also during the 1960s that UW Madison and University Extension
specialists helped Kenya improve its schools by using a combination of
broadcast and correspondence study systems -- another example of distance
education!
During the 1980s and early 1990s several factors focused new attention on
distance education. An increasing number of adults found they needed
refresher courses to keep up with the knowledge explosion and many preferred
not to return to campus. Computers and space satellites had also made it
practical for universities to package and deliver adult education programs
to students thousands of miles from the campuses.
Outreach educators with the most experience in utilizing a variety of
delivery systems were in the best position to apply the new space-age
technology. To appreciate this fact, one need only to look at the
telecommunications system Wisconsin uses to deliver extensions programs
today, then step back in time and view the state's achievements in public
broadcasting, in developing home study courses, and the innovative
application of telephone networks for offering university classes away from
campus.
Also of interest is the methods Wisconsin used to package and market
extension programs and the use of a special team to help campus faculty
utilize media for teaching continuing education classes.
Before we dig up the deep taproots that made the University of Wisconsin
famous as a distance education institution, let's look at some of the people
who led the University into the information age. Luke Lamb was lured from
public broadcasting in Oregon in 1968 to head University Extension's
communications division which included broadcast and print media services,
photo media, and audio visual support. Ron Bornstein directed his WHA radio
and television units and helped establish Wisconsin as a national pacesetter
in pubic broadcasting. Bornstein would later take a leave to help rescue an
ailing National Public Radio system and then return to serve as a UW System
senior vice president.
An Extension Program and Staff Development unit also helped implement
program delivery methods during the 1965-1982 period. This unit was headed
by Patrick Boyle who was later to become chancellor of UW-Extension.
Extension went through a major reorganization in 1982 when most outreach
programming was assigned to UW System campuses. Lamb continued to direct a
telecommunications team that supported outreach programming at the UW
System's 13 degree-granting universities and 13 two-year centers.
Now let's look at the birth of some of the program delivery systems that
ushered in today's distance education movement.
Pioneers in Radio and
Television Broadcasting
Doug Bradley describes the birth of WHA Radio in the following excerpt from
a 1992 feature on the station's 75th anniversary:
"Terry is wasting his time with a plaything," whispered colleagues of UW
physics professor Earle M. Terry in 1917. Undaunted, Terry and his students
transmitted music and voice with the help of handmade vacuum tubes, and
Station 9XM started experimental radio broadcasts from Science Hall that
year. Then in January of 1922, 9XM was granted a new license and call
letters -- WHA. And in the decades to follow, WHA helped spark a run of
innovations that would change public broadcasting forever.
Wisconsin citizens have always considered WHA Radio to be the friendly open
door to their University, its faculty and knowledge base. The station has
earned many awards. In 1937 it was presented the first of 50 Ohio State
awards. The station has also won many Peabody and Gabriel awards.
Since its early beginnings with "School of the Air", WHA Radio has continued
to broadcast educational courses in a variety of formats. "College of the
Air" and later "University of the Air" offered listeners a chance to hear UW
professors discuss a wide array of topics. Since creation of the UW System
in 1971, WHA Radio has worked with all System campuses to produce audio
credit courses, many of which have been distributed nationally. As of the
late 1980s, 200 faculty were appearing on informational and WHA short course
programs each year, and many more participated in popular "call-in" shows.
As of 1992, WHA Radio, licensed to the UW System, was an AM service
broadcasting news and information to a 16-county area of south central
Wisconsin. WERN-FM, licensed to the Station Educational Communications Board
(ECB), was providing music and arts programming to the same listening area.
Both services were also being heard across the state as part of Wisconsin
Public Radio, a service jointly offered by UW-Extension and ECB.
WHA-TV began broadcasting in 1952 from improvised studios in the old
Chemical Engineering Building on the Madison campus. After starting with a
schedule of only two and a half hours of programming daily to a very small
audience, WHA-TV, as of 1987, was broadcasting 18 hours a day to an
18-county area in south central Wisconsin, northern Illinois and eastern
Iowa. The station had become a major producer of local, statewide and
national general educational programming, focusing on cultural, performing
arts, sports, and public affairs themes. Many of WHA-TV's productions were
also being carried throughout Wisconsin over a Wisconsin Public Television
network.
