Contact: Bob Ratliff
Forget classrooms and chalkboards. For professional engineers who absolutely, positively can't leave home, Mississippi State is offering advanced degrees by videotape and interactive video.
A distance-learning program in the College of Engineering is enabling students to pursue master's and doctoral degrees in chemical, civil, electrical and computer, industrial and mechanical engineering. The planned sequence of courses can lead to an advanced degree within three or four calendar years.
The program was organized to provide advanced engineering courses to persons in Mississippi, but students from more than a dozen other states have enrolled in the video courses since they began in 1986.
Participants have direct conversations with their instructors through microphones located at each desk. Students also may communicate with instructors by e-mail, telephone or fax.
"A strong distance-learning program is particularly important to a rural state such as Mississippi," said Clayborne Taylor, associate dean of engineering for research and graduate studies. "Most practicing engineers in the state are likely to be working at locations more than a hundred miles from the nearest university campus with a graduate engineering program."
About 60 to 70 students currently are participating each semester, said distance education coordinator Rusty Foster. He and videographer Christopher Holliday are the program's only full-time staff members.
Interactive video classes are available at the Waterways Experiment Station in Vicksburg. A second interactive site is planned for the Stennis Space Center this fall, with other interactive classroom tests under way at industries around the state.
In addition to individual enrollment in the engineering classes, companies are making the videotaped classes available to their employees.
"ITT, a manufacturer of high-performance valves in Amory, was the first employer site," Foster said. "We send videos and the employer agrees to facilitate the program."
At Pascagoula-based Ingalls Shipbuilding, two employees already have received advanced degrees through distance education. Three others currently are enrolled.
The program is a benefit to the company and to employees, according to Bobby Laney, Ingalls director of personnel. "It encourages employees to pursue additional knowledge and increases their ability to stay up with the latest technology," he said.
Howard Industries in Laurel, the nation's leading manufacturer of distribution transformers, is among the newest members. The company, which has 3,000 employees, recently completed a new video conferencing center that will offer courses later this year both for employees and members of the Jones County community.
"The conferencing center will allow our employees and members of the public to take advanced courses in electrical engineering and other areas of interest," says company president Linda Howard.
A proctor at each interactive site administers the necessary tests. Usually an education professional, an approved proctor also can be provided for testing students at other locations.