COLUMBUS, Miss. – Mississippi University for Women’s turnaround is about to begin, but it won’t happen on campus. It will happen online.
Dr. Bill Mayfield, dean of the School of Professional Studies at MUW and director of its new e-college, says plans are in motion to make MUW a major player in the burgeoning online education movement, beating state schools like Mississippi State University, University of Mississippi and University of Southern Mississippi to the well.
MUW’s yet-to-be-named e-college is the product of Mayfield’s business experience—he’s the former dean of the business college at the Indiana Institute of Technology—and the vision of outgoing MUW president Claudia Limbert to expand the school’s reach beyond its geographic area.
“This is something we’ve been wanting to do for the eight years I’ve been here. With Dr. Mayfield coming (in July 2009), we were able to form an e-college under his direction,”’ Limbert said.
The plug was nearly pulled on the project in 2009 as state budget cuts forced MUW to cut all nonessential programs. Limbert and Mayfield fought to keep the project alive, and now Mayfield believes it may defray the effects of those cuts in the near future.
Through recent partnerships with Mississippi Delta Community College and East Mississippi Community College, Mayfield has managed to recruit 50 students to enroll in the e-college’s first round of six-week courses in August. And that’s with no marketing budget. If the e-college can attract 120 students by next year, Mayfield says their tuition could defray hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Mayfield has some experience in this field. In just six months at Indiana Tech, he grew the school’s e-college from 300 students to 1,600. His grassroots approach now includes reaching out to the community colleges whose students will be able to take immediate advantage of the e-courses.
