I'm The : ICE} in? 96'? ‘Jat ~ :‘ion in tfg the centra‘ Either j'Jr J"7versit-'. Th “1h data The Wee ITV origin, HE :am'awica‘. F I £CJF§S$ " THer ABSTRACT THE OPERATION OF THREE INSTRUCTIONAL TELEVISION CONSORTIA IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA BY Guy Earl Warner The purpose of this study was to construct from the literature a model instructional television consortium for higher education and to com- pare that model with three ITV consortia now in operation in higher educa- tion in the State of California. The consortia selected are located from the central to the northern portions of the State and are comprised of either junior and community colleges, or junior, community colleges and universities in the California State system. The case study method was used in investigating the three consortia, with data drawn from interviews and available consortia documents. The ITV consortium model and the subsequent investigations of the three ITV consortia concentrated on the following areas: consortium origin, needs and goals, intra-consortium cooperation, intra-consortium communication, finances, ITV teachers, registration and promotion pro- cedures, delivery systems, and course and consortium evaluation. Twenty questions are formulated, the answers to which were sought in the study. They were: (1) With whom, and under what circumstances did each consortium originate? (2) What methods of implementation were selected for each consortium? (3) What were the originally determined meets ard ' "i " t - fl; Ina». h 5"”4’13': ‘0! I35 a. cis‘ons re mtiods c‘ teens of ‘ o‘l‘erincs l - selected: {35) W c re:eive u Cl'C-Tte t! system, ml What Wind, | 0* each to Ccnsgrtg hTitest I) ' x! \ b A( Guy Earl Warner “a needs and goals? (4) By what process were needs and goals determined? (5) What methods were used to gain cooperation among participating in- stitutions? (6) Along what lines was each consortium organized? (7) How was authority distributed within each consortium? (8) How were de- cisions reached? (9) What terms of membership were selected? (10) What methods of communication were used among consortium members? (ll) What means of financing each consortium were chosen? (l2) How were course offerings determined? (13) From what courses were televised courses selected? (l4) How were television teachers selected and compensated? (l5) How did students enroll in televised courses? (16) How did students receive credit for televised courses? (l7) What means were derived to promote televised courses to the public? (l8) What delivery system, or systens, were selected to make televised courses available to students? (19) What method, or methods, of course evaluation were used? (20) What method, or methods, of evaluation were selected to determine the success of each consortium? Conclusions and recommendations arising from the study were: (1) Consortia which originate at the administrative level, and preferably the highest possible level, of educational institutions appear to enjoy a high degree of administrative involvement and support; (2) although the litera- ture suggests that educational crises provide the most fertile ground for cooperation among institutions of higher education, it appears that ITV consortia can be organized and become viable, at least for a limited period of time, apart from crises conditions; (3) contrary to the litera- ture, the study demonstrated that ITV consortia which lack legal organiza- tion can apparently function as efficiently as those which have drawn-up i ‘w acre 4 l.“‘ ' vase vtt' g?“ :y af: DEFSES an; Guy Earl Warner legal agreements of organization; (4) ITV consortia which are led by full- time directors, or by those who have significant amounts of released time from normal institutional duties, appear to function more smoothly than those with directors who have little or no released time; (5) consortium representatives should be selected on the basis of agreed-upon qualifica- tions, or should undergo an indoctrination process; (6) a stable financial basis, preferably combining state and local monies, is essential to lon- gevity and efficient consortium operation; (7) in order to hold down ex- penses and keep financial demands from becoming exorbitant, consortia should consider producing a minimum number of ITV courses locally and should establish communication with other consortia in order to exchange or lease television series; (8) guidelines which guarantee compensation and adequate released time for ITV teachers should be carefully construct- ed and adhered to at the consortium level; (9) agreement should be reach- ed at the consortium level--with results to be included in consortium by- laws--to guarantee financial remuneration, released time, or other mutu- ally agreeable compensation to on-campus representatives in exchange for their duties in connection with ITV courses; (10) multiple television de- livery systems, including commercial open-circuit, public broadcasting and cable TV, offer a greater amount of flexibility and audience-deliver- ing capability for ITV than any single delivery system; (11) formal evaluation methods and instruments should be determined for the consortium and the television courses offered by it; (12) steps should be taken to insure that opportunities are provided for faculty members to play sig- nificant‘and meaningful roles in the planning and production of television courses; (13) the poorest communication links in consortia appear to exist .h; l > B It '..‘Ill("\J L A 6' 36919611 . :‘C COTS? "fi’ .‘w-K J». L-~t .. ; A ."CVOEJ coarse; , are admr 'P%‘=» n V 4‘."e (V. U A:;. ‘ E J's" ‘I §‘ s ’9 ~Ili Guy Earl Warner between the consortium staff and the individual faculties and/or between the consortium representatives and their faculties; (14) alternative con- tact times beyond the normal office hours of faculty members should be provided for the convenience of those student enrollees in television courses who are employed or othenwise unable to contact on—campus repre- sentatives during the normal work day; (15) in an effort to lessen their resistance to ITV, public relations efforts are needed to apprise facul- ties of televised courses; (16) diverse promotional methods for ITV courses utilizing as many of the mass media as finances permit and which are administered sufficiently in advance of the first telelesson, seem to produce greater course enrollments than meager and late promotional efforts; (l7) printed promotional materials should include, at a minimum, the title and a brief description of the television course, the number of credits it carries, a brief description of the consortium, an intro- duction of the ITV teacher, or teachers, a complete list of the tele- lessons, including the exact dates they are to be aired, a list of the times of day and the television stations on which the telelessons can be viewed, the names, telephone numbers and times of day during which the campus course representatives can be reached, and a simplified self- addressed registration form. THE OPERATION OF THREE INSTRUCTIONAL TELEVISION CONSORTIA IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA By Guy Earl Warner A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Speech I973 L") DEDICATION To my wife Laurel, and to my children James, John, and Angela who, more than I, deserve this degree. ii ”W“ l. ' :de‘ I. u’ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Every dissertation is ultimately the result of the efforts of many persons rather than just one. This study is no exception. My personal gratitude is extended to those five men who constituted my guidance committee, Mr. David C. Ralph, chairman; Dr. Kenneth G. Hance, Dr. Colby Lewis, Dr. Gordon Thomas; and Dr. Paul W. F. Witt. Without their per- sistent guidance, criticism, and encouragement, there is no doubt that this study would not have been completed. Others also contributed various degress of assistance to the study at different stages of its development. I am indebted to Dr. John P. Highlander, chairman, Department of Radio-Television-Cinema, California State University, Fresno, for suggesting the basic topic of the study. Likewise, I am in the debt of those persons associated with the three instructional television consortia which are the subjects of the study who gave willingly and generously of their time and information. They are, in alphabetical order: Marion Akers, Dean of Instruction, Sierra College, Rocklin, California; Fritz Blodgett, Instructor, Sierra College, Rocklin, California; Holly Brackmann, Instructor, College of the Sequoias, Visalia; Stuart Cooney, Director, The Northern California Regional Instructional Television Consortium; William Davidson, Program Director, KMJ-TV, Channel 24, Fresno, California; Wilson Dillard, Public Information Officer, Yuba College, Marysville, California; Arthur Evans, Associate Dean of Instruction, West Hills Community College, Coalinga, iii "—7! ’1‘ i ‘1"? ‘ . '|Il" l" sa': ‘1 a . ('2‘: CO" 1'... t r o' D. .37.?" ‘OROO::A \." 'r s 1341'“ r‘ 1 ug ,. Debrififlr § California; Lincoln Hall, Dean of Instruction, College of the Sequoias, Visalia, California; Jack Hansen, Assistant Superintendent of Education, State Center College District, Fresno, California; John Hennessy, Dean of Continuing Education, California State University, Humboldt, Arcata, California; Ronald Lane, Instructor, Modesto Junior College, Modesto, California; Jerald Livesey, Instructor, West Hills Community College, Coalinga, California; Edward McClarty, Dean of Instructional Services, Modesto Junior College, Modesto, California; Ralph Meuter, Dean for Continuing Education, California State University, Chico, Chico, Cali- fornia; James Mitchell, Butte Junior College District, Durham, California; John O'Brien, Instructor, Reedley College, Reedley, California; Earl Orom, Dean of Instruction, Yuba College, Marysville, California; Queen Randall, Associate Dean of Instruction, American River College, Sacramento, Cali- fbrnia; Connell Roberts, Associate Dean of Liberal Arts and General Education, Sacramento City College, Sacramento, California; Edyma Sischo- Nownejad, Instructor, Merced College, Merced, California; Alfred Walsh, Instructor, Butte College, Durham, California; David Warren, Instructor, Sacramento City College, Sacramento, California; Franz Weinschenk, Associ- ate Dean of Humanities, Fresno City College, Fresno, California; Jack Williamson, Vice President, Instruction, Merced College, Merced, Cali- fornia; Jorome Winterman, Instructor, Cosumnes River College, Sacramento, California; Walter Witt, Instructor, Fresno City College, Fresno, Cali— fornia; Robert Wyman, Associate Dean of Instruction, Cosumnes River Col- lege, Sacramento, California; and Norman Zech, Dean of Instruction, Reedley College, Reedley, California. iv L 'r-r ‘5” Finally, an enormous debt, one to be repaid in the coming years, is owed to my wife and children who bore with me in times of frustration and failure and rejoiced with me in times of accomplishment, and to God for supplying the opportunity and energy necessary to reach this goal. 11 __,._ ‘ \' ‘1 A'i'V-‘V EFJ‘PD" U 'ur “ I " n ..l TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .......................... i ii Chapter I. INTRODUCTION .......................... 1 Statement of the Problem Justification Scope Limitations Methodology Sources and Materials Definition of Terms Organizations II. GUIDELINES FOR A MODEL INSTRUCTIONAL TELEVISION CONSORTIUM . . 21 Needs and Goals C00peration Organization Communication Finances ITV Teachers Registration and Promotion Academic Standards Delivery Systems Evaluation Summary III. THE CENTRAL VALLEY CONSORTIUM OF COMMUNITY COLLEGES: A CASE STUDY ............................. 66 Background Needs and Goals Cooperation Organization Communication Finances ITV Teachers Registration and Production Delivery Systems Evaluation Appraisal vi “I. .- -r-. IV. IS F" lav) IV. TELEVISION CONSORTIUM OF VALLEY COLLEGES: A CASE STUDY. . . . 99 Background Needs and Goals Cooperation Organization Communication Finances ITV Teachers Registration and Promotion Delivery Systems Evaluation Appraisal V. THE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA REGIONAL INSTRUCTIONAL TELEVISION CONSORTIUM: A CASE STUDY ................... I33 Background Needs and Goals Cooperation Organization Communication Finances ITV Teachers Registration and Promotion Delivery Systems Evaluation Appraisal VI. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH ....... I64 Conclusions Implications for Further Research APPENDIX A ............................. I73 APPENDIX B ............................. 179 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................ 185 vii it :v. Y. _ T— cu!