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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