Contact: Monty Jones, (512) 499-4363

Date: April 24, 2000

UT System News Release

UT TeleCampus Receives National Award for Innovation in Distance Education

Austin -- The University of Texas System’s online degree programs have received national recognition as Peterson’s Thomson Learning and the University Continuing Education Association named the UT TeleCampus a recipient of the organizations’ annual Innovative Distance Education Program awards.

The UT TeleCampus is the portal and central support system for distance education programs and services among the 15 institutions of the U.T. System. Peterson’s and UCEA named the TeleCampus as runnerup for most innovative distance education program nationally. Students nationwide access Peterson’s guides and Web pages to search for distance education programs.

"Receiving this level of prestigious national recognition in what is just our first year of serving courses through the UT TeleCampus is very affirming," said Darcy Hardy, director of the TeleCampus.

"Peterson’s and UCEA recognized the value of our model in first building viable student services including huge digital libraries, links to university services and hundreds of learning resources into our site. Only after these were in place did we begin helping our universities to develop and deliver the online degree programs. We worked to give the distance education student every available chance to succeed along with the equivalent of one-stop shopping. We’re glad Peterson’s and UCEA both see the merit in that."

The UT TeleCampus was begun in May 1998 and offered its first collaborative online degrees (MBA and MEd in Educational Technology) in fall 1999. This fall, five new online degree programs will be offered.