Robert W. Taylor, the chairman of the university's department of criminal justice, is busy making deals to market his department's forthcoming online courses to a national audience. He recently brokered an arrangement with the Law Enforcement Television Network to make the courses available through that service, which is used by many prisons and law-enforcement organizations. Mr. Taylor is also working on converting a textbook he published on police administration into an online course that will combine text, interactive exercises, and video clips from experts giving real-world examples and introducing discussion questions. Though he will coordinate the course, he plans to use the money from the new policies to hire working police officers to lead small online-discussion groups. If this is really good, other universities will want to use it.
Some professors have dreams of one day teaching their classes from the beach.
The State of Texas allows professors who reach retirement age to work part time for half their salary for up to five years. The university's president, Norval F. Pohl, predicts that the growth of distance education will lead to even further changes in faculty roles in the future. The drawback of the old model is we expect professors to do it all. But in the new model, students may end up footing the bill for many of the bonuses and perks. Ms. Keller says that the high quality of the materials justifies the fee.