“ 1 fl Ev: the New the new I ‘rterrua M of Ziirykin 337914151 CWerci CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Even before commercial television had its "coming-out party at the New York World's Fair in 1939",.l the instructional implications of the new medium had been seen and exploration had begun. Except for the interruption of World War II, instructional television (ITV) has been a part of American education since 1933,2 just a decade after Dr. V. K. Zworykin patented the iconscope, the forerunner of the image-orthicon television camera. Its development runs almost parallel with that of commercial television. The principle of television was first proved workable in the Bell Laboratories in 1927 when a sight-and-sound broadcast was made between Washington, D.C. and New York. Four years later the University of Iowa set up an exhibit at the State Fair to demonstrate an elementary closed-circuit television system and two years later went on the air to begin broadcasting instructional programs. The University television station, W9XK, broadcast 389 programs over a seven year period, from 1933 to 1940. They included "Elementary Art", “Home Planning", "Intro- duction to Astronomy", and "First Aid”. Purdue University and Kansas 1Giraud Chester, Garnet R. Garrison, and Edgar E. Willis, Television and Radio (4th ed.; New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, I97i), p. 43. 2Beverly J. Taylor, "The Development of Instructional Television," in The Farther Vision, ed. by Allen E. Koenig and Ruane 8. Hill (Madison: TThe University of Wisconsin Press, 1967), p. 134. State Univer The cc excen for i :10 imzortar :1) the em: Itasition c in nosths I {STEVISIQn I sets 53:39 CmrciaI . By 1;. and the Far ICC that 35 Mg t0 0: Cons‘~‘C.'Jent‘: :DnStr'JCti: draped. On A”, Officially Dar-tame t: I eddCaIIOna‘l 2 State University also experimented with similar television services.3 The continuation and development of ITV, however, were halted, except for isolated instances, for a period of eleven years due to two important events, one international in sc0pe, the other national: (l) the entry of the United States into World War II; and (2) the imposition of a "freeze" by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Six months prior to Pearl Harbor the FCC had authorized full commercial television on a black and white basis. The production of television sets stopped completely during the course of the war and only six commercial stations were broadcasting.4 By 1948, with the resumption of commercial television broadcasting and the manufacture of television receivers, it became apparent to the FCC that serious signal interference between television stations was going to occur with the certain proliferation of station construction. Consequently, in September, 1948 a "freeze" was imposed halting further construction of new stations altogether until allocation plans could be drafted. On April 14, 1952 the FCC issued its "Sixth Report and Order”, officially lifting the "freeze." The "Report" was of particular im- portance to educators because it set aside 242 channel assignments for educational noncommercial television stations. Later, that number was increased to 309. 3Taylor, "The Development of Instructional Television," pp. 133-134. “mm. television ' ;;:1ic scho grade grasr. weeks As eal main-en: a: casts.5 One EV’OF {TV tirental C] I fail cours “M“?! aud- By 19: “““erSitie: 39555‘8 HOWEV‘ 3 Almost simultaneously educators began putting both commercial and noncommercial television facilities to use for instructional purposes. In 1952 the State of Alabama developed the first state educational television network in the nation. Three years later the St. Louis public schools were using KETC, a noncommercial station, to teach 9th grade grammar and English composition thirty minutes a day, five days a week.5 As early as 1947 the public schools of Philadelphia used the equipment and facilities of commercial station WPTZ for in-school tele- casts.6 One of the national networks, NBC, joined early attempts at ITV, or ETV as it was then called, as it brought to the air the "Con- tinental Classroom". The series represented the first attempt to put a full course on national television. The series had an average daily viewing audience of 270,000 persons.7 By 1961 an estimated 560 school districts and 117 colleges and universities were employing commercial channels for instructional pur- poses.8 However, by 1961 it became apparent that open-circuit television was not meeting in-school education needs.9 5"A History of the Development of ITV," Educational Product Report. 4 (January 1971): 19. 6Mary Howard Smith, ed., UsingTelevision_in the Classroom (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1961): p. 6. 7"A History of the Development of ITV," p. 18. 81bid. . pp. 18-19. 9"A History of the Development of ITV,‘I p. 19. As ea Savancecen‘ ac105ed-C‘ Throa cams. The res: reduce 1 9115's. r decrease if the 5 Three '35 carrie: teaching, 5 and IDCFCVE 1 By 12 Installatj 9 StAIIdtIOng 11 ““39" ms; One c an . d Certa” 4 am! Meryl Fl'n "'d for tr by the DEC 4 As early as 1954, by means of a grant from the Fund for the Advancement of Education, Pennsylvania State University had initiated a closed-circuit television (CCTV) project. Through it televised courses for credit were offered on its campus. The results indicated that the use of television did not reduce the quality of instruction or lower student accom- plishment and that, once a CCTV system was installed, a decreased cost of instruction per student could be realized if the system was used efficiently.10 Three years later the Chelsea Closed-Circuit Television Project was carried on in a New York ghetto aimed at using "CCTV for direct teaching, school enrichment, teacher training, language instruction, and improvement of comnunity integration...."H By 1958 there was seen a sharp increase in the number of CCTV installations around the country. In 1956 there had been 64 such in- stallations, but two years later, in 1958, 119 were in existence. That number rose to 185 by 1960.12 One of the first CCTV installations below the college level, and certainly the most publicized, was initiated in 1956 at Hagers- town, Maryland. It was funded, as was the Penn State Project, by the Fund for the Advancement of Education. In addition, money was given by the Electronic Industries Association, and Chesapeake and Potomac Telephsne C wired into A uni 5253.201 y area of 111 was known a “PAT. The alestirgrc service, 1.". transmitter The s tisns of C9; the Teast 0' ”'5 to see; authorized time] Te1e dW21 del “1’5- Hit». 71W ITFS to551819 5 Telephone Company. Over 800 television receivers were eventually wired into the classrooms of Washington County Schools.13 A unique kind of CCTV operation had its beginning during the 1961- 62 school year in a 200 mile radius covering portions of the six-state area of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. It was known as The Midwest Program on Airborn Television Instruction, or MPATI. The concept of airborne broadcasting found its original roots in a Westinghouse project called "Stratovision".14 After eleven years of service, including that of a video tape library, as well as a broadcast transmitter, MPATI officially "died" on June 20, 1971. The sundry problems surrounding the use by educational institu- tions of commercial television stations for instructional purposes, not the least of which was lack of scheduling flexibility, prompted educa- tors to seek alternative delivery systems. In July of 1963 the FCC authorized such an alternative with the establishment of the Instruc- tional Television Fixed Service (ITFS). It constituted a multiple- channel delivery system, and reduced the cost as compared to cable sys- tems. Within three years over 100 applications had been submitted. Thirty ITFS systems were in operation by 1967, and that number increased to 65 by 1971.5 I3Taylor, "The Development of Instructional Television," p. 142. I4Norman Felsenthal, "MPATI: A History (1959-1971)," Educa- tional Broadcasting_Review, 5 (December, 1971), 37. 15George Hall, "ITFS and the Economic Implications of the New Educational Accountability," Edutational Product Report, 3 (January 1971): 36948. Still invention c casting, e‘ that year t I Is technol :. o.‘ recordir recorders, has been f: of the case While l’e‘vitable 6 Still another milestone in the development of ITV has been the invention of video tape equipment. Prior to 1956 all television broad- casting, either commercial or noncommercial, had to be done live. But, that year the breakthrough came that broadcasting had been awaiting. As technology advanced and video tape equipment was refined the size of recording units shrunk, and by the mid 1960's portable video tape recorders, especially suited for classroom use, were marketed.16 This has been followed with a further refinement, introduced in 1972, that of the cassette video tape recorder. While the technical aspects of ITV were undergoing development and inevitable refinement, strides were also taking place in software--pro- gram production, and storage/retrieval. Up to 1956 whatever progress was made in the area of software was made only in production because video recording was not yet possible. Subsequent to 1958 organizations came into existence whose purpose was the production, rental and/or sale of video taped telelessons. One of the earliest was the Great Plains Regional ITV Library, which began in 1962. It was followed by the National Instructional TV Library, the Northeast Regional ITV Library, MPATI, Incorporated, and others.17 Thus, ITV appears to be a threshold: SOphisticated portable video tape units are available for the classroom; flexible delivery sys- tems have been developed, tested, and are being used; and software is 16Richard Gilkey, "Television: A Medium in Transition," The_ Clearing House, April, 1970, p. 510. 17Gary Gumpert, "Closed-Circuit Television in Training and Educa— tion," in The Farther Vision, ed., by Allen E. Koenig and Ruane 8. Hill (Madison: ”TfieUniversity of Wisconsin Press, 1967), p. 146. uaflable ‘ nit-ere to n:- lli lb . A radio a" Change".18 There scene even educators. said: TV in {- it has Effecti Simulta in a 1:4 I"950m“: As 1’. hWE‘y‘er’ SE and reCUl‘l‘c. Elemmry 7 available for local, regional, or perhaps even more extensive use. Where to now? Wilbur Schramm, long-time spokesman for ITV, says: "Education- al radio and television are entering upon a period of considerable change".18 There is little doubt but that it will remain on the educational scene even though it has not succeeded in winning the support of all educators. James Zigerell, Dean of TV College, Chicago City College, said: TV in education, at all levels, is here to stay, not because it has won enthusiastic acceptance, but because it can be an effective and economical and labor-saving way of bringing simultaneously to large numbers simulated classroom performance in a time of expanding college population and dwindling faculty resources.19 As ITV continues to be a part of the educational picture it must, however, seek solutions to some identified problems. Five significant and recurrent ones were set forth by Dr. Donald Nylin, Director of Elementary Education, Aurora West School District, Aurora, Illinois. They are, according to him: (1) technical arrangements; (2) avail- ability of classroom television sets; (3) the extensive initial invest- ment required; (4) lock-step programming resulting from insufficient channel flexibility; (5) the high cost of program production.20 With the exception, and then in only some instances, of portable video 18Wilbur Schramm, "The Future of Educational Radio and Tele- vision," Educational Television International, 4 (December 1970): 285. 19James J. Zigerrell, "Televised Instruction: Where Do We Go From Here?" Educational Technology 9 (September 1969): 73. 20Donald W. Nylin, "TV or Not TV: What is the Question?" Educational Leadership 28 (November 1970): 139. the apolice been an int Cine of tne cgether 4E closed-circ “Pf-TI proje Startly the (T3 1 was ‘ Secarated l: Conc; Ia"3‘9. ever 3101‘s. ACtl a confereM femjafll Static” In Two I litereSted Schools ISO badrds Of v: 8 equipment, these problems are common to all forms of ITV. One approach to solving these basic problems confronting ITV is the application of the principle of cooperation. This principle has been an integral part of the history of ITV almost from its inception. One of the earliest examples was the Hagerstown experiment which linked together 48 schools and 18,000 pupils in Washington County Maryland by closed-circuit television. It was followed three years later by the MPATI project which served almost 2,000 schools in six midwestern states. Shortly thereafter, in 1961, the Texas Educational Microwave Project (TEMP) was initiated to link together 11 colleges and universities separated by 200 or more miles. Concurrent with cooperative ITV developments in the nation at large, events in the State of California were turning in the same direc- tion. Action began in December, 1952 when Governor Earl Warren called a conference to discuss the future of educational television in Cali- fornia.21 Two years later the first successful educational television station in the State, KQED, was on the air. Two pieces of legislation significant to educators in California interested in ITV were passed in 1957 and 1961. The first permitted schools to participate financially in ITV by empowering governing boards of school districts of county superintendents to enter into contractual arrangements to procure television broadcasts for use by public schools or colleges.22 The second permitted the same agents to 2IProceedingsggfthe Governor's Conference on Educational Tele- vision, (Sacramento: The State of California, 1953). 