Sloan Foundation Greater NYC Regional ALN Center established at Stevens
In a move aimed at boosting the number of college and university students who study online at smaller schools in the New York metropolitan area, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation--the nation's most vigorous philanthropic supporter of web-based education--has taken another major step by launching its first regional online learning center at Stevens Institute of Technology.
"Nationally, larger schools have shown in a very dramatic way that they can offer quality education over the Internet to hundreds of thousands of eager students," remarked A. Frank Mayadas, Sloan's program director and online education pioneer. "By turning our attention now to what smaller schools can accomplish, we hope to show that they, too, can provide an equally rigorous educational experience online."
Sloan, a principal supporter of online learning in the US, has funded more than $50 million over the last nine years to more than 60 institutions. The US Department of Education study reporting this month that there are now more than 3 million students in online courses in the US acknowledges the efforts of Sloan and others that have long championed this new style of education.
"If smaller and mid-sized schools can join others in giving anyone who wants a chance to get a college education--whether or not they can attend a physical class on campus--we will have moved one more step towards the further democratization of American higher education," added Mayadas. "We hope this New York area experiment can become a model for the nation."
Urging smaller and mid-sized schools to move more rapidly ahead with online learning, the new Sloan center will offer expert advice on how best to move programs forward. Sloan will also make special funds available to those schools that show promise in initiating or building quality programs.
The Greater New York City Online Learning Center, funded by a Sloan grant, is housed at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. Robert Ubell, Dean of Online Learning at Stevens, is principal investigator. Elaine Cacciarelli has been named the Center's Executive Director.
The new center will work closely with the foundation's Sloan-C, a consortium of more than 80 accredited institutions of higher education offering associate, undergraduate, graduate, and master's degree programs through high-quality online education. Sloan-C encourages collaboration, sharing of knowledge and effective practice to improve online education in the areas of learning effectiveness, access, affordability for learners and providers, and student and faculty satisfaction. For further details about Sloan-C, visit Sloan-C.org.
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a philanthropic nonprofit institution, was established in 1934 by Alfred Pritchard Sloan, Jr., then President and Chief Executive Officer of the General Motors Corporation. Annually, Sloan funds numerous projects in science and technology, standards of living and economic performance, education and careers in science and technology, as well as selected national and civic issues such as the future of nuclear power and bioterrorism defense. Information on various funding projects may be viewed at sloan.org/main.shtml.
Stevens Institute of Technology specializes in Technogenesis®, a term it has trademarked. Technogenesis is defined as "the educational frontier where students, faculty and industry jointly nurture new technologies from concept to realization."
About Stevens Institute of Technology
Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis®, involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value.
Stevens offers baccalaureates, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,150 undergraduate and 3,500 graduate students, with about 250 full-time faculty. Stevens’ graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.
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