Fort Hay's Students Protest Online Changes

Interesting story about Fort Hay's University:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090526/ap_on_re_us/us_outsourced_u

 

This was a dumb move on FHSU's part. On several forums I see threads about students "laundering" credits through FHSU and then transferring them to another school. None of the posters seem to have any interest at all in attending FHSU.

FHSU offers rigorous online programs and classes; and I think this is only going to tarnish their reputation.

 

I don't really see in how far this should "tarnishing their reputation". If people continue to study with FHSU they have to take "rigorous online programs and classes" as BlagoB says, if they don't the name FHSU will only in the worst case appear somewhere hidden on their transcript of a degree from a totally other school. So it's rather unrealistic that this will draw any attention to FHSU at all besides from some freaked out grad students who think their University has to become more academically challenging since he is probably graduating in a few month anyways.

 

Now who is willing to wager that the same argument was made against CLEP exams when they first came on the scene.

FYI, as a source of comparison. Testing out of Macroeconomics CLEP or Microeconomics CLEP, basically requires that you answer around 50-60 questions correctly about each subject. Each Straighterline Economics and Accounting course requires that you pass around 20 separate modules and comprehensive tests, while answering in excess of 700-800 questions correctly.

 

Blagobitch aka saiga is anti-CLEP/DSST or any alternative way of earning college credits. Despite that, he continues to post on this forum. Why would someone who is supposedly attending a Big-10 school be so interested in this?

 

Excuse me?

Hope you washed your foot.

 

If I understand correctly, CLEP/DANTES covers only lower division general education courses, but FHSU lets students take intro courses through a third-party provider and sells them as FHSU credits.

Call me old fashioned, but I think intro courses are among the most important classes students take: they often play a deciding role in a student's choice of a major and lay the foundation for all further courses in the field. This...

...is a sorry excuse. If you are not able to provide decent intro courses, provide better ones or stop calling yourself a university.

 

Outsourcing of courses is not new. In the late 1970s I earned business credits from University of Redlands, a very well respected university. The courses were taught by IPD (http://www.ipd.org/services/programs.html) using various company facilities in Silicon Valley, the forerunner to the University of Phoenix. My transcripts from U of R do not state this connection and were accepted by Regents College (Excelsior) towards my BS.

 

CLEP allows you to take an 80 question exam to prove that you have mastered a subject area. STRAIGHTERLINE requires that you grasp the material from an entire current subject textbook, and then answer in excess of 700-800 subject matter questions correctly (out of more than 1000+ questions). In this instance, FHSU has reviewed the textbooks, reviewed the 1000+ questions that cover the material, and have decided that this delivery method sufficiently covers the course.

There might be an interesting argument if STRAIGHTERLINE was using a resource other than the current textbook that is typically used in a lower division course, or instead of making students answer 1000+ questions, they required that a student merely answer 80 general questions correctly.

STRAIGHTERLINE agrees, which is why they provide mentors/teachers for each course. That is correct. Not only do you follow a current textbook and have a requirement to grasp the material and answer in excess of 700-800+ questions correctly, you also have a mentor/teacher who is on call to answer questions and step you through the problem areas.

So then the question comes down to the opportunity costs of passing four STRAIGHTERLINE courses in less than 60 days, for essentially $50 per course, as opposed to spending an entire semester and $250-500 per course learning the exact same material from the exact same book.

 

At an alumni dinner I attended for Southwestern it was mentioned how many Kansas schools were in dire financial trouble but Soutwestern was solid because of the popularity of their online offerings. Part of that could have been propaganda but it's also clear that Southwestern's CPS online programs have exploded in sheer numbers of enrollments by looking at the ever increasing sizes of their CPS graduating classes.

Several Kansas schools who were reluctant in the past to adopt elearning were now hat in hand looking for a working business model so that they too could start generating what appeared to be a highly profitable methodology of doing business. Being that FHSU is a state school and their tuition is so much lower than even Southwestern I can only assume they are taking the next logical step in their business model, if you cannot raise prices, you cut costs. Makes sense to me.

Oh and BTW, I don't think that FHSU was one of those who were in financial trouble, we never did mention names.

 

I wonder who those FHSU "students" are. The courses taught by SL are very good in content and preparation. Certainly not a piece of cake, you need to do serious work if you want an A.

Damage FHSU reputation? That is simply absurd. There are hundreds of colleges outsourcing classes and student have never noticed.

So please don't be jealous about it and let students get credit in peace!

