Southeast, others adding courses to online collaboration

The universities of Missouri are finding that putting their heads together can be a great thing.

With the success of a new program offering students the opportunity to take courses online at other universities throughout the state, Southeast Missouri State University and seven others will add to the courses as part of a statewide academic collaboration.

Areas of study will include agriculture, environmental science and education, according to university provost Dr. Ron Rosati.

The program began with a collaboration on a foreign language class last spring between Southeast and the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg. This fall, five universities offered six courses in economics, foreign language and physics to students at Southeast, the University of Central Missouri, Northwest Missouri State University, Missouri Western State University, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Missouri State University, Truman State University, the University of Missouri and the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Dr. Willie Redmond, an economics professor at Southeast, told the board of regents during last Friday's meeting that the collaboration makes sense, especially when it comes to efficiency.

"We're better able to allocate our professors that we have to the places where we have different needs," Redmond said of the department.

"They are able to take courses like labor economics and sports economics that we haven't been able to offer in the past few years, because of our limited resources that we have in our department with the number of majors that we have," he said.

Students pay the university at which they are enrolled for the courses, and instructors at the university where the course is based send their grades to that university at the end of the semester. This fall, 224 students are enrolled in the courses.

The cost to students is the same as they pay for regular online courses from Southeast.

The universities are assessing how to make sure all involved are getting as much as they are giving, Rosati said, but as of right now the universities are allowing the program to grow and become established without having to worry too much about the trade issue. There is no extra cost to the university to be a part of the collaboration.

"The bottom line is this is an opportunity for students to get a better educational experience in a way that's cost-effective for taxpayers in Missouri," he said.

eragan@semissourian.com

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