Since its early developmental years, WHA-Television worked with UW-Madison
and other System campus faculty to make credit and non-credit instruction
and community improvement services available to citizens throughout the
state and nation. A review of awards earned indicates the station met its
goals. In 1969 WHA-TV became the nation's first public television station to
receive an "Emmy" from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
The honor went to the film, "Pretty Soon Runs Out," part of the series "The
Inner Core: City Within a City," which featured urban neighborhoods in
Milwaukee. Other honors have included Gabriel Awards, the Dupont-Columbia
Award for Broadcast Journalism, Ohio State and Chicago Film Festival Awards.
WHA-TV has ranked among the top five public broadcasting stations in
viewership since 1975.
As of 1991, telecourses were being offered to adult viewers on both WHA-TV
and WHA Cable 33, which is a service of WHA-TV. WHA-TV has continued to
offer credit and non-credit courses developed by UW System campuses and from
the state's Vocational, Technical, and Adult Education (VTAE) system. The
station also cooperates with the Educational Communications Board to offer
Instructional Television (ITV) and provide daytime learning opportunities
for elementary and high school students statewide.
As of 1994, many UW-Madison and other UW System outreach programmers were
effectively utilizing UW-Extension's expanded telecommunications services.
The UW-Madison College of Engineering was videotaping courses which made it
possible to earn credits towards a master's degree without going to campus.
Several campus colleges had joined with the UW-Madison outreach office,
Extension Telecommunications Division, and the State Educational
Communications Board to purchase a satellite uplink so the university could
deliver instruction worldwide. The UW-Madison colleges of education and
engineering and the UW hospital were also using a form of televised
microwave delivery known as Instructional Television Fixed Service (ITFS) to
bring programs to professionals at their work sites.
Independent (correspondence) Study
Although today's sophisticated program delivery systems are dramatic, it's
important to review the early beginnings of correspondence study since home
study is still combined with the new telecommunications services to provide
a package for distance learning. Correspondence study has been an important
component of the University of Wisconsin outreach program delivery system
since 1891.
In 1906 University of Wisconsin President Charles Van Hise asked Henry
Legler, secretary of the State Library Commission, to act temporarily as
Extension secretary, without extra compensation. He also appointed two
full-time University staff members to carry out the chief work of
Extension--Frank Hutchins as field organizer, and W. H. Lighty as director
of correspondence work.
In 1907, Louis E. Reber took office as Extension's first Director and under
his leadership, along with that of Hutchins and Lighty, the University
Extension mechanism began to take shape.
Lighty continued in office until 1937 and is given much credit for
developing a strong and stable correspondence study unit and for utilizing
the UW pioneer radio station, WHA, for educational purposes. UW-Madison's
125th year report, published in 1975, states that correspondence study
continued to be the backbone of Extension in the late 1930s, although after
Lighty's retirement in 1937 a new director was not named until the early
1940s.
A 1989 history of Continuing Education in Engineering illustrates how some
of the larger outreach departments have utilized "home study" courses since
early in the century and how faculty members have taken advantage of new
technology to better serve their correspondence study students.
Excerpts from the 1989 engineering outreach report follow:
"George A. Hool, who headed Extension's Department of Civil and Structural
Engineering from 1908 to 1927, was a prolific writer. He and several other
extension engineers contributed their accumulated experience to the
development of correspondence courses. By 1911, the two largest units in the
correspondence study department were engineering, with seven staff members,
and business administration, with three staff members devoting full-time
working with home study students."
The 1989 report also quoted from a 1911 engineering extension department
report which stated that:
"Those who would belittle correspondence study contrived chants such as:
Pooh! Pooh! Harvard!
Pooh! Pooh! Yale!
I got my education through the mail!"
It was apparent that the early extension engineering students who completed
correspondence courses were among the best members of university classes
when they came to campus. As so-called factory or job training
correspondence courses grew in popularity, a movement to provide more
comprehensive training developed, culminating with legislation in 1911 that
provided for local "continuation schools" in cities of more than 5,000. Many
of these schools later became part of the state's vocational education
system.
Of the 18 correspondence course texts in use before World War I, 16 were
engineering-related. Advertising for these courses invited road laborers,
foremen, inspectors, high commissioners, engineers, and government officials
to enroll and take advantage of the benefits of correspondence study,
including increased chances for promotion. Some of the 1911 correspondence
study ads pointed to Abe Lincoln, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford as examples
of men who had succeeded via the home study route.
