Incentive funding from the World Bank led the way to a long-term lease of 18 satellite channels and relay stations for 24 hour a day global coverage. The Secretary of State read a letter of congratulations and praise from the President of the United States. Students of that era rebelled against the limitations of this type of on-campus education and demanded education be delivered to their communities and ultimately to their personal desktop communication units. Today, in its new multimillion dollar Distance Education Development Center, the Maine Distance Education Project facilitates planning and provides development expertise in all academic disciplines and supports national and international faculty and other content experts in the development of educational modules in a variety of electronic and independent formats. The U. Maine System aggregates the best and the brightest faculty and specialists from all over the world and puts them together with highly motivated students in the world of cyber-education.
Efforts are underway to heal the rifts and move on to the next level of development.
The Task Force has taken a leadership role in planning the future development of distance education in Maine and the future they describe resembles, to a striking degree, the scenario painted in the fictitious 2017 news article. Today, faculty and staff in the System are spending a great deal of time preparing for the new structures associated with the emerging learning systems. Distance Education is a key, if not the central focus to those plans. The focus of these new methods is on student learning. Students in the first trial asynchronous courses offered at the University of Maine at Augusta are already reporting improved learning and greater ability to interact with the professor by e-mail or on Web pages, and at times which are convenient to them.