22Education Code, Section 8857. can, lease in; IEIEJI In 1 instructic counties. ard close: to Red-ding The in the Sta iations" h nsion :1) al Televisl tional Tel I‘Str‘JCti :' rm: estates... P. Of all VISlon GEVelo': CoUncit Of COUr USUaHJ t0 the 9 own, lease, and operate broadcast facilities for the purpose of provid- ing television services to the schools.23 In 1958 KQED in San Francisco began producing and broadcasting instructional television programs for public schools in 10 Bay Area counties. Thereafter ITV broadcasting in California mushroomed. Open and closed-circuit systems were established from San Diego in the south to Redding in the north. The movement toward c00perative ITV systems was firmly established in the State by 1966. At that time six "advisory councils", or "Assoc- iations" had been formed. They were: the Regional Educational Tele- vision Advisory Council (RETAC), at Los Angeles; the Valley Instruction- al Television Association (VITA), at Sacramento; the Bay Region Instruc- tional Television for Education (BRITE), in San Francisco; the Northern Instructional Television Advisory Council (NITAC), in Redding; and the San Joaquin Educational Television Association, in Fresno. Another milestone in cooperative ITV was marked in 1969 with the establishment in the Los Angeles area of the Consortium for Community College Broadcast Television. Ten area junior colleges were joined in the State's first college-level ITV consortium. The growth of ITV cooperatives in California has lead to state- ment: Of all the patterns which have emerged in instructional tele— vision in California, one of the greatest significance is the development of regional instructional television advisory councils of associations. These cooperative systems of offices of county superintendents of schools and school districts usually perfbrm the same general function; namely, to supply to the schools of the region, over broadcast television, 23Education Code, Section 8857, as amended in 1961. 3; FT~EQ I.Url prograf to adn: progra' Coo: called, or W instru a"pronis‘ aafition : Tental ste The 3CC0untab‘T COPSQrtia. EdUCatfl 791ec0n p038 Ocr a5 Cele EffICle this We OEmand:I Variabtl CECtIOn 10 programs appropriate to the schools' courses of study and to administer cooperatively the funding for getting the programs broadcast into the classrooms.24 Cooperative ITV projects, or consortia as they are sometimes called, bring about a sharing of the planning and problems inherent in any instructional undertaking. The consortium concept has been called a "promising development"25 in the instructional planning process. addition to offering a greatly expanded input of ideas at the develop- mental stage the consortium approach also provides a broader financial base to meet the costs of production in instructional television. If the consortium idea prevails, it should help eliminate much of the current duplication of programs, since each station, school district, or state does essentially the same kind in its area.26 The decreased demand for educational economy and educational accountability would seem to point toward the rapid development of ITV consortia. It has been urged that: Educational agencies of all kinds should organize new Public Teleconmunications Consortia (PTC) for the constructive pur- pose of operating ITFS broadcast and cable systems (as well as related technologies) toward the far higher cost of efficiency made possible through joint task assignments. In this way, reception points, auditors, spatial ranges, traffic demands, investment dollars, and the other pertinent efficiency variables could be brought to an interacting intensity of ex- ceptional vitality and great mutal benefit. 7 24Guy M. Helmke, Emerging Patterns 9f_Instructional Tele— yision for California Pu 1c c 0015 (Sacramento: California State Department of Education, 1966), p. 7. 25Richard C. Burke, "Some Questions About Instructional Tele- vision," Instructional Television, ed., by Richard C. Burke (Bloom- ington: Indiana University Press, 1971), p. 120. 251bid. 27Hall, "ITFS and the Economic Implications of the New Educa- tional Accountability," p. 9. The : tation of t the Depart" :abll'c Bro? Olly ed.;ationa‘ t' . .re broace' California the Study, Init- f 11 The principal agencies that should be involved in the implemen- tation of the consortium concept, it has been suggested, are the FCC, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and other policy-making agencies.28 Only by means of the consortium concept, it is asserted, "can our educational establishment make efficient use of telecommunications in the broadest range of the learning management tasks".29 Statement gf_the Problem The purpose of the study was to investigate, analyze, and evaluate the operation of three ITV consortia in higher education in the State of California based on an ITV consortium model developed in the course of the study. Initially the study sought to answer the following questions re- garding each of the three consortia: (1) With whom and under what cir- cumstances did each consortium originate? (2) What methods of imple- mentation were selected for each consortium? (3) What were the origi- nally determined needs and goals? (4) Along what lines was each con- sortium organized? (5) How was authority distributed within each con- sortium? (6) How were decisions reached? (7) What terms of membership were selected? (8) What means of financing each consortium were chosen? (9) How were course offerings determined? (10) From what sources were televised courses selected? (11) How were television teachers selected and compensated? (12) How did students enroll in televised courses? 281 id. 291bid., p. 10. {16) What courses av evaluation selected t A se lAllowance (I) By wh 12 (13) How did students receive credit for televised courses? (14) How did students fulfill course requirements for televised courses? (15) How were academic standards maintained for televised courses? (16) What delivery system, or systems were selected to make televised courses available to students? (17) What method, or methods, of course evaluation were used? (18) What method, or methods, of evaluation were selected to determine the success of each consortium? A search of the literature yielded four additional questions of importance, thus expanding the list to twenty-two. They are as follows: (1) By what process were needs and goals determined? (2) What methods were used to gain cooperation among participating institutions? (3) What methods of communication were used among consortium members? (4) What means were devised to promote televised courses to the public? Justification There are three main justifications for this study. First, ITV continues to be an integrated tool in the educational process. There is no indication that it will be scrapped; in fact, the evidence points to its continued growth, especially in the use of portable video equipment. Even though growth is less dramatic in larger CCTV operations, and in open-circuit broadcasting, growth has taken place nonetheless. Second, there has been an upsurge in the application of the con- sortium concept, viz., at the college level. The National Instructional Television Center in Bloomington, Indiana is currently engaged in the production of "Inside/Out", a "nationwide health education consortium employing television to help eight-to-ten-year-olds understand and cope vith socia hirty U.SI ore Canadi NIT had it prisary gr I | sortium o" In 1| junior co‘: ing engine I VIE! Telev‘ COIOrado S COIIEQQS 1' The at the col the LOS An £31130“; U?‘ broadcaSits 13 with social, emotional and physical problems they face. ...."30 Thirty U.S. educational, broadcasting, and metropolitan agencies, and one Canadian agency constitute this most recent consortium. Earlier, NIT had initiated and coordinated a series for kindergarten and early primary grades entitled, "Ripples“. The 36 program series was produced by the Northern Virginia Educational Television Association, a con- sortium of fourteen member agencies.31 In 1968 an ITV project began in Colorado to tie together five junior colleges and one four year institution for the purpose of teach- ing engineering courses. It was called Project CO-TIE, or Cooperation via Televised Instruction in Education. Video tapes are produced at Colorado State University and sent by parcel post or courier to the six colleges involved in the project.32 The following year in California the largest continuing consortium at the college level was formed. It brought together 18 colleges33 in the Los Angeles area into a legally constituted organization called the Consortium for Community College Broadcast Television. The consortium broadcasts open-circuit in the Los Angeles area and has offered such courses as astronomy, art, history and psychology. In the fall of 1971 30NAEB Newsletter, January 14, 1972 (Washington, D.C.: National Association of Educational Broadcasters), p. 1. 3IDavid L. Crippens, "Ripples," Educational Broadcasting Review, 5 (June, 1971): 59. 32Lee Maxwell, "Cooperation Via Televised Instruction," Junior College Journal, 41 (November, 1970): 27-28. 33The number of colleges in the consortium has since been expanded to 26. asproxlmte by the Core I The " college in :i a come» for Public Thirq institutior state in tl Beg‘nning ( Oieration This does 1 both Calif If t Ilnged 91‘0 new Ones C Tiler Urge-Ill lat]: 341: .L931 ii tatl yes f] "n‘ ‘3‘. we 14 approximately 8,000 students enrolled in two televised courses offered by the Consortium.34 The following year, two county junior colleges and one city junior college in Maryland began televising courses for credit as the result of a consortium they had formed. The facilities of the Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting, Channel 67, were employed as the delivery sys- tem. The consortium was later joined by a fourth community college. At present ten different courses have been offered.35 Third, there are more established ITV consortia among educational institutions at all levels in the State of California than in any other state in the nation, and still more are at various stages of development. Beginning in 1973 an additional college-level consortium is to begin operation in the San Bernadino area bringing the state total to six. This does not take into account a seventh consortium which operates in both California and Nevada. If the past is at all useful in predicting the future the con— tinued growth of present consortia and the initiation of still more new ones can be expected in California and in the rest of the nation. Scoge There are in the State of California at present five ITV organizations formed among institutions of higher education which fit 34Unpublished notes on December 3, 1971 meeting between Dr. Leslie Wilbur, University of Southern California, and represen- tatives from six community colleges and Fresno State College, p. 1. 35Jerry M. Cohen, "Maryland's Community College of the Air," Junior College Journal, 42 (October, 1971): 33, 36, 40. the deftn sortim :3 College 5' Pegional . 