During World War II, University Extension staff members shifted a large part
of their efforts to war-related projects. The United States Armed Forces
Institute (USAFI), established in Madison in 1942 with funding from the U.
S. Department of Defense, became an integral part of the Extension
correspondence study operation.
L. H. Adolfson, named correspondence study director in 1944 and later dean
of University Extension, continued the development of strong academic
departments to support credit programs in correspondence study, as well as
at the emerging University of Wisconsin two-year study centers.
The 1958 University Extension annual report indicated the important role
played by the correspondence study unit as it continued to offer university
and high school courses and was also developing courses for more than
250,000 service men and women continuing their education through the USAFI
contract.
Under a "What it does" heading, the 1958 report stated that the University
of Wisconsin Correspondence Study unit:
Offers nearly 450 courses in nearly 150 areas of learning
Teaches 12,000 active students annually
Gives personal instruction on more than 80,000 written assignments
Cooperates with the Foreign Service Institute of the U. S. Dept. of State to
teach Immigration Law & Visa Operations to foreign service officers
And contracts with the United States Armed Forces Institute (USAFI) to
develop and teach 200 correspondence courses on the high school and
university level and provide instruction for over 300,000 USAFI assignments
Indicating that the unit was an early innovator in making educational use of
film and television, extension leaders reported in 1958 that their
Correspondence Study staff had developed and produced 12 TV kinescopes on
American Government at the request of training officers in the Department of
Defense and also continued to offer TV-correspondence study courses over
commercial TV channels in the State.
The Independent Study unit (the name of the unit was changed in 1965) has
remained among the top five university correspondence study departments in
the nation.
The enrollment has remained relatively constant over the years, excluding
the 1942-1974 period when home study courses were provided for thousands of
members of the armed services. (The U.S. Defense Department disbanded the
USAFI unit in 1974.) A 1980-81 report by Independent Study Director Donald
Kaiser showed an enrollment total of 10,327, with 5,068 enrolled for
university credit, 3,463 for continuing education credit, and 1,796 enrolled
for high school credits. It was during the 1980s that Kaiser worked with
Extension and UW-Madison faculty and Extension media specialists to develop
audio-print packages to enhance correspondence study activity. This
Annenberg/Corporation for Public Broadcasting project resulted in special
home-study packets utilized in other states, as well as Wisconsin. A 1993
report by Independent Study director Sylvia Rose showed correspondence
course enrollments had increased to 11,908, with 7,889 enrolled for
university credit, 2,020 for continuing education credit, and 1,688 for high
school credit.
As indicated earlier, the extension engineering department was active in
correspondence study programming from 1906 through the early 1960s. However,
the introduction of a new engineering professional development degree
program in 1965 added a new dimension for independent study courses since
the post-baccalaureate program was designed to permit engineers to continue
their education without leaving their home communities. The engineering
department also led the way during the 1980s in supplanting printed study
guides with new program delivery systems and techniques such as a portable
videotape production studio, videocassette courses, and teleconferencing
courses -- including some that are satellite delivered to multiple
locations.
To supplement other home study options, departments such as pharmacy and
nursing also started in the 1960s to use audio cassette packets made up of
notebooks containing recorded instruction, along with printed study guides.
Extension Pharmacy Department head Melvin Weinswig reported in the October,
1978, issue of Extension News that taped continuing education courses had
been used by more than 15,000 pharmacists and allied health professionals
nationwide during the previous five years. Some inserted the cassettes into
their car's tape decks so they could listen to the latest lesson while
enroute to the office.
World's Biggest Partyline Creates Statewide Classroom
It was in November of 1965 when a telephone network was introduced to make
continuing education programs available to Wisconsin physicians in their
home communities. Dr. Thomas C. Meyer of the UW Continuing Medical Education
department at Madison had earlier contacted Dean Theodore Shannon of the
University Extension Division to appeal for such a service to save travel
time for physicians.
When the service was initiated in 1965, a telephone company operator in
Madison activated the network by simply calling each location 15 minutes
before program time. Participants used standard desktop speaker phones to
hear the programs and ask questions or make comments.
