Thursday, September 15, 2005
USI responds to Hurricane Katrina with free courses online and on campus
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USI is helping students displaced by Hurricane Katrina by offering tuition-free courses on campus and through distance education. The University is among over 200 colleges and universities offering tuition-free distance education courses to students affected by Katrina. The effort is being coordinated by the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), which has 16 member states, and the Sloan Consortium, an organization that promotes standards for online learning. The effort is supported by a $1.1-million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The courses will be offered to students from institutions impacted by Katrina, and to students serving in the National Guard whose studies were interrupted by being called to active duty in the aftermath of the hurricane. USI will offer 10 courses in the “Sloan Semester.” Registration begins Monday, September 19, and continues until classes begin October 10. The abbreviated semester ends January 6. “The SREB considers this a bridge semester,” said Saxon Reasons, manager of Instructional Technology programs. “Ideally, these students would be able to pick back up at their home institutions in spring of 2006.” USI faculty were eager to be part of the effort. “We sent an e-mail to our distance education faculty asking for volunteers,” Reasons said. “Sloan was fielding student requests for courses and posting the requests on its Web site. We married the two by looking at the response from our faculty and comparing it with requested courses. We came up with 10 we thought would be a good fit. They were already existing USI distance educations courses, the students were requesting them, and they had a good chance to fill.” Students will register through the Distance Education office - not the Office of the Registrar. Interested students should go to www.sloansemester.org/student for more information, or contact Reasons at 812/465-1061. Six students displaced by Katrina are already taking advantage of the University’s offer of a tuition-free semester on campus. Students from Tulane University, Xavier University of New Orleans, University of New Orleans, and Southeastern Louisiana University are currently attending USI. “Most of the students were able to enroll in similar classes to those at their previous universities,” said Eric Otto, director of Admission. “Our faculty and staff really pitched in and made the transition as smooth as possible.” Some of the students are Tri-state residents who attended school in the Gulf Coast area, and others are staying with relatives in the Tri-state. Linda L. M. Bennett, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, said, “It is a proud time to be a part of the USI family. The Katrina catastrophe has brought a strong humanitarian response from students, faculty, and staff who have responded to organized community-wide efforts and created fund raisers of their own. Faculty and staff were willing to give up their weekends to counsel refugee students; some offered to open their homes. “I know that as new challenges confront our Gulf Coast neighbors, the USI community will continue to respond in support of relief.” |
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