15 the definition of consortia.36 They are, in alphabetical order: (1) the Bay Area Television Consortium, San Mateo, (2) the Central Valley Con- sortium of Community Colleges, Visalia, (3) the Consortium for Community College Broadcast Television, Los Angeles, (4) the Northern California Regional Instructional Television Consortium, Sonoma, and (5) the Tele- vision Consortium of Valley Colleges, Sacramento. Three consortia were ultimately chosen as the subjects of this study based upon the following criteria: (1) Consortia chosen should represent institutions of higher education exclusively, whether two or four year, or com- binations of the two. (2) Consortia chosen should possess some unique feature. (3) Consortia chosen should evidence availability of written and/or human sources of information from which the study could be drawn. (4) Consortia chosen should evidence willingness to cooperate in the study. Those chosen were, in alphabetical order: (1) the Central Valley Consortium of Community Colleges, Visalia, (2) the Northern California Regional Instructional Television Consortium, Sonoma, and (3) the Television Consortium of Valley Colleges, Sacramento. They met the established criteria in that: (1) they each represent institutions of higher education; the first and third consortia unite two year colleges, while the second brings together both two and four year institutions; 36See "Definition of Terms" for a detailed definition of a Consortium l6 (2) the Central Valley Consortium of Community Colleges is the only consortium in the State making exclusive use of packaged television courses, the Northern California Regional Instructional Television Con- sortium is the newest in the State and potentially the largest, and the Television Consortium of Valley Colleges currently covers the largest geographical area of any of the consortia in the State. The study, then, sought to investigate, analyze, and appraise the operation of the three representative ITV consortia according to: (1) background, (2) needs and goals, (3) organization, (4) finances, (5) ITV teachers, (6) registration and promotion, (7) academic stan- dards, (8) delivery system(s), and (9) evaluation. Limitations Although there are in existence other types of television con- sortia in CalifOrnia, viz., those involving public elementary and secondary schools, this study focused only upon those which pertain to higher education and which function exclusively within the State of California. Furthermore, it was limited to the operation of the ITV con- sortia as opposed to their histories, except as such background material is essential to their origin, successes, failures, etc. Methodology The design of the study was fourfold: (1) to design from the literature, published and unpublished, an "ideal" ITV consortium model; (2) to carry out case studies of each of the three consortia selected for the study; (3) to analyze and evaluate the three consortia by :eans of ‘. to draw C: II tion. * | | Dat =ents, an The articles, dfld mpow Cass SDu‘rces g. Ch'Jreg . a deans Out” follow in to the Prrj SEFIES’ C". rolled tel it'llranda bu57-11935 5 Of the co farm use; Eac~ WesthnS‘ DEFSOnS Of Serum, L 17 means of the ITV consortium model; and (4) to make recommendations and to draw conclusions as a result of the foregoing analysis and evalua- tion. Sources and Materials Data gathered were from two primary sources: (1) written docu- ments, and (2) interviews. The written documents consulted included journal and magazine articles, reports, books, and published and unpublished descriptions and reports of consortia. Case studies of the three consortia began from whatever written sources were available. These sources consisted of promotional bro- chures, a copy of a letter from a dean to the board of trustees of his college, a copy of a mimeographed letter sent by a dean to his fellow deans outlining the advantages of a consortium and listing steps to follow in initiating one, a copy of a letter from a consortium director to the Program Director of the television station carrying the ITV series, copies of letters sent by instructors of record to students en- rolled television courses, minutes of ITV consortia meetings, copies of memoranda from a consortium director to interested academic personnel, business and professional persons, a copy of the Master Plan of one of the consortia, copies of Joint Powers agreements, and evaluation forms used by one consortium. Each document was scrutinized for answers to the 22 stated questions. This examination was followed by interviews with those persons on each participating campus who were connected with the con- sortium, usually the dean of instruction, the consortium director, the instructC ceive C0r teachers, ofaccura scribed. Iw: yielded 5 minutes. yielded ‘ be sought ied, data SQ 'v FEESOOS C deserves CCT IT: 18 instructors of record, those persons appointed on each campus to re- ceive contact from students enrolled in the ITV course, and the ITV teachers, if the consortium produced its own courses. In the interest of accuracy, all interviews were audio tape recorded and later tran- scribed. Two of the three consortia, the subjects of Chapters IV and V, yielded an abundance of written data, including memoranda and meeting minutes. The remaining consortium, however, the subject of Chapter III, yielded few written sources from which answers to the 22 questions could be sought. Although interviews were conducted in all three cases stud- ied, data for the latter one was drawn heavily from these interviews. Definition gf_Terms Several terms are used in the course of the study which, for reasons of clarity, need defining. The most crucial one, "consortium", deserves Special note. CCTV "Closed-Circuit Television, any system of trans- mitting TV and sound which cannot be taken 'off the air' by conventional TV receivers".37 ITV ”Instructional Television, programs produced and designed at any level of schooling for use in for- man education".38 ITV is used in one or more of the following ways: 37George N. Gordon, Classroom Television: New Frontiers ifl_IIV, (New York: Hastings House, 1970) p. 236. 381bid., p. 237. li‘v’ PTV 19 1. Total teaching, i.e., where the entire burden of instruction is carried by the telelessons, and the classroom teacher plays a subordinate role to the television teacher. 2. Cooperative teaching, i.e., where the tele- lessons share with the classroom teachers a portion of the instructional load. 3. Enrichment, i.e., the occasional use of tele- vision to clarify and expand upon ideas intro- duced into classroom instruction. ITV CONSORTIUM An organization of agencies, usually educational, formed, generally by legal agreement, for the pur- pose of pooling resources to plan, produce, and/or obtain and distribute instructional television programming.39 ITFS "Instructional Television Fixed Service, a system of up to four channels for short TV transmission over the air but not received on home TV".4O PTV "Public Television, A recent synonym for educational and instructional television, referring to non- commercial TV as defined by the Carnegie Commis- sion".41 39No one satisfactory definition could be found in the literature. This represents a composite of several of those to be found in the literature. The girl Celine: the Centra Colleges, ‘Ornia Ire tains Cor: 20 Organization The study is organized in the following manner: Chapter 11 states guidelines for a model ITV consortium. Chapter III is a case study of the Central Valley Consortium of Community Colleges, Visalia, California. Chapter IV is a case study of the Television Consortium of Valley Colleges, Sacramento. Chapter V is a case study of the Northern Cali- fornia Instructional Television Consortium, Sonoma. Chapter VI con- tains Conclusions and Implications for Further Research. CHAPTER II GUIDELINES FOR A MODEL INSTRUCTIONAL TELEVISION CONSORTIUM Consortia have been a part of American education since the 1920's when Claremont, California, and Atlanta, Georgia, university centers each formed group arrangements with other institutions.1 Real impetus, however, was given the cooperative movement by the surge in college en- rollments which followed the end of World War II. By 1949, for example, sixteen southern states had formed a higher education compact known as the Southern Regional Educational Board (SREB).2 In 1953 the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) was formed.3 The number of cooperative arrangements continued growing so that in the academic year 1965-1966 over one thousand consortia could be counted in the United States.4 At approximately the same time there existed at least twenty-five regional consortia with a combined member- ship of 319 institutions.5 Some of these joined institutions as diverse 1Raymond S. Moore, Consortiums jg_American Higher Education: 1965-66. Re ort gj_an Exploratory Study_(Washington, D.C.: *Office of Education, , p.’TI 21m Ibi 41bid. O. on G. 5William F. Stier, Jr., A_Look in Retrospect--A Consortium. Colleges gj_Mid-America (Sioux City, IBwa: Briar CliffCollege, 1971), p. 21 22 and geographically separated as the University of Michigan and Tuskegee Institute. Others spanned state boundaries to link institutions of higher education in several states. Most of the consortia in higher education, however, have been, and continue to be, intrastate arrangements binding together education- al institutions, generally public, which are in the same state system and often are in fairly close proximity. One such cooperative arrange- ment, called The Inter-Institutional Program of Television Instruction, existed in Oregon from 1957 to 1962. It joined four institutions of higher education in that state: Oregon State University at Corvallis, Oregon College of Education at Monmouth, Portland State College at Port- land, and the University of Oregon at Eugene.6 An even more widely known and publicized consortium is TEMP, Texas Educational Microwave Project, which began distributing college courses by television in 1959. It joins eleven colleges and universities in central Texas and was the nation's first television network of higher educational institutions. New York and California have been two of the more active states in the development of higher educational consortia. At one time in New York nine local consortia were identifiable,7 with the number addition- ally swelled by the existence of regional consortia. California currently can point to six consortia at the higher education level, 6Leland L. Johnson, Cable Television and Higher Education: Iwg_ Contrasting Experiences (Santa Monica, California: Rand Corporation, 1971), p. 16. 7Glen Starlin, Inter-Institutional Communication Networks (Pre- pared for the Feasibility Study of Inter-Institutional Television, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1966), pp. 12-13. involving Alt TEMP and the basic. over half has passe by the te past and form and In as 930103 only 1005 he said, to emdlat SUCCesSeS Obvious] V v “Mott . best thatl fro” consl 8L l“ e, lHflShInn‘ J; 23 involving predominantly junior and community colleges. Although most of the consortia in higher education, unlike the TEMP and Oregon projects, have not employed instructional television, the basic concept of cooperation involving colleges and universities is over half a century old. One would expect that the consortium concept has passed through its formative stages and would, therefore, be proved by the tests of experience and time. The accumulated experiences of past and present consortia can yield valuable guidelines by which to form and determine the success of cooperative ventures in the future. 1 In the light of a statement by Patterson, the term "guidelines", as employed in the title of this chapter, is used deliberately to denote only loose and broadly stated principles. "Consortia directors argue", he said, "there is not and should not be g_model consortium for others to emulate, although planners can benefit from acquaintance with the successes and failures of other institutional arrangements."8 Obviously, then, it is both unwise and impossible to be proscriptive in attempting to fashion a model ITV consortium for higher education. The best that can be done is to arrive at generally stated principles drawn from consortia experiences from which developing cooperatives may choose and apply to their peculiar needs, goals, and limitations. Each new consortium will be unique and no one pattern, or model, could be expected to fit every situation. 8Lewis D. Patterson, Consortia jn_American Higher Education (Washington, D.C.: The George washington University, 1970), p. 3. 0'9 sortia it thus: 3: SilverrE' for coli' climates Ernest L. ing the . not beca- the rati: 24 Needs and Goals One principle stands out clearly through the experiences of con- sortia in higher education. It is almost axiomatic and can be stated thus: the more urgent the felt need existing within institutions 1g; tending tg_consort, the greater the opportunities for cooperation. Silverman put it this way: "Shared crises tend to create conditions for collaboration."9 Crisis conditions tend to create more favorable climates of cooperation in higher education than do noncrises conditions. Ernest L. Boyer, Chancellor of State University of New York, is assess- ing the needs of higher education, said: "The need is to cooperate, not because it's the 'gentlemanly' thing to do, but rather because it's the rational and urgent thing to do."10 Unless a cooperative program grows from within a college as a deeply felt need, it tends to be viewed as competing for scarce, internal resources, and for this reason often is rejected or given a secondary priority in the allocation of the institution's resources. 1 This suggests that marginal or undefined needs lead to the converse of the previously stated principle, viz., lack of cohesiveness. 9Robert J. Silverman, A_Study gfi_the Inter-Organizational_Ber haxigr,in_an§grtia. Final Report (Cornell University, Ithaca, New York: Cooperative Extension Service, 1969), p. 253. 10Barry Schwenkmeyer and Mary Ellen Goodman, Putting_C00peration tg_Wgrk; A Suryey gj_How Coogeration i§_He1pingColleges and Univer- sities (Washington, D.C.: Academy for Educational Development, Incor- porated, 1972), Preface. HPatterns for Voluntary Cooperation. Self—Stugnge ort of thg. College center of the Finger Lakes (Corning, Neinork: College-Center 01 the Finger LEEes, 1971), p. 6. 25 Silverman also found that "there is a positive association between initiation and commitment.”2 When institutions became involved in con- sorting to achieve goals they felt to be important, their output was greater than when their involvement could be traced to environmental forces, such as wealthy institutional trustees or donor corporations. In the latter case consortia involvement and output were found to be peripheral.13 What, then, are the goals, or needs, which bring institutions of higher education to cooperate through the use of ITV? The basic motivations behind consortia have been identified by educators and researchers. Some of them are age-old and constant prob- lems facing education in general, and higher education in particular, while others are cyclical and are based on changing national and world conditions. Schwenkmeyer and Goodman identified five basic need areas: (1) the rising demand for education and the runaway costs associated with it; (2) the knowledge explosion; (3) the influence of technology; (4) education and social ferment; and (5) renewed pressures from funding agencies.14 To this list can be added (1) the quest for qualified instructors; (2) the desire for expanded graduate education; (3) the need to meet larger obligations to society; (4) stark concern for survival; (5) the need to make optimum use of highly sophisticated or costly facilities 12Silverman, A_Study gf_the Inter-Organizational BehaviorLD1 Consortia, p. 245. 