Program expansion soon made the use of conventional telephone lines and
relying on operator assistance inadequate. In early 1966, UW-Extension
leased a network of private, or dedicated, telephone lines from the
Wisconsin Telephone Company. This provided exclusive educational use and
24-hour accessibility for Extension's new Educational Telephone Network
(ETN).
When the UW department of postgraduate medical education initiated use of
the "telephone circuit" in 1965, the following objectives were listed:
Offer instruction of the highest caliber and at a reasonable cost
Incorporate topics directly applicable to clinical practice
Reduce substantially the amount of time a physician must be absent from the
responsibilities of a practice in order to participate in a continuing
education program
Somewhat similar goals could be stated 23 years later (in 1988) when 346
programs were designed to reach 23,250 doctors, engineers, nurses, lawyers,
farmers, business people, and social workers over the Educational
Teleconference Network. (Although still utilizing the telephone system, the
name of the Educational Telephone Network had been changed to Educational
Teleconference Network.) UW continuing education programs accounted for just
under 50 percent of these 1988 ETN programs. Nearly 17 percent were used for
UW credit courses, 11 percent for public service announcements, and 24
percent were programs used by university and state agency staff for
administrative communications.
In addition to the large Educational Teleconference Network, UW-Extension's
Instructional Communications System (ICS) was by 1988 providing production
and duplication services that ranged from studio and editing services, to
duplicating of more than 80,000 audio cassettes. These special services were
partly responsible for changing the unit's name to ICS during the 1980s. But
the original educational telephone network, often referred to as "ETN, the
world's biggest party line," has remained a key program delivery component
of the unit.
By 1989, the 23rd year that continuing education, credit, and public service
programs were delivered to Wisconsin's 72 counties via ETN, the network
connected 169 dedicated sites and five fixed dial-up sites.
Forty-seven UW departments, state agencies, and nonprofit groups sponsored
1,949 hours of ETN programming during the 1988-89 fiscal year. Largest ETN
users during that year were 4-H & Youth Development, 194 hours; Family
Living Education, 172 hours; Library & Information Studies, UW-Madison, 143
hours; and Allied Health, UW-Madison, 120 hours.
Many refinements and new technologies were added to the basic ETN system by
1991. Managed by Extension's Instructional Communications systems, these
services included:
WisLine, a telephone conference call service that could link from three to
68 locations, anywhere in the world
WisView, a distance education delivery system combining audio
teleconferencing with a computer-based display of charts, text, and color
pictures
Videoconferencing and an electronic bulletin board that provides information
on upcoming national satellite videoconferences
Audio production and duplicating services which include narrators, studios,
editing, mixing, audio cassette, cartridge, and reel-to-reel duplications
Electronic publishing, an "audiotext" service providing horticultural, food
preservation, and food safety information accessible from a telephone to
consumers in metropolitan areas
Packaging and Marketing
Extension Programs
How could Extension and campus faculty best utilize available program
delivery and media support systems to assure success of their outreach
classes and services?
What administrative and support arrangement would be most effective in
helping outreach faculty "package and market" their programs? And how could
media managers and marketing specialists best help instructors reach and
serve their adult students, without infringing on the tenured faculty's
responsibility for determining course offerings and curricula?
These issues had long challenged outreach administrators and staff. A 1979
service needs survey conducted by the UW-Extension Office of Program
Information indicated great variation in the value which extension
administrators, programming faculty, and county Extension agents placed on
direct mail, newspaper features, and broadcast media announcements for
promoting the institution's image and program enrollments.
The 100 programming faculty, 60 county agents, and 12 Extension
administrators responding to the survey showed that 75 percent of the
administrators looked to media coverage to enhance the image of their
institution. In contrast, more than 50 percent of the programming faculty
were most interested in the impact which publicity and promotion had on
enrollments in their classes and programs.
When asked for their judgment as to the most effective methods for
announcing programs or services, 73 percent of the programming faculty rated
direct mail first, 27 percent chose newspapers or broadcast announcements.
The survey indicated that large Extension programming departments, such as
Engineering and The Management Institute, were less dependent on media
announcements since faculty planned programs years in advance and had
well-defined client groups that could be reached by direct mail. Departments
offering programs on social issues, health concerns, communications, and
liberal studies were most dependent on print and broadcast media support for
enrollments. Many of their programs had been developed to meet a new and
timely public concern or interest and effective direct mail lists were
difficult to assemble and maintain.
