Dr. Joseph Moore

Category: Academic
Published: December 2006

Find out how distance learning has become a useful if not necessary tool for rising executives.

Success Magazine: Dr. Moore, when was Empire State College founded and what was the impetus behind it?

Joseph Moore: It was built in 1971 thanks to the Chancellor of the State University of New York, Dr Ernest Boyer, who is one of the heroes in American higher education. He wanted an institution within the State University of New York that would be a comprehensive college, offering bachelors and masters degrees for adults who wanted a college education but were unable to enroll for courses at traditional colleges due to the demands of family and work. Now, thirty-five years later, distance learning allows us to serve adult students even better. We have some students who work face-to-face with our faculty throughout the state, some who enroll completely online, and some who blend the face-to-face with the distance learning. What all our students have in common is that they are adults (the average age is 36), working, often raising families, and possessing the desire to work toward a college degree.

SM: The campus is the focal point for any four-year institution. That obviously cannot happen at a distance learning college-how does that dynamic play out?

JM: Our Center for Distance Learning is our online web-based operation. Last year the entire college enrolled more than 16,000 students. About one-third of them, 5,000 or so, are learning completely online. About three-quarters of these students are from New York and one-quarter are from other states and countries. However, the remaining 11,000 students enroll through our 35 centers and units located throughout New York state. Ninety-five percent of these students are working New Yorkers. We have full-time SUNY faculty and superb support staff at these centers and units who work directly with our students. Our adult students are not interested in the full campus experience. They are interested in the academic component of college their degree plan and completion of studies that lead to a degree.

SM: How has your distance education programmed advanced in the past few decades outside of the internet?

JM: We have been developing new ways to serve adult learners through the 70's, 80's and 90's. At first, our institution worked with many adults who were restricted due to their locations, their families and/or their jobs so that they couldn't get to a campus. So the college developed the necessary print materials and had faculty work with learners at a distance using the mail and the phone. Today, we have many learning modes, ways people can complete a study: fifteen week online courses, study groups or seminars, independent studies (working one-on-one with an instructor) and short-term residency programs. Of course, the web has made all of this much easier, so that we can use online resources to support students and their mentor. Through these various learning modes, we can offer comprehensive associate, bachelor, and master degree programs. Our most heavily enrolled majors are in the areas of Business, Management, and Economics, and Community and Human Services. We also have increasing student numbers in Math and Science and Technology. At the graduate level we have steady enrollment in our policy programs, our Master of Arts in Liberal studies, the MBA program and increasing numbers in our Master of Arts in Teaching for adults who want to become teachers. Online courses and resources are becoming integrated into all of our programs.

SM: Let me talk about people. No institution, especially one involved in education, can succeed without qualified people working for them. How do you find professors who want to work in this kind of education? How do you find the people with the necessary talents and flexibility for this kind of job?

JM: Our faculty is in many ways similar to faculty at other institutions. These are people whose lives generally have been in higher education, though we have been hiring some superb younger new faculty lately. They enjoy the close relationships they have with adult learners. They find the adult learners highly self-motivated. According to a recent survey, our adult students, despite other demands on their time, put in more hours studying than traditional students at four-year campus colleges. Our adult students rate our faculty more highly than students rate their faculty at traditional institutions. Our faculty are working with people who are former dancers in New York City who now, as they get older, can't continue to dance anymore so they are earning a bachelors degree to get into the management of dance. They are dealing with mayors of small cities who got involved in politics early in their lives and now want to earn that degree. Our faculty are special because of their expertise in working with adults, knowing how to integrate information technology into their learning and our students' learning, and their ability to help each adult learner customize and complete an individualized degree plan.

SM: As someone who went back for an additional Masters degree while working, I can testify to what you are saying. Yet I also remember how many choices I had available to me when choosing a long-distance masters program. How do you let people know that you are available?

JM: It's a challenge. The college has centers and units throughout the state, so we market heavily in each region, and also rely upon our 50,000 alumni to spread the word. We hold information meetings regularly in all of our centers and units, and we reach many adults through our contacts with businesses, non-profit organizations, state agencies, and labor unions. In essence, we attempt to figure out where adults congregate (work, professional association, community service organizations), and we try to get information to those places.

SM: Targeting the individual market is important, but I have read that you are working more and more with larger corporations. How do you market yourself to local corporations who sponsor education to let them know you are available for their people?

JM: I think that the connections we are making and plan on making with these corporations are going to be the next wave for this college. We run a program for Verizon in the five boroughs of New York City for customer service representatives and technical support staff. Verizon offers these employees an opportunity to have an education and many of them take advantage of it. We are increasingly working through education consortiums and online consortiums that serve business and industry. Finally, we meet directly with HR directors and occasionally with the chief learning officers of larger corporations. There is a tremendous pressure on business and industry to have a highly educated workforce that they can retain. Developing a strong educational partnership that can meet the needs of their workers is becoming not just a smart strategy, but a critical strategy for the "bottom line" of most businesses and industries.