13Ibid. MSchwenkmeyer and Goodman, Putting Cooperation tg Work, p. l. or servi date aca need to . regional to assis 1 new rany of behind c Producti: hl"CEr e 0W Tea has been universi VISIOn."‘ H11 r 26 or services; (6) the pooling of existing resources to strengthen or eval- uate academic programs to increase administrative efficiency; (7) the need to develop new sources of revenue; (8) the need to meet local, state, regional, or national needs; and (9) the desire of larger institutions to assist developing ones.15 More particularly, consortia have seen ITV as a vehicle to meet many of the above-mentioned needs. In that connection the sharing of production costs accruing from ITV consortia operation is a prime motive behind cooperation in higher education. Since the need for high quality production dictates that production costs be high, many institutions of higher education look to trade, lease, or purchase agreements as the only feasible way to form consortia around television. Once programming has been produced, the reluctance to share it by and among colleges and universities is "one of the most serious problems in instructional tele- vision.”6 Miami-Dade Junior College is one modern example of a college which has succeeded in producing high quality television programing for instruc- tion and which is presently sharing its product with other institutions of higher education. Its pilot program series, "Man and Environment", consists of 30 half-hour documentaries, sufficient for a two semester course. While the course was originally produced only for local use, 15Raymond S. Moore, "Cooperation in Higher Education," in Inter-Instjtutional Cooperation jg_Higher Education, ed. by anrence C. Howard (Wisconsin University, Milwaukee: Institute for Human Relations. Office of Education (DHEW), Washington, D.C., 1967), pp. 97, 307, 313-314. 15Johnson, Cable Television and Higher Education, pp. 16-17. it has 5‘ Califorr‘ gaged to parts of Burlingti 27 it has since become "nationalized". Five consultants from Tennessee, California, Michigan, Massachusetts, and North Carolina have been en- gaged to broaden the course. Currently, it is being used in sixteen parts of the nation, from Miami to Portland, Oregon, and between Burlington, Vermont, and Los Angeles, California.17 One of those institutions using the "Man and Environment" series is an ITV consortium in southern California operating in the Coast Community College District. The venture, joining two community colleges, Orange Coast in Costa Mesa, and Golden West in Huntington Beach, is called "Communiversity", which indicates its objectives, among which is to provide a wide segment of the population the opportunity to go to college by television.18 It has produced, or is producing, tele- courses of its own in behavioral psychology, music, art, shorthand, ecology, biology, and law enforcement. In developing a course in cul- tural anthropology camera crews traveled to the Mideast and England.19 In the essential process of determining institutional priorities and discovering deep-seated needs, each institution contemplating cooperating with other colleges or universities should first come to "know itself“. In so doing each must determine what it wants to be, and can be, in the light of its traditions, location, resources, and the students who are actually attracted to its mission, and 17Betty Garnet and Maurice Thompson, "Man and Environment and TV College," Comnunity and Junior College Journal, 43 (November 1972): 14-16. 18Norman E. Watson and Bernard J. Luskin, "Cables, Cassettes, and Computers at Coast," Community and Junior College Journal, 43 (November 1972): 12. l9Ibid., 13. 28 each must continually discover how well it does what it says it does. If this theory is shared widely among participating colleges, a consortium can design program- ing that contributes to the most feasible mission of each college and promote a better understanding of the impact and effectiveness that each has with its own students.20 When individual institutions have taken this step, they will be in a better position to determine the collective goals of the consortium. Those goals were perhaps best capsulized by Hughes, who said: The primary function of voluntary cooperatives seems to be to engage in those activities and to provide those services that cannot best be done individually bg school districts [or institutions of higher education]. ' Illustrative of the goals which might be reached by a consortium are those which were arrived at by the previously-mentioned Coast Communiversity in southern California. They are as follows: 1. To take higher learning out to the community instead of requiring that all students come to the college campus. 2. To match the state of education's art with the art of technology. 3. To combine televised programming, correspondence materials, individual tutoring, study-center-based activity, and counseling. 4. To decentralize learning and facilitate more effective cooperative relationships between the community, its population, and the school.22 The largest ITV consortium in California, and perhaps in the nation, exists also in the southern part of the state. It came into 20Patterns for Volunta§y_Cooperation. P- 7- 21Larry W. Hughes, Interpretive Study of Research and Develo - ment Relative to Educational Cooperatives. Fihal RegortTTKhoxville, Ténnessee: University of Tennessee, 1971), p. 87. 22Watson and Luskin, "Cables, Cassettes, and Computers," p. 13. 29 being in 1970 and within three years was composed of 23 colleges. From its experience come the following consortium goals: 1. Saving of student transportation costs; those normally incurred in commuting; an important item to students at the lower end of the economic ladder. 2. Reaching all segments of society via television, which is "totally impartial about such matters as neighbor- hoods or ethnic origins". 3. Provision of a "unified body which can request station broadcast time and production assistarce, if the mem- bers of the consortium do not have their own facilities". 4. Provision for coordination of efforts between colleges which in turn reduces competition among institutions, and avoids course duplication. 5. Spreading costs, viz., those of course production, courgg rental, publicity materials, secretarial help, etc. Whenever possible consortium goals, such as those just given, should 23 identified and arrived gt_cooperatively. This means that institutions intending to cooperate will be well advised to sit down at the outset, in the initial stages of cooperation, to relate their needs to each other in order to discover if those needs make for compatibility. Patterson observes: Two or more institutions considering the formation of a consortium should determine their mutual needs and goals as a collective base from which the actual cooperative structure and programs might flow.24 Gumpert reached a similar conclusion in his experience with consortia. 23Lesiie Wilbur, "A Look At Televised Courses...Before Con- sorting," Community and Junior College Journal 43 (November 1972): 21-22. 24Patterson, Consortia jg_American Higher Education, p. 3. 30 The development and production of course materials with inter-institutional exchange in mind, should consider the needs of those other institutions. If joint use is the aim, joint planning would facilitate the process.25 A third, and last, principle applicable to the determination of needs and the formation of goals is that identified needs should gg closely related 39 institutional longyrange objectives. Frequently cooperative agreements have been instituted to accommodate immediate and short-lived needs. Much in the way of experience and resources is lost when mechan- isms are not available to assist these programs from con- tributing to continuing needs.25 The comnitment of institutional resources, human, financial, technological, and otherwise, so essential to the successes of any cooperative venture, seems far more likely when based upon extended goals and needs of both a consortium and the individual institutions of which it is comprised. Cooperation Cooperation is the very essence of consortia efforts. In its absence there are no consortia: there can be none. It is especially important in voluntary consortia because the coordination of independent institutions leans much more heavily on the voluntary cooperation, and even subordina- tion of the individual institutions than does coordination ZSGary Gumpert, "Inter-Institutional Exchange and Media," in Inter-Institutional Cooperation in Higher Education, ed. by Lawrence C. H6Ward’(Wisconsin UniverSity, MiTwaukee: Institute for Human Relations, Office of Education (DHEW), Washington, D.C., 1967), p. 28. 26Inter-Institutional Cooperative Arrangements jn_Higher Educa- tion ig_Néw York State (Corning, New York: College Center ofithei Finger Lakes, 1970), pp. IV, 1-2. of a dist careful institu It shou dents. exist a level i Other a tOD-to- It i of t leve getr Date This is formed IS c Pro: by ét' esse deDevI . I t10m I‘ \ (BQrkEIi E 31 of a group consisting of several campuses within the same district, unified by one chief administrator.27 It is recommended, therefore, that cooperation gg_nurtured very carefully. Patterson, in fact, suggests a “courting" period in which institutions, before officially consorting, get thoroughly acquainted. It should begin where the power is vested--with institutional presi— dents. If cooperation does not exist at that level, it is unlikely to exist at lower levels. Once it has been established at the highest level it should be followed by progressive stages of involvement by other administrators, and by faculty members and students.28 This top-to-bottom involvement is endorsed by Paltridge, who notes: It is highly important that the chief administrative officers of the member institutions be directly involved in the top level policy decisions of the consortium and that they, to- gether with members of their faculty and student body, partici- pate as broadly as possible in the activities of the consortium.29 This is especially important, according to Starlin, when consortia are fbrmed around ITV because it is closely related to the problems of any inter-institutional program which requires complete cooperation and acceptance by several institutionally dominate communities that have essentially been indoctrinated to operate on a locally in- dependent basis.30 Even though there is a trend toward consortia in higher educa- tion, ITV, when used for inter-institutional instruction, 27Wilbur, "A Look At Televised Courses", p. 21. 28Patterson, Consortia ig_American Higher Education, p. 3. 29James Gilbert Paltridge, Urban Higher Education Consortia (Berkeley, California: Center for Research and Development in Higher Education, 1971), p. 54. 30Starlin, Inter-Institutional Communication Networks, p. 11. 32 has not been warmly accepted by faculties at various par- ticipating institutions. There has been limited accep- tance, some strong resistance, and rather wide-spread apathy toward its use.31 Initial and unilateral cooperation in its use, therefore, is critical. Case studies have revealed that, in a number of instances, consortia did not have the opportunity to fully succeed for the primary reason that they were conceived and con- ducted by a small group of people without the strong partici- pation of principal administrative officers or a larger seg- ment of the academic communities.32 Special emphasis is to be placed upon faculty acceptance of inter- institutional ITV, historically a dominant factor in its success or fail- ure. Faculties, experience has shown, must believe in the medium and must be given voice in its use. A case in point is the Texas Educa- tional Microwave Project (TEMP), which began distributing college courses by television in 1959. By the mid 1960's a new organization had to be developed in response to problems which grew out of charges of excessive administrative pressure and control. The reorganization gave campus faculty committees "as much power as possible in determin- ing use, course offerings, and evaluation."33 The Southern California Consortium for Community College Tele- vision, presently composed of 23 community colleges, evidently learned well from the experiences of other consortia in the matter of coopera- tion because they report making efforts to involve faculty members in 3‘Ioid., p. 14. 3zPaltridge, Urban Higher Education Consortia, p. 53. 33Star1in, Inter-Institutional Conmunication Networks, pp. 21-13. 