 

As an FHSU virtual college student, I don't get the big deal people keep making about this. If I had to finish every single credit in the "traditional" way I'd never be able to finish. I have attended Georgia Perimeter College, Georgia State University, AIU and finally FHSU. I will barely complete 30 resident hours at FHSU-the minimum required to earn a degree from FHSU. I can tell you all with proud certainty that the coursework I have completed this past semester at FHSU was some of the most challenging and most interesting I have ever had. My experience with online instructors prior to FHSU was minimum contact. Graded assignments were commented on in such general ways as "would have like to have seen more here" or "good job". Never was I given specifics on "what" I could have demonstrated more of or "why" I had done a good job. My FHSU instructors went so far out of their way to provide real and meaningful impact that I could actually use their comments to improve. Who knew? Some on-line instructors care. When I graduate I will have a mix of credit from 4 universities, clep, and AP exams. Through it all, I don't really remember any of my previous instructors, but I will always remember my FHSU instructors because for once I wasn't so bored to death by useless "busy work" and I actually felt challenged and interested. I passed with grades of "A" not because FHSU is the biggest cakewalk (insert AIU here) I have attended, rather, I earned "A's" because for the first time I felt truly interested, challenged, and inspired. So sure, I won't even complete half my credits from FHSU, but who cares? FHSU is where I found a true education in a virtual environment. CLEP/DANTES/AP/ACE/PLA's/STRAIGHTERLINE, what matters is knowledge and you can't graduate from FHSU without enough "old fashioned" hard work to truly earn a useful degree. So maybe some students use a credit or two from Straighterline to move though the establishment of higher education faster than others, but they can't earn a full degree from Straighterline, they still have to earn a degree with a good level of hard work. In the process they just might find a school that inspires them to actually learn.

 

I'm being a little provocative here, not because I want to attack you, but because FHSU/SL sounds too much like 'knowledge factory' and not enough like 'university' to me.

CLEP only lets you test out of very general education courses, but the way I understand the article, SL actually offers introductory courses to the disciplines. Now, a good intro class should do a little more than making the students read and memorize a textbook.

Do these mentors/teachers lead discussions? Do they engage the students and challenge them to think critically? Do they participate in creating the syllabi and the exams? Do they enjoy the academic freedom to change things about a class? Are the classes fun?

If yes, then I will have to rethink my perception of Straighterline.

This is argued very much from the perspective of a non-traditional working student. For the average student, there is really no need to rush through courses. Granted, semester-based courses are a little long and tiresome, but 8 weeks is very short. If really the same materials are covered as in semester courses, we are talking about hardcore acceleration here. Students have other (sometimes more important) things to do than reading books all day.

The money aspect is nice, but somehow I doubt that those $50 per student and course pay for a high quality teacher and student support that a good university program would offer.

 

How is this news? Any time someone in business/industry takes an ACE evaluated course, they are crossing their fingers that someone takes the credit. The only difference here, is that Fort Hays is saying up front that "yes" we will award credit for completion of the course.

 

The ultimate goal of the student is to learn the material and obtain college credit. SL achieves that, and FHSU recognizes that. What or how you or other people label that process is a separate issue. The students who earn the credit could care less what others think.

The Straighterline course offerings that FHSU gives credit for, consists of College Algebra, English I, Macro, Micro, Acct I & Acct II. There are CLEP exams for College Algebra, English I, Macro, Micro, and Acct I. So before we get too far off track, I used the comparison to CLEP, because SL's current offerings have CLEP equivalents.

Having observed someone take multiple SL courses, the mentors did everything in their power to encourage the student to ineract. It was all very much a one on one activity, between student and mentor. Since the program is relatively new, the mentors did in fact participate in the development of the learning tools, which includes a mixture of traditional and non-traditional methodologies.

Can they change things about the class? Are the classes fun? The assumption here is that the student is capable of reading and absorbing the textbook and that if the student needs help with a concept or problem, then a mentor is available to give one on one instruction to the student. There are critical thinking exercises integrated into the curriculum.

Here is a quote from another student that participated in the College Algebra course....I agree that it depends entirely on the rigor of the actual course. I personally found the college algebra course at SL to be excellent... in fact, much more excellent than my current online math class taught by a B&M institution. My current class at my B&M school has zero instruction (surprise!) and cost about seven times the price of SL algebra. When the semester ends, I'm probably filing a formal complaint. Meanwhile, I have no complaints about my SL class. I learned a lot and got college credit in the process.

 

Hm, interesting. The courses you mention are all foundation courses comparable to CLEP or what you could take at a community college. When I read the article, it sounds to me like they are outsourcing "academic" classes that should be taught by professors.

Well, please accept my apologies. I guess I simply misinterpreted the article. I have no problem with people taking foundation courses wherever they want and transferring them in.

Now, I don't understand why the FHSU student are making such a fuss...

 

I could really care less, it's not like you can take a ton of classes and get credits for them.

 

Anyone else notice Grand Canyon University is not a partner with SL anymore?

 

No, but I did notice that FHSU is still a partner with SL.