Welcome to European-American University  
You are not Logged in! Log in here.

Key routes to a degree:

Home > Alcott Center for Educational Research >No Campus? No Problem!

No Campus? No Problem!


    Why the virtual university doesn't need a traditional campus 
    For the past hundred-or-so years, there have been legitimate correspondence schools, and more recently online schools, that have operated without a traditional campus or substantial offices. They have evolved a proprietary model of an educational institution as a diversified organism rather than one that is traditionally centralized. Since this concept is essential to non-traditional education, it is also important that it be understood fully.

Harvard College, now Harvard University, began with nine students and a single master. Princeton's first class numbered ten young men who met for class in the parlour of the Revd. Jonathan Dickinson. Yale began when local academics placed forty books from their own libraries on a table and called for the foundation of a college. Just as universities can begin with the fanfare of a multi-million dollar campus, so they can also grow from the grass roots, with some private institutions that are today well-established not far removed from their former bases in residential and small office properties.

    The university of tomorrow can operate fully online. This statement is so important that we are going to repeat it. The university of tomorrow can operate fully online. The technology exists now - affordably, reliably and with high user-friendliness, to make an online university work, and work well. The online concept brings with it massive cost savings and increases in efficiency. It also does away with many of the things that traditional college students pay dearly for but don't actually need. It brings about a student focus that is an ideal match for the philosophy of non-traditional education, where the student, not the educational establishment, is at the center of their education, and the campus is wherever the student may be located - the "university without walls" concept. 

    What are the processes that are undertaken within an online or correspondence-based mode of education? We will discuss both systems together, because they are fundamentally extremely similar. A short list might read something like this: 

    Instruction or mentoring, general student advisement
    Who does it?: undertaken on a one-on-one basis between mentor and learner.
    Possible delivery methods: correspondence, email, telephone, fax, instant messaging, teleconference, pre-recorded material on disc, mp3/mp4 file,
    Possible locations: almost anywhere where the mentor and learner can work undisturbed; at home, in the office, in the coffee shop etc. May be asynchronous (eg. via email/correspondence) 

    Conducting research and assimilating information
    Who does it?: students, faculty, specialist research staff
    Possible delivery methods: internet, email, public and specialist libraries within the locale of the individual concerned, other community research sources
    Possible locations: almost anywhere, but some research must be undertaken in a specific locale because of its nature and/or the location of resources. Lab-based work cannot be undertaken easily other than through physical facilities.

    Dissemination of research
    Who does it?: students, faculty, specialist research staff
    Possible delivery methods: online university journals, university publications, other journals (although these may be restricted to those associated with traditional academic institutions)
    Possible locations: online journals, via print publication

    Delivery and assessment of work, and delivery of feedback 
    Who does it?: undertaken on a one-on-one basis between mentor and learner, with results fed back to the University
    Possible delivery methods: correspondence, email, telephone, fax, instant messaging, teleconference, pre-recorded material on disc, mp3/mp4 file
    Possible locations: almost anywhere where the mentor and learner can work undisturbed; at home, in the office, in the coffee shop etc. May be asynchronous.

    Collation of results and their application to student files and transcripts; issuing of graduation documentation, fees statements etc.
    Who does it?: undertaken by University officers
    Possible delivery methods: written files, electronic files especially databases (backed up appropriately), correspondence, email, fax
    Possible locations: different administrators may conduct administrative activity from their own offices, including home offices, connected by electronic communications and with agreed arrangements for centralized storage of key records in accordance with applicable data protection legislation and disaster recovery policies etc.

    Strategic meetings, operational administration, addressing of feedback, complaints and grievances
    Who does it?: undertaken by University officers with involvement of third parties where necessary
    Possible delivery methods: correspondence, email, telephone, fax, instant messaging, teleconference, pre-recorded material on disc, mp3/mp4 file
    Possible locations: any agreed business location convenient for the participants, teleconference/videoconference/email or IM conference

Student discussions/meetings, faculty discussions/meetings, faculty/student general discussions/meetings, student socializing
Who does it?: University officers, faculty and students
Possible delivery methods: online forums, use of course delivery software
Possible locations: any agreed time and location convenient to the participants

    This is not a complete list. We could even go on to the possibility of inter-varsity online sports competitions using computer games, but the point would appear to be amply made above. The online university can do almost everything the traditional university does, and in many cases it can do it better. It goes without saying that many traditional universities are actively using the methods cited above already, but are still wedded to the campus concept. They have yet to explore the benefits of diversifying faculty and administration across countries and continents, forming an internationally-based community of scholarly endeavor without boundaries. 

    All that makes sense to me. So why are there problems?
    There are problems because traditional schools within the accreditation cartel see online education and fully online universities as the most massive commercial threat to their existence that they have ever faced. They cannot adapt to the online model themselves because they are constrained by the conservative demands of the accreditation agencies (which will not accredit fully online universities that do not have substantial offices), the educational unions and the system of tenured faculty. Gary North explains, 

    "Distance education is the Achilles heel of the education cartel's maintenance of control over higher education. It will be the battleground of higher education over the next two decades. 

    If the cartel loses this battle, it will lose control over the content and pricing of higher education. 

    The cartel is going to lose it. The reason: price competition beyond anything ever seen in higher education. A technological revolution is almost upon us."
    [Source: "The Coming Breakdown of the Academic Cartel," Gary North, LewRockwell.com, available here.] 

    The only option for the accredited cartel is to attack their commercial opposition - legitimate online, self-regulating universities - by attempting to pass protectionist laws to drive them out of business, by discrediting their operation by falsely confusing legitimate self-regulating institutions with diploma mills, by preventing their degrees from being used again through protectionist legislation, and by intimidating graduates of online schools through online and print media smear campaigns that promote accreditation as a false proxy for quality. The cartel cannot win on the facts. It can only win by presenting its opinions as dogma and eliminating or discrediting opposing views. More on these issues is here. 

    We have lost count of the number of times the media and its favored experts have attacked a self-regulating distance learning school by saying "it has no campus", deliberately feigning ignorance of the model of educational delivery and administration outlined above. It was even a leading charge against the former Columbia Pacific University, despite the fact that CPU, being a big school that largely pre-dated Internet education, had substantial office premises. Yet legitimate smaller schools are and have been run without such facilities. To name a few of these (with the addition of EAU): Columbia Evangelical Seminary, Fairfax University, Knightsbridge University, the University for Integrative Learning, and Greenwich School of Theology (which has achieved private accreditation in the U.K.). All have graduated satisfied students over time, and prove that neither campus nor substantial offices are necessary to run an efficient and successful correspondence or online university - and that the online university forms the model for tomorrow's higher education. 

    Further insights
    Professor Rick Walston of Columbia Evangelical Seminary, a non-campus self-regulating institution, has written an excellent article - "Of Bricks and Mortar: A Real Education?" on just these issues, and his perspective will be valuable for anyone seeking to understand them more deeply. Read what he has to say here.