33 the planning and oversight of televised courses.34 Lack of faculty acceptance of ITV is just one of the obstacles to cooperation which can face new consortia. A New York self-study concluded that cooperation, especially voluntary cooperation, can be different because: (1) it is a secondary institutional commitment; (2) institutional resources are always limited; (3) institutional re- wards normally are not designed to make participation in cooperative programing attractive to faculty members; (4) it makes institution de- cision-making more complex; (5) the organization of academic life with- in institutions tends to inhibit cooperation among them; (6) attitudes about institutional status and prestige exist within every cooperative association, and these can become major impediments to programing.35 The same study also drew conclusions regarding characteristics of effective cooperation. They are as follows: 1. Cooperation will always be undertaken voluntarily because each participating college must preserve its individual and cooperative autonomy. 2. A decision on the theoretical limits of institutional autonomy need only be one of principle. Complete au- thority over an individual program will be ceded vol- untarily when an institution selectively chooses to participate with other institutions in a cooperative program. 3. Each of the participating colleges possesses consider- able strengths and all possess certain limitations. Cooperative programs will be productive when they are designed to assist each college to achieve that which it wants to do but cannot accomplish as well within 34Lynne Gross, "The Southern California Consortium for Community College Television,” Educational/Industrial Television 5 (January 1973): 117. 35Patterns for Voluntary_Cooperation, pp. 6-7. 34 the limits of its own resources. This concept of comple- mentarity leading to mutual advantages will be the leading criterion for cooperative programing. 4. Mutual accessibility will be the corollary of institutional complementarity. Each of the participating colleges may have access to the strengths of others if its own strengths also are to be made available to others. 5. Cooperative programing will be developed and evaluated pri- marily on the basis of its educational effects on students.36 Organization Organization of consortia, as one might expect, yields the least amount of unanimity from the literature. It is obvious that no one type of organizational pattern can be pointed to as "best" for cooperative arrangements in higher education. Also, it is probable that no single type would suit all circumstances or perhaps work under all conditions. Moore identified six types of consortia: 1. Single bilateral--an organization to meet specific needs without reference to other bilaterals. 2. Fraternal bilateral--similar to the single bilateral in that it is constituted separately from any other consortium. But it has a common partner institution with one or more other bilaterals, and is virtually identical in purpose with them. It most often concerns a single disciplinary area. 3. Federation of bilaterals--possesses the same characteristics as the consortium of fraternal bilaterals except for one important distinction: the federation's bilaterals, while separately con- stituted initially, tend to work together closely in planning and evaluation with the common partner institution. 4. Multilateral--may be (a) simple and centered . . . (b) simple and dispersed . . . (c) complex and centered . . . (d) complex and dispersed. 5. College and university center--may be bilateral or multilateral, but its chief distinction lies in the fact that it is a cluster 351bid., pp. 7-8. 35 of colleges and/or universities . . . geographically contiguous or within daily commuting distance of each other. 6. Constellation of consortia--two or more clusters of institutions around a teaching, research, and/or service center or program or a central consortium.37 He further classified consortia according to the extent of their activity. Those which are concerned with only one area he calls "simple”, while those involved in more than one he names "complex".33 Whether simple or complex, the question of the formality of organization inevitably arises. Should a consortium incorporate? On the one hand it is argued that incorporation: (l) contributes perma- nence to the organization; (2) separates the consortium and its activi- ties from individual members; and (3) establishes a legal entity that can enter into contracts and take responsibility for grants and other financial contributions.39 On the other hand, there are those who urge a relatively loose structure for cooperatives. They must, in order to serve effectively, ”constantly guard against becoming too bureaucratic", because "institu- tionalization may offer temporary stability and security, but it dimin- ishes flexibility and creativity--a consortium's greatest strength".40 Whether or not institutions choose to formalize their relation- ship, the wisdom gj_drawing gp_gg_agreement gf_some type amogg_partici- pants seems evident. In this agreement the members should detail the 37Moore, "Cooperation in Higher Education,“ pp. 315-318. 381bid., pp. 314-315. 39Paltridge, Urban Higher Education Consortia, p. 52. 40Patterson, Consortia ig_American Higher Education, p. 9. and The hi; of tap 56neat' Serving C0unci7 each ir SCIIIU? a dire: body, 5 Ceit 13' yields I 't Shoo pmim‘ I ‘-z\\" 4 36 objectives of the consortium. It should specify such details as: how to join, how to resign, and how to disband. If there are funds involved, how are the amounts established; who collects and holds them; how are they disbursed? What is the basis for representation? Is there to be an executive board? How is the chairman selected?41 Formal agreements are often known as "joint powers agreements" and are usually drawn up with the assistance of an attorney. The kind of organization specified in the agreement, like agree- ments themselves, can vary. It might contain as many as five levels. The highest body could be the Presidium, a board of directors composed of the president and each institution represented in the consortium.42 Beneath it might be found the Collegium, with deans of each college serving in executive positions.43 A variation of this is the executive council made up of representatives, either elected or voluntary, from each institution.44 It can serve as the governing body of the con- sortium. Some consortia have employed the central office concept with a director or coordinator in charge, but under the authority of a higher body, such as a board of directors, or its equivalent. Since this con- cept is often subscribed to in consortia organization, the literature yields details not always available on other organizational patterns. If a central office is chosen as part of the consortium structure, it should be geographically centrally located because "the physical proximity of member institutions to a central headquarters is related to 4IWilbur, "A Look at Televised Courses," p. 22. 42Stier, A_Look ig_Retr05pect, p. 9. ”mo. 44Gross, "The Southern California Consortium," p. 16. the . . The pro tionsti ficatis nan of his 37 the . . . desire of the colleges to administer a joint program."45 The proximity to central headquarters "has implications for the rela- tionship among members if they are conceived to be 'equal'".46 As for the executive director, or coordinator, a number of quali- fications have been laid down. Paltridge suggests that he should be a man of proven ability in an academic administrative position. His credentials should be such that he will be acceptable to the administrators, faculties, and students of the mem- ber institutions. He must be of a stature that will ensure appropriate access and effective communication.47 Patterson recommends that the director's background include broadly based training and experience and evidence of interpersonal competence comparable to substantive com- petence. Resourcefulness and innovativeness would enhance the director's ability to serve effectively 13 his important roles of change agent and program developer. His role is to implement policy, and in that capacity he should take it upon himself to "raise questions, make recorrmendations, provide staff papers, and offer compromise solutions to his board when policy is being determined."49 The importance of the director's position is clear, according to Silverman, in that it is related to the "viability and growth of the consortium".50 If he is a "synoptic thinker, an idealist with drive" 45Silverman, Inter-Organizational Behavior 1g Consortia, p. 241. 45ipig , p. 242. 47Paltridge, Urban Higher Education Consortia, p. 56. 48Patterson, Consortia ig_American Higher Education, pp. 4-5. 49Ioid., p. 5. 50Silverman, Inter-Organizational Behavior jg_Consortia, p. 251. he Hiii of suc-t areside trati or a ' ' JErIpng COOSOr: V1 . ‘3 Or: that 0: term. 55"? w; 38 he will then "be associated with organizational growth". The "absence of such qualities . . . leads to stultification".5] There is, however, a distinct danger in the power of the director's office, and it almost appears a contradictory situation. For, while a person of the highest qualifications should surely be sought to fill the office, it is suggested that the person ultimately employed should not be someone comparable in stature and competence to an institutional president. The consortium director may then become a threat, and frus- tration and conflict may result.52 For this reason, when consortium programs are determined to be of peripheral concern, the executive director should be a second or third echelon administrator, perhaps a secretary, who understands his or her role--that of responding to campus requests and instructions, coordinating thg program's imple- mentation, and remaining behind the scene. 3 While there are alternative organizational patterns from which new consortia can choose, and thus, for instance, avoid some of the disad- vantages inherent in the central office concept, there is an element of the organizational structure which is virtually indispensable. It is that of the institutional representative. He can be viewed as being certainly as important in his role as the consortium director, and, in some ways, perhaps even more important. Hoopes, in fact, calls him the Slioid. 52Patterson, Consortia jg_American Higher Education, p. 5. 53Ibid. (f7 39 "heart of the campus operation".54 The campus liaison may often serve as the only channel of communi- cation between his campus and the consortium and tends to become an em- bodiment of it on campus.55 He is looked to as a source of information, guidance, and leadership relative to consortium affairs. On campus he is the consortium. Perceptions, therefore, of the consortium will come through him. His success or failure will reflect on the organization. If he is perceived negatively, the consortium will be looked upon in the same manner. If perceptions of him are positive, then the consortium benefits. By reason of his importance in the over-all organizational pattern, of consortia, relatively detailed qualifications of the institutional representative are to be found. The following is an example: 1. Must be energetic, willing and able to put time and effort into the consortium. 2. Must be respected by his colleagues, and able to get their ear when necessary. He must also be able to get tangible support from the administration, including adequate financial backing and reduction of his teaching load, to accomplish his mission. 3. Must work at understanding the consortium, be forceful in presenting his institution, its needs and interests, to the central office.56 In addition to the campus representative, ITV consortia usually attempt to involve faculty members from those departments which have 54David S. Hoopes, and others, A_Study gj_the Dynamics gf_1nter- Institutional Coo eration for International Education Development. Final Report ( 1 s urg niversityPennsylvania: Regional Council for International Education, 1971), p. 49. 551bid. 55Ibid., p. 161. case ir College sent at ulty p7 outline - (f3 COUt‘SES televis oeciall | ed is t lendin;| Studenel from tr. I tain pad . 