The E-Government Executive Education (3E) Project, for example, combines forces with HBS to provide executive education to government officials.
But the program’s focus is not limited to cyberspace. Face-to-face instruction is critical component of the program according to one of its leaders.
Jerry E. Mechling ’65, co-director of the 3E project, says the program’s distance learning component is intended “to warm people up” to the basics of a topic before they arrive on campus.
Mechling says that though his program was not affected by Summers’ new look at residency requirements, other KSG programs have had to make changes in the wake of the recent scrutiny.
A Complicated Endeavor
As Harvard’s schools explore distance learning options, they are discovering that it is more complicated than many people thought it would be at the beginning of the distance learning revolution.
“The bigger question isn’t really the distance learning,” Kane explains. “It’s how do you provide skills and education that adults need.”
And other directors of distance learning programs note technology cannot be a replacement for a student’s interaction with both their peers and professors.
“A lot of people have made the mistake of thinking that online learning is a substitute for faculty,” says Herman B. “Dutch” Leonard ’74, who is part of a working group investigating the potential of distance learning at KSG.
While Leonard praises MIT’s recent efforts to make course materials available online, he points out that true distance learning requires a teacher to serve as a facilitator between students and course content.
“[Developing distance learning programs] is going to force us to be more careful and conscious about what we think is special, to actively question what works best,” he says.
And despite Summers’ decision to take a closer look at future direction of distance learning, he still describes it as an element of the University’s desire to be on the “cutting edge” of education.
“Just what is the next strategic direction, I don’t know,” he says. “I think all of us in higher education are groping and finding our way.”
—Staff writer Catherine E. Shoichet can be reached at shoichet@fas.harvard.edu.