VGCC sees Growth in Online Distance Education
Ten years after Vance-Granville Community College first began offering classes online, the college is witnessing dramatic growth in the availability, quality and popularity of its distance education program.
In the summer of 1998, VGCC took a small but significant technological step forward with the beginning of the college’s first Web-based distance learning course — “Introduction to Business.” A decade later, VGCC is preparing to offer more courses online than ever before, in the fall semester that begins Aug. 19.
Around 200 course sections will be online this fall, with more expected to be added for the spring 2009 semester. That is double the number of courses that were offered just two years ago. Courses are now offered in a variety of subjects, including accounting, business, web design, criminal justice, education, English, Spanish, history, human services, industrial systems, office systems technology, pharmacy technology and psychology.
As more courses have become available and as gasoline prices have risen in recent years, the allure of learning from home has increased. Both duplicated enrollment in distance education and the number of courses offered increased tenfold at VGCC from the fall of 2001 to the fall of 2007.
“Just from the fall of 2004 to the fall of 2007, enrollment in distance education increased 213 percent,” said VGCC Director of Distance Education Evelyn Harris, who manages the online offerings for credit in the college’s curriculum programs. Some programs can be completed entirely online, including Associate in Arts or Associate in Science (College Transfer), Computer Information Technology and Networking Technology degrees, as well as Early Childhood Associate certificates.
In addition to adults, high school students are now taking college courses online through programs such as Learn & Earn Online.
Anyone interested in a Distance Education curriculum course for college credit should contact Evelyn Harris by calling (252) 492-2061, ext. 3254.
Above: VGCC Director of Distance Education Evelyn Harris (left) trains Nursing instructors (seated, from left) Maria Orsini and Erica Jastrow on techniques for creating and teaching online college courses. (VGCC photo)