1 those g shi. . | 40 courses being televised. Since faculties normally resist the use of television in instruction, successful consortia seek their advice, es- pecially in the planning, production, and execution of the courses. A case in point is the Southern California Consortium for Community College Television in the Los Angeles area, which seeks faculty involve- ment at the earliest stages of televised course development. The fac- ulty play a part in formation of the instructional objectives, course outlines, and course standards, as well as in overseeing the courses.57 Still another facet of ITV consortium organization to be consider- ed is the selection of one or more faculty members on each campus, de- pending on the number of televised courses being offered, to act as student contacts. These faculty members are selected, or volunteer, from the departments offering the televised courses. They usually main- tain publicized office hours during which students who are enrolled in those courses can either come in or call in for assistance. The instruc- tors often, also, administer mid-term and final examinations on campus, if they happen to be course requirements. Finally, membership in a consortium should be a consideration. Examination of it raises two pertinent questions: (1) What should be the minimum length of time of institutional membership? and (2) What type(s) of membership should be provided? There is no definite answer to be found to the first question. The usual minimum length of member- ship is one year, with other terms running to three years in some cases. The experience of the College Center of the Finger Lakes in New York 57Gross, "The Southern California Consortium," p. 17. fina'i ture Succe Ilon' VI 8W5 41 led it to conclude that a minimum of three years was necessary for a viable consortium. The longer the commitment by member institutions the more secure the base of the consortium, especially in the area of finances. As to the kind of membership to be chosen, three types, or levels, have been suggested. The first type which could be offered to member institutions is full membership, with access to all consortium programs. It would call for payment of dues, and would provide voting membership in the governing body of the consortium. A second level would be that of associate membership. This would be designed for non-degree granting institutions, such as hOSpitals, schools, libraries, etc., which desired to participate in a consortium. The third level, that of contractual relationships, would be designed for education, service, or other cor- porate entities contracting to, either receive or provide specific services.58 In the final analysis, however, it is not the organizational struc- ture of the ITV consortium that will be the most important factor in its success. It is rather, "the willingness of the participating institu- tion's administrations, faculties, and students to modify traditional views and methods to meet their needs through consortiums".59 Communication Whatever organizational form is adopted, whether simple or com- plex, gg_effective system gf_communication appears tg.bg_essential tg_ 53Patterns for Voluntary Cooperation, p. 13. 59Moore, Consortiums ig_American Higher Education, p. 20. syste the s: ity C catic both 42 ggccessful cooperation among institutions gj_higher education. Such a , system is needed to tie together members of the same institution and at the same time all member institutions of a consortium. As the complex- ity of consortium structure increases, the effectiveness of its communi- cation system must develop conmensurately. The lines of communication both within and between member institutions ought to be "clear and accessible", especially in the decision-making process.60 The failure of the central office, when one exists, to communicate with consortium members dissipates their capacity or inclination to serve as a force to expand the consortium.51 Several methods of communicating with member institutions have been used by consortia. The Finger Lakes consortium of New York used both the print and electronic media to maintain contact with its member colleges and to keep the organization in the public eye. A newsletter, a calendar of events, a scholarly journal, reports on various coopera- tive programs, and an annual summary report of activities were used. An electronic communication device which was employed by the consortium was the WATS line, a telephone system which linked the consortium's cen- tral office and member colleges to encourage students, faculty members, and administrative officers to have easy access to each other. Since the WATS line also had amplification capabilities, it was used as an instructional tool by giving two-way contact in the classroom between students and a guest lecturer located many miles away.62 6°Ioid., p. 21. 6lHoopes, The Dynamics gf_lnter-Institutional Cooperation, p. 64. 62Patterns for Voluntary Cooperation, p. 19. tion) . rain W‘ bicyc' by a 2, a PESU Da'tic encine‘ six c:' The FF 1“ COT. vi: anc' las S pr0:8: school: du:ts r develc: I to 91v= 43 The CO-TIE project (Cooperation via Televised Instruction in Educa- tion) joins five Junior colleges and one four-year institution in Colo~ rado with the College of Engineering of Colorado State University in a "bicycle"63 television network. The colleges are also bound together by a 24-hour-a-day telephone network and blackboard-by-wire system. As a result of the latter system, which allows immediate contact among participating schools, "an excellent rapport" was developed among the engineering faculty at Colorado State University and instructors at the six colleges. The two groups are now much better aware of common problems and are much more willing to hold group meetings at various convenient geographical locations to deal in great detail with current issues. Most important is the mutual confidence and respect developed by the COE-TIE participants and the lasting fglendships among displaced colleagues which have resulted. Still another project utilizing a telephone network is the COGEN project (Cooperative Graduate Education in Nursing), which joins eleven schools of nursing in California and Nevada. In addition, COGEN con- ducts periodic workshops to keep its members informed on consortium developments.65 It even encourages those in attendance at workshops to give feedback to the Project Director on the meaningfulness of the 63A bicycle network is one in which video tapes are physically transported to participating institutions via the mails, couriers, etc. 64L. M. Maxwell, w. Lord, and R. J. Churchill, "University Two Year Cooperation Through Direct Communication Linkages“ (paper pre- sented at the National Science Foundation Division of Undergraduate Education in Science. Combined UES Project Directors Meeting, Wash- ington, D.C., February 12, 1970), p. 7. 65COGEN Progress Report, Number Two, Reno, Nevada, August, l972, p. 4. (mimeographed.) U01 "dl W 1m 1m 54: air of Cd! ca‘ Lil S] U : Cr‘ 44 workshops. "Much of the success of COGEN", according to its literature, "depends upon effective communication."66 These three general means of communication, electronic, face-to- face, and written, have been used by consortia in attempts to keep mem- ber institutions informed, to break down communication barriers, and to keep the spirit of cooperation alive. Finances Perhaps the single most persistent problem which plagues consortia is that of money. Lack of adequate financial support was the top-rank- ing criticism of consortia as reported in a study by Moore.67 ITV consortia are especially vulnerable in this area because locally-produced programing which is well done is expensive. A figure of $40,000 has been suggested for an hour of high quality ITV programing, which puts it well out of the reach of virtually any single institution of higher education.68 Even the rental of packaged courses can be high. Per semester costs, figuring on the basis of 30 thirty-minute lessons, can run from several hundred dollars to several thousand dollars. Typi- cal college-level courses produced by Chicago's TV College and rented through the Great Plains National Instructional Television Library in Lincoln, Nebraska, cost from a minimum of $1,650.00 to a high of $1,800.00 per semester. Renewal for a succeeding semester would amount 66Undated COGEN mimeographed communication, p. 2. 67Moore, Consortiums jg_American Higher Education, p. 18. 68James R. DuMolin, Instructional Television Utilization in the_ United States (St. Louis, MIssouriE Washington University, 19717} p. 45 to an additional $1,100.59 These costs bring into sharp focus what is perhaps the basic rea- son institutions of higher education consort through television: to share costs. Johnson asserts that "the key to enhancing the instruc- tional effectiveness of television may lie in spending a relatively large amount of money on the preparation of good programing . . . .“70 Instructional television has tried using the televised classroom lectures and similar "shoestring" productions, but found them unimpressive in their impact. There seems to be no alternative except the comniting of relatively large amounts of funds in ITV consortia efforts. These funds, according to Paltridge, must be promised at the in- ception of a consortium and for a substantial period in its future. He says: To achieve any success, consortia must be sufficiently funded from their inception, with continuing resources for at least their basic minimum operating expenses.71 The way in which funds are committed to the long-range goals of a con- sortium, and the amount of those funds, will demonstrate "a measure of the strength and sincerity of the comnitment of the menber institu- tions".72 Those institutions which commit relatively small amounts of money as compared to other member colleges, would seem to be either harboring doubts about the viability of the consortium or its concept, 59Prices based on the 1972 catalog. 70Johnson, Cable Television and Higher Education, p. 15. 7‘Paltridge, Urban Higher Education Consortia, p. 56. 721bid. 46 or expressing their own lack of commitment to its goals. General insecurity in funding, and its accompanying uncertainty, results in a crippling effect. Aside from fostering the impression of weakness and indecisive- ness, financial instability makes it difficult to establish and maintain leadtimes necessary to generate maximum enrollments.73 The selection of courses, course materials, staff, and the advance pub- lication of schedules are all in jeopardy when funds are not in hand or when institution commitments are in doubt. Consortia funding sources are of two types: (1) internal, and (2) external. Internal funds are usually in the form of fees assessed on students in the form of tuition and enrollment fees, and fees assess- ed to member institutions to belong to the consortium. Both classes of fees can vary, depending upon the per unit costs of colleges and the arbitrary amounts charged by consortia. The Southern California Con- sortium for Community College Television, for instance, levies a fee of ' $3,000 upon new members.74 Institutions which are a part of The Assoc- iation for Graduate Education and Research of North Texas (TAGER) pay $2500 per hour per institution for programs aired, in addition to sys- tem maintenance and operating charges.75 In addition, internal funds may also arise from the sale of consortium publications and/or services. However, even though the combination of these fees, in given con- sortia, might seem to generate a large amount of revenue, outside 73Wilbur, "A Look At Televised Courses," p. 23. 74Gross, "The Southern California Consortium," p. 16. 75Schwenkmeyer and Goodman, PuttingCooperation tg_work, p. 8. funding so. port for co to guarante plenented 5 one or a co necessary t he form of vate funds I One c College Te]. Side the CO aSsesses or, "it“ Succes in fede‘,“ tP‘l'buted by tElevisiOn tr”We $5; the StatiOn RegarI Wave.» eXist \ 7 , 6171\t 47 funding sources will usually need to be sought. "Without external sup- port for cooperation few joint programs can be sufficiently well-planned to guarantee the expectation of success needed for a program to be im- plemented solely on institutional funds."76 Consortia, then, turn to one or a combination of the following sources for the additional funds necessary to carry on a quality program: (1) local district funds, in the form of grants; (4) private funds, in the form of grants; (4) pri- vate funds from industry and business in the form of gifts or grants. One consortium, the Southern California Consortium for Comnunity College Television, seeks most of its production funds from sources out- side the consortium since it receives no student registration fees and assesses only one-time fees to member institutions.77 It has turned, with success, to federal and private sources. Fifty thousand dollars in federal grants have been received. In addition, for each $2.00 con- tributed by the consortium to each course produced, three commercial television stations in the Los Angeles area, KABC, KNBC, AND KHJ, con- tribute $5.00. Conservative estimates put the total contributions by the stations for each program at $50,000 in services.78 Regardless of the amount of incoming revenue, however, it should be borne in mind that all of it will be spent. Surpluses will almost never exist. 751nter-Institutional Cooperative Arrangements, p. IV, 3—4. 77No California two-year conmunity colleges charge registration fees for any of their courses. 78Gross, "The Southern California Consortium," p. 17. 