It should be noted that until 1965, when several UW Madison campus outreach
units were transferred into a free-standing University Extension
institution, the University's extension services were served by two
independent media support offices. The UW Agricultural Journalism Department
provided news and publications support for programs in agriculture, home
economics, and 4-H and youth development. A separate media office publicized
other extension programs plus learning opportunities at the University's
two-year centers.
After the 1965 creation of a single large statewide outreach unit,
Agricultural Journalism specialists continued to provide media support for
all Cooperative Extension Service programming. A University Extension
Program Information Office produced publicity and publications to support
programs in business, education, engineering, law, health care,
communications, liberal studies and the arts, and edited Extension News, an
institutional newsletter published by the University Extension Chancellor.
The roles of these two media support units were to change again when a 1982
decision was made to return most of extension programming responsibility to
the UW System campuses. The Agricultural Journalism Department ad UW-Madison
continued to support the Cooperative Extension programs, but most other
extension programming was promoted by the various System campus news and
publications offices.
Testing an Articulated
Instructional Media Model
A 1964-69 experimental effort called the Articulated Instructional Media
(AIM) program didn't immediately produce dramatic new program packaging and
delivery formulas. This Carnegie-funded project is worth a review, however,
since it identified some of the challenges in putting together a team to
help outreach faculty use different classroom teaching techniques, radio and
television, correspondence study, and special audio-visuals to reach and
teach adult students. There is also reason to believe that the AIM program
eventually had an impact on the ways in which outreach programming faculty
utilized new technology to promote and improve what has become known as
"distance education." As will be noted later, the program also aided system
and campus leaders in establishing other programs for off-campus students.
The AIM project was first proposed and co-directed by Education Professor
Charles A. Wedemeyer and Journalism and Mass Communications Professor Clay
Schoenfeld. Liberal Studies Professor Robert E. Najem later joined Wedemeyer
to co-manage AIM. A stated purpose was "To effect change at every level of
the academic hierarchy, in every process dealing with the adult part-time
learner, so the very special learning needs of such off-campus students will
be met."
The following observations are from a term paper written by Sylvia Rose of
UW-Extension's Independent Study unit in 1983.
The AIM experiment was based on the assumptions that the articulated
instruction approach was necessary so that more people could continue their
education, and that an articulated program would conserve funds and faculty
time, and broaden and enrich learning opportunities.
It was assumed that a non-resident student could earn credits that would
compare favorably with those accumulated by a resident student. Given
faculty and administrative support, it was further assumed that a
non-resident student could earn a degree in a special major program. So, in
essence, AIM not only offered individual courses but was also designed to be
an off-campus degree program.
Structurally, AIM had its own administrative staff and was introduced in
1964 as an all-university activity, housed in Extension but reporting
directly to the UW central administration in Madison.
After a year of operation, the staff found that AIM students were not
progressing as rapidly as first expected. In making an analysis of the
existing program (largely correspondence instruction) the staff felt that
the policy of allowing the students complete freedom to move at a
self-determined pace without any constraints was unrealistic. Therefore, a
more directed and structured format was established. Although students were
mature, motivated to learn, and willing to discipline themselves, they were
wary of exposing themselves to criticism. They lacked confidence in
themselves as learners in the new methods of learning. Despite these facts,
the AIM dropout rate was consistently below 10 percent, due to careful
screening, counseling, testing, and interviewing.
On July 1, 1966, AIM officially became part of University Extension, a move
that considerably altered the program, according to the following statement
issued three years later by the project co-directors Wedemeyer and Najem.
Initially the program explored ways of offering a credit program to highly
motivated, non-resident students in imaginative new ways. Once the program
became a part of the University Extension, however, it had to adjust to and
live in a more constraining environment. The freedom of experimental
exploration was seriously curtailed.
Although there were 150 AIM students at the time, it became apparent in 1966
that, with a large part of the Carnegie grant expended, AIM would have to
narrow its objectives to offering only freshman and sophomore courses, and
place more emphasis on reaching students via radio, television, and
telephone. The focus was also shifted from innovative campus-based courses,
which had been modified for off-campus adults, to courses that had been
designed especially for the independent adult learner by Extension's
academic departments.
