There is a theory among businessmen today that the true centers of power are not the seats of government across the world, but rather the boardrooms of an exclusive set of giant multi-national corporations who follow no single set of laws as a group. Their reach over and power to affect our lives is disturbingly all-pervasive. One would think that aside from the annual grants of giving (which are a pretty penny) that perhaps in the sheltered world of academia perhaps their reach would fall short. WPI, an institute that seems more cloistered than others, however, has proven susceptible to the seductive financial entreaties of one particular conglomerate: the United Technologies Corporation, a conglomerate of considerable size; companies under its wing: Carrier, Pratt and Whitney and Sikorsky Aircraft, among others; approached WPI's administration this last year to initiate an Advanced Distance Learning Network with some of its less formally educated workers.
This program is a way for a working individual to earn a college degree at his place of work through the use of the state of the art in video conferencing technology. UTC is paying WPI on a per student basis to use Advanced Distance Learning to teach classes and give lectures. The way this program has been setup goes something like this. People at certain locations have been selected to take part in an intensive course lasting for four years which will result in a Mechanical/Manufacturing Engineering degree. They will work five terms a year (A-E), two subjects a term for four straight years. The structure is as unforgiving as it is rigorous. The average commitment that one student will have to make is sixty hours a week (twenty hours for classes and forty hours for work) for thirty five weeks of the year.
If a student is to complete this program and get the degree they cannot fail a single course, a luxury which a student attending WPI obviously has. There are many issues at hand. Theoretically at the end of this four year program each student will have received a WPI degree. This WPI degree will for all extents and purposes be equivalent to a WPI degree that someone attending WPI for four years will have received. The average student at WPI will have spent in excess of one hundred thousand dollars, the average UTC student: nothing. The average student at WPI will spend at least one year on campus, one year on DAKA and will be required to fulfill a residency requirement.
The average student at WPI will have the leeway to fail four classes and still be able to graduate on time, where as a UTC student will not have any such flexibility. If they fail just a single course, they will not be able to retake that course and will have effectively derailed their chance for a degree. Another question: these students who are learning in locations like Syracuse, NY, West Palm Beach, FL, Hartford and Stanford, Connecticut really get very limited contact with their professors. The load on these new distance students is considerable and the pressure not to fail is high. The tests the distance students are given are monitored by their floor/plant supervisors. Success of this program is in the interest of the plant/floor supervisors and so this situation of being having exams proctored by people whose interests are served by your passing of the test seems a situation with in-built conflicts of interest.
What about our professors at WPI. Can they possibly give these distance learning students the quality of teaching that they provide on-campus students. One professor has estimated that a professor teaching a distance learning class has to expend nearly 2-3 times as much energy then if he were just teaching the class normally. Perhaps this is why the faculty is split down the line and at somewhat of a loggerhead with the administration. Advanced Distance Learning is not a bad idea. In fact two of the most prestigious institutions in the country: Stanford and Harvard have already initiated Distance Learning Programs of similar scope to WPI's. We are sitting in distinguished company as it stands
However, this particular ADLN seems hastily planned whether it is on an experimental basis or not. There are so many things that go into a WPI degree and that constitute a WPI degree. A WPI degree that most of us will earn is characterized it's inherent flexibility. We can choose many of our courses, we can even punt our courses. For projects like the IQPs, MQPs and sufficiencies we get to choose our project advisors. Where do these projects which are the heart of the plan left in a rigorous four year, twenty term course? Is there any flexibility as to when they can be taken. Actually, there really isn't. The sufficiencies will all be done in the same term. How will these students be able to pick an advisor they like. They will only be exposed to a few in the time preceding the term they do their suffs. Also in that one term, nearly forty students will be doing suffs. Can a handful of advisors really handle forty suffs from distance learning students on top of their regular workload on-campus?
The distance learning students face a daunting task. As good as video-conferencing technology is, it is not the real thing. These students will never (generally) have the social interaction after hours that many students have with their professors, their TAs or the diversity of students that attend the campus of WPI. All this is part of the WPI experience and indirectly part of the degree that a student is given when he/she completes four years of WPI's curriculum. These students are also not as rule ever be able to enjoy the social programming that is offered by WPI. They can never go to a Soccomm movie, coffeehouse and they, as of now do not have any representation in the Student Government as a means to voice their opinions. Every student on campus has at least one organization that represents their interests whether they utilize them or not, these distance students don't as of the time of writing.
At the heart of the matter is the feeling that this issue has not been thoroughly explored by it's instigators. It is a wonderful idea, and brings a piece of WPI to someone who may not normally have access to it. However, it does not bring all of WPI and hence does not seem to be a WPI degree that someone attending will earn. The faculty have many misgivings about it and the students on campus have not been informed about this at all. Why is that? Students on campus have vested interests in knowing whether they're degree which they work so hard for are being offered in parallel, with more or less restrictions and whether these actions will compromise the value of their degrees in the marketplace. Perhaps it is the asking of these questions that has kept the flow of information from being as fast and free as it should be.