Colleagues,

Below is a message just in from Burks Oakley of the Sloan Consortium, 
with which ALT has a membership exchange.

Conceivably certain UK HE Institutions might want to respond to Burks 
Oakley on this at his University of Illinois address.

Seb Schmoller
ALT Exectuive Secretary

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	[sloan-c] Sloan-C response to Katrina disaster
Date: 	Thu, 01 Sep 2005 09:34:58 -0700
From: 	Burks Oakley II <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: 	Burks Oakley II <[log in to unmask]>
To: 	Seb Schmoller <[log in to unmask]>



Sloan-C colleagues - By now everyone is aware of the terrible
devastation in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama due to Hurricane
Katrina. A number of colleges and universities in this region have been
closed in the aftermath of Katrina -- some of them will not open again
this fall. Innovative educational alternatives for students from these
impacted campuses must be identified quickly. Institutions in a number
of states have announced that they will make space available on their
campuses for these impacted students, which certainly is good news.
Another alternative is to bring online learning to these students. There
is a clear role for Sloan-C in this effort.

I am writing to inform you that several of us submitted a proposal to
the Sloan Foundation yesterday to establish a Sloan-C response that
would assist students from impacted campuses enroll in online courses.
Specifically, we propose to offer online courses during a "Sloan
Semester", which would be an eight-week term starting on October 10th.
We would like to make available 10,000 online course enrollments (400
online classes of 25 students) at no cost to the impacted students. We
have requested that Sloan provide a $2,500 subsidy to institutions for
each online course offered (ideally to be used as a faculty stipend),
with the institutions voluntarily absorbing all of the other costs. We
should hear about Sloan funding by early next week.

We propose to work closely with the Southern Regional Education Board to
make high-level contacts with governing boards in the impacted states,
to identify impacted institutions and their students, and to determine
online courses that are needed most.

The purpose of this note is to gauge the level of interest in this
proposed initiative. If you think that this is something your
institution would like to participate in, I encourage you to contact
your provost, chancellor, or president, and ask them to contact me as
soon as possible to express interest in the Sloan Semester. I can be
reached by e-mail at [log in to unmask] or by phone at 217-244-6465.

Time is of the utmost importance here. However, let me emphasize that we
do not yet have funding for this, but we hope to hear back from the
Sloan Foundation sometime next week.

Best regards,

Burks

Burks Oakley II, Director, University of Illinois Online

On behalf of:

Bruce Chaloux, Director, Southern Regional Electronic Campus John
Bourne, Executive Director, Sloan Consortium Ray Schroeder, Director,
Technology-Enhanced Learning, U. of Illinois at Springfield