Pitt Community College continues to find new ways to match technology to student needs, and I extend my special thanks to their president, Dr. Charles Russell, for his participation. Our primary challenge is to design a new philosophy focused on flexibility, problem solving and genuine commitment to lifelong learning. Though lecture and discussion will never be extinct, our students require, and often demand, technology enhanced instruction. Distance learning and computer simulations can make certain kinds of training more effective and efficient. North Carolina Community Colleges have been early adopters of distance learning in large part because of our mission to educate adults wherever they live and work.
Technology greatly extends delivery of instruction into homes, workplaces and remote locations.
Broadcast television is our oldest distance learning technology, first introduced in our system in cooperation with our state's public TV network in 1975. That network, UNC-TV , is part of President Broad's university system . These telecourses remain a vital and fast-growing part of distance learning. In 1997-98 we had approximately 13,000 telecourse students. This past year we had about 18,000 students, a jump of almost 40 percent.