AIM experienced some successes and numerous problems before the project was
terminated in 1969. "On the plus side," AIM's co-director Najem recalled
during a 1992 interview, "many of today's extension programmers are now
using the 'high tech' communications systems that were promoted by the AIM
staff to introduce distance learning." He also felt that the AIM concept and
many of its program delivery techniques were later adapted by UW System and
campus leaders to establish Extended Degree programs for off-campus
students.
AIM concepts were also adapted by educators in England and Australia.
Wedemeyer spent much time consulting with educators in both countries and
his writings became a base for many concepts of the Open University in the
United Kingdom during the 1960s.
Reviewing challenges and problems, Najem said the AIM program was made less
effective when transferred from UW central administration to University
Extension in 1966. He thought a great flaw of AIM was the assumption that
courses developed for campus classrooms could be used for individual adult
students. It proved to be difficult to adapt multimedia packages designed
for campus use to the teaching packages needed for the individual learner.
Najem found that Extension departments resisted developing special courses
for these individual students, because of the high cost of necessary slides,
tapes, and media equipment.
Another problem existed, recalled Najem, because Extension offered no
degrees and therefore had no system for applying earned credits, as did the
UW campuses. "We even faced some antagonism from some UW administrators who
mistakenly felt the AIM concept might reduce campus enrollments," Najem
remembered.
The AIM project may be reviewed by future outreach leaders looking for
"right and wrong" ways to assist extension programmers in carrying out their
mission. The experiment is credited with helping establish guidelines for
some continuing education program fees and for identifying the type of
counseling needed to best serve the adult learner.
A major result of the project, however, may have been to demonstrate how the
academic community and media support staff can best work together to improve
adult education programming. This outcome is discussed in a summary section
from the Wedemeyer and Najem 1969 AIM report.
After pointing out that AIM program direction was handled by tenured faculty
while program implementation has handled by media and technology
specialists, Wedemeyer and Najem concluded there was a need for the two
groups to develop more of a team effort.
They concluded that:
"This advocacy relationship (between media specialists and faculty) can even
have advantages. If both groups are competent, the dialogues that result
provide an example of how a University community should function--probing
the purposes of higher education, the nature of program content, the
characteristics of learners, the relevancy of learning experiences, the
means of teaching, the processes of learning, and the validity of tested
results. In such a give-and-take atmosphere, the quality of the performance
of the media and technology specialists is particularly important. The media
specialists must make suggestions, probe, demonstrate, and challenge all
along the line. If they feel inferior they will not follow through
adequately and will yield where they should not. However, if they are
inflexible, they may alienate the academic community."
Experiences gained in this team approach to packaging and delivering
outreach programs served the University well during the 1970s and 1980s.
Many academic departments at the UW System campuses had appointed outreach
specialists to help faculty develop programs and services for so-called
non-traditional adult students. And by 1990, faculty and staff were
utilizing old and proven delivery systems, plus computerized and
satellite-delivered classes, as they entered what was being referred to as
the "distance education" era. Of course the engineering and business faculty
at UW-Madison could recall with pride that their schools had started the
"distance education" movement early in the century by utilizing a dynamic
correspondence study unit.
When Patrick Boyle, a forceful advocate for extension programming, retired
as UW-Extension Chancellor in August 1993 he was replaced by distance
education proponent Donald Hanna.
UW System President Katharine Lyall said Hanna was selected in part because
of his expertise in using satellite technology and telecommunications for
distance education services at Washington State University.
A governor's commission looking at budgets and roles of governmental and
educational agencies issued a 1995 report which recommended that the UW take
a critical look a the scope and expenditures of its extension services.
Providing an expanded distance education system continued to be a major
assignment for UW-Extension, however. The Governor's budget proposal issued
in February 1995 reflected this challenge since it included funds for more
space and equipment in Madison for the additional staff and technology
needed to provide distance education services.
As was the case with early home study services, UW System campus and
Extension leaders were proceeding with caution to assure that the new
expanding distance education networks utilized campus resources and didn't
replace critical campus contacts between faculty and students. The existing
distance education systems were already being utilized by UW System
campuses, however, as well as an increasing number of Wisconsin public
schools and vocational, technical, and adult education centers.
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