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SAYING GOODBYE
On behalf of Kirkwood and the many student learners you’ve mentored over the years, THANK YOU. I appreciate your support to the college, the Social Science department and the students. Todd Todd Prusha, Ph.D. Dean, Distance Learning and Secondary Programs Kirkwood Community College 319-398-5565 P Please consider the environment before printing this email From: Joel Snell Sunday evening March 7, 2010 Dear Dr. Prusha, On a Sunday evening in late August of 1966, I received a telephone call, in which the Dept Head the late Dr. George Helling asked me to be a teching assistant for $1500 dollars an academic year. Upon signing a federal document indicating that I would not belong to an organizaton that advocted a Communist revolution, I became a teacher. I not only taught the "small" discussion sections of 60 students each, but I also lectured to the big auditorium of some 500 students. Fome there I taught for 10 years at Dana College a small liberal arts college and then 32 years at Kirkwood College. Most of these years have been happy ones. When I came to Kirkwood, there were metal buildings and 2 or 3 brick buildings. The enrollment was about 3500. Today, there were over 18,000 students last fall. I appreciate your kind letter and I want to indicate that I have enjoyed working for you and the folks in distant learning division. You are correct, the packet approach when I started was quite viable because we did not have the internet. Today, the internet approach is superior, cost effective, and lowers attrition. It is also my time to say good bye to teaching. At the end of this semester, I want to step down. The school and the Distance Learnig Division is in good hands and I hope that it will continue to prosper. Thus, I give my best wishes to you. Prof. Joel Snell From: Todd Prusha Hi Joel, Hope the spring term is going well. Spring break is just around the corner and hopefully spring will follow. In looking ahead to the Fall 2010 schedule I need to inform you that the Social Problems class in the packet format will no longer be offered. We will continue to offer this class as an online option, but not paper (packet). Last spring a committee was formed to look at the future of packet offerings through ATAW at Kirkwood. The committee decided to survey all of our fall packet participants to learn of the motivating factors for choosing the packet format. We thought we’d find mostly prison students and students without internet access. Among the findings we learned that: Prison students account for 5% of our packet enrollments yet packet classes account for 20% of our ATAW offerings. (Fall 2008) 75% of the fall 2009 packet students registered online. Over 90% of the survey participants indicated they would have taken the class online if space would have been available in the online section. In addition to the survey findings we know that completion rates are poorest among packet classes and immediate feedback to student work is near impossible. Therefore, we have decided to drastically cut back on our packet offerings. All that being said, Alan said you are not interested in teaching online for the summer, does that stand for fall too? Todd Todd Prusha, Ph.D. Dean, Distance Learning and Secondary Programs Kirkwood Community College 319-398-5565 P Please consider the environment before printing this email
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