48 A Parkinsonian Law operates within all organizations, in- cluding colleges and universities. Program needs seem always to rise to the level of available resources, regard- less of whether these resources are financial or human.79 ITV Teachers Not all ITV consortia require the services of on-camera teachers. Those which choose, for reasons of economy, relevancy, etc., to lease, rent, or buy pre-taped ITV series automatically eliminate the necessity of hiring one or more persons to prepare and/or present materials via television. Those consortia, however, which elect to produce their own tele- vision tapes primarily or solely for local consumption are faced with two significant questions: (1) Upon what criteria should the teach- er(s) be selected? and (2) What compensation, if any, should be pro- vided in exchange for services rendered? with regard to the first question, there appears to be general consensus among ITV experts as to the importance of the on-camera role of the ITV teacher. The effectiveness of his or her presentation is regarded as one of the factors controlling the ultimate success or failure of ITV. There is also general agreement on the criteria for a successful ITV teacher. Gilliom's list of nine items encompasses nearly all of those mentioned by other writers. They are: 1. Self confidence. 2. Overall immunity to negative criticism. 3. Successful classroom experience in his or her subject area. 79Patterns for Voluntary_Cooperation, p. 6. 49 4. A willingness to learn new skills. 5. The ability to sense and to make use of the distinctive advantages of TV as a teaching medium. 6. The ability to work with others as a member of a team. 7. Possession of knowledge and contagious enthusiasm about the subject matter. 8. An excellent command of the English language and an interest in writing. 9. A general resonance of personality.80 Diamond adds to the foregoing list three other criteria, viz., the ability to communicate, well-organized work habits, and a sense of humor.81 The National Education Association, in its Policy for Tele- vision Teachers, emphasizes that television teachers should be chosen on the same basis of out- standing professional competence in a given area of instruc— tion, as well as on the basis of those special attributes and proficiencies which are required by the medium.82 In regard to the question of compensation for ITV teachers, there is a1mo»t unanimous agreement among experts that additional incentives should be offered to on—camera teachers over and above the compensation given to classroom teachers, if for no other reason than that the amount of preparation time for televised teaching has been found to be three 80Bonnie Gillion, "The Television Teacher," in Instructional Tele- vision: Bold New Venture, ed. by Richard C. Burke, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1971), pp. 58—62. 8lRobert A. Diamond, "The Television Teacher," in A Guide £Q_lflf structional Television, ed. by Robert A. Diamond (New York: McGraw-Hill Bock Company, 1964), p. 248. 82Donald F. Mikes, "Contract Practices for ITV Teachers," Audio- Visual Instruction 13 (December 1968): 1094. 50 to six times the amount required for conventional lectures.83 Five distinct approaches, or combinations thereof, have been, or are being used in instructional television. The first of these is the payment gf_additional salary over and above that given for classroom teaching, In speaking to the issue of compensation, the NEA has gone on record as recommending payment for additional services consistent with that of other teachers or faculty members on special assignment with en- larged areas of responsibility in other aspects of the educa- tional program.84 Siebert, too, has recommended additional compensation for those faculty members who appear on television. "It is recommended," he says, "that the teacher's contribution be recognized by appropriate (and in many cases) increased compensation for the time and talent necessary to pro- duce an acceptable educational program."85 It could be done, he sug- gests, in one of three possible ways: 1. Payment of an initial and a final sum of money. 2. An initial payment, or released time, plus a royalty or percentage of future revenues. 3. Royalty rights only with no initial payment.86 83Robert Dubin and R. Alan Hedley, The Medium May Be Related to the Message (Eugene, Oregon: Center for the Advanced Study of Educa- tional Administration, 1969), p. 52. 84Mikes, "Contract Practices for ITV Teachers," p. 1094. 85Fred S. Siebert, Copyrights, Clearances, and Rights of Teachers _g_the New Educational Media (Washington, D. C: Amer1can Counc11 on Education, 1964), p. 43. 861mm. 51 A second, and more often used method of rewarding the efforts of ITV teachers, is the provision gj_released time through reduced teach- ing loads. The Carnegie Commission on Higher Education noted: One of the heaviest investments needed immediately in the development of instructional technology is faculty time for development of teaching-learning materials.87 The Commission specifically mentioned released time for faculty members as one vehicle available to achieve the goal. Both the NEA and college faculties agree. The NEA suggests that faculties be given “adequate time" for preparing ITV programs,88 and in studies which have dealt with the issue of appropriate loads for ITV teachers, professors indicated overwhelmingly that they favored course load reduction rather than in- creased financial remuneration.8g A step beyond the provision of released time is the employment 9: full-time ITV teachers. From a number of perspectives, this is the most ideal arrangement. For example, it becomes possible to secure the ser— vices of the so-called “master teacher", one highly skilled in his own academic area and one of proven ability both in the medium of television and in the classroom. This individual can also devote his full work load to preparation of telelessons, a task which normally requires eight hours of work for each thirty minutes before the camera. 87The Fourth Revolution: Instructional Technology ifl_Higher Education, A Report and Recommendations by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, June, 1972 (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company), p. 66. 88Mikes, "Contract Practices for ITV Teachers," p. 1094. 89Dubin and Hedley, Ihe_Medium May_§e_Related tg_the Message, p. 52. 52 However, due to such factors as the expense involved in hiring such a specialist, and the problem of almost universal resistance to ITV by faculties, the hiring of a full-time ITV teacher is the least common practice to be found in ITV.90 A fourth approach, and one recommended by the NEA, calls for mak- ing available to the ITV teacher the assistance pf_g_supportingstaff.91 Such a staff often includes the services of a television director and crew, a graphics artist, photographer, and the research and secretarial help necessary to prepare lessons, lesson guides and class materials, to compose and grade examinations, and to, in general, carry on the multi- Kl— —_ a ple duties associated with the position of ITV teacher. Even if an ITV teacher is employed only on a part-time basis, a support staff, whether part or full-time ought to be available to enhance his or her efforts and to assist in the production of more effective telelessons. Finally, revision and reuse rights might pe_granted tp_creators pf_original ITV productions. Those rights could include: (1) the right to specify the life of the program or length of time within which it may be used; (2) the right to revise a part or all of a program or series of programs; and (3) the right to withdraw the program based on termination of employment, death, reassignment, or obsolescense.92 90$iebert, Cppyrights, Clearances, and Rights pf Teachers, p. 42. 91Mikes, "Contract Practices for ITV Teachers," p. 1094. 92Siebert, Copyrights, Clearances, and Rights pf_Teachers, p. 50. 53 Whatever arrangements are ultimately reached between on-camera teachers and their institutions, it is suggested that "the faculty should es- tablish and publish appropriate guiding policies and procedures."93 Registration and Promotion The method of student registration for televised courses presented by consortia in higher education is determined by the type of delivery system employed by a consortium. If a cooperative chooses to have the television signal broadcast closed-circuit to participating campuses via a 2500 megahertz system (Instructional Television Fixed Service), or a coaxial cable so that the signal is received only in designated class— rooms, there are no registration problems. The same is true, of course, if prepared programs are stored on video tape and shipped to individual campuses to be played in selected classrooms for the exclusive use of those students who have registered for the courses. A case in point is the CO-TIE project in Colorado, mentioned earlier. Video tapes are pro- duced at Colorado State University in Fort Collins and then delivered by parcel post or courier within 24 hours to the six other campuses using them.94 In a case such as this one, tuition paid by students re- mains with their own colleges.95 Registration problems do arise, however, when television courses are broadcast open-circuit over commercial channels, via public 93"Statement on Instructional Television," AAUP Bulletin 55 (June, 1969) 271-72. 94Lee Maxwell, "Cooperation Via Televised Instruction," Junior College Journal 41 (November 1970): 28. 951bid. 54 television, or by cable television. The television signal is then relatively unrestricted and often reaches several comnunities which could be served by a number of colleges. When a student registers for a television course offered through a consortium of colleges, which in— stitution shall receive his fees? If fees of member institutions vary, how will registration fees for televised courses be determined? Should students register through a central office or through the individual colleges? The simplest solution is for each student to pay the regular registration and tuition fees at his home institution or at the institu- tion through which he wishes to receive credit for the course. This procedure is being followed by a consortium of four community colleges in the Baltimore, Maryland area. Courses are broadcast over the local public broadcast station and students register in person or by mail at one of the four institutions. The student then receives credit through the institution at which he registered.96 Nhen registration takes place through a central source, fees can be placed in a central fund and distributed among member colleges ac- cording to the number of students who have indicated their desire to re- ceive credit through each of them. The success of the registration procedure, and in a measure of the organization, rests with measures taken to promote televised courses. "Enrollments are determined largely by the effectiveness of 96"September '71 Semester College Courses for Credit on Tele- vision," (Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Center for Public Broadcast- ing, 1971), p. l. 55 publicity", and "enrollments are a crucial factor in assessing and re- covering costs per student."97 Consortia, and other institutions which televise instructional programs, have explored a number of avenues of promotion. One of the often-used methods is the printing and distribution of brochures des- cribing courses being offered. In addition to course description, these brochures usually contain information telling the student on which tele- vision channels the program can be received, in the case of open-circuit broadcasting, and at what times of day. They may also include informa- tion describing the student/institution roles in a televised course, i.e., whether or not the student must come to campus for examinations, if campus instructors are available for assistance, etc., plus an enroll- ment form which the student may either send or take to the nearest con- sortium member or to the central office, if one exists. Brochures are often mailed to persons on a permanent mailing list, composed of those who have previously enrolled in televised courses. Those list can be, and have been, expanded to include persons in rest homes, jails, hospi- tals, convalescent homes, and fire stations.98 Consortia can also take other public relations steps, including releases to local news media describing new courses, and the production and distribution of radio and television spot announcements.99 97Wilbur, "A Look At Televised Courses,“ p. 23. 98Gross, "The Southern California Consortium," pp. 17, 20. 99TV Classroom. Report pf_the 1968-69 School Year (San Diego, California: San D1ego Conmunity College, 1969T, p. 8. 56 Various means of reaching potential students should be sought vigorously, and to the point of saturating local communities served by consortia. Academic Standards The question of academic standards was not one of those raised in any of the studies consulted. The conclusion is that it was not of sufficient importance to merit discussion among the other issues inher- ent in the ITV consortia question. The assumption is that it would be understood that academic standards for televised courses would be main- tained in the same fashion as for normal classroom instruction. Deliveny Systems One of the most important decisions to be reached by an ITV con- sortium pertains to the delivery system, or systems, it will use to dis- tribute its programs to course enrollees. Three significant criteria need to be kept in mind in reaching this decision: which system will (1) reach the largest number of prospective students (2) at varied times of the day (3) for the least amount of money. A consortium has one of several options open to it. One