Administering Distance Courses Taught in Partnership with Other Institutions

When she learned that I would be teaching a course in her department, the department secretary made a mailbox for me and made sure that I received a copy of every memo and announcement distributed to the rest of the faculty. Other part-time faculty appreciated this service, so it became a part of the secretary's standard operating procedures. But I never received the mail because the mailbox was in Crookston, Minnesota and I taught the course by instructional television (ITV) from St. Paul, Minnesota, approximately 350 miles away. To fill a gap in its curriculum, the University of Minnesota at Crookston school contracted with the University of Minnesota---Twin Cities to receive a series of courses for majors in scientific technical communication. The program is called a partnership program because one school in the state university system "partners " with a second to provide programs the first might not otherwise be able to provide. The first-- or home-- schools provide all general academic requirements (made possible because the university system has a standard set of requirements for all B.A. and B.S. students in the system). The partner schools provide some or all of the major courses using technology for distance education. Some of the courses are offered by a closed-circuit, instructional television system. (These are likely to be replaced by synchronous software in the future.) Others are offered by totally on the Internet. This scenario is increasingly common as colleges and universities increase their use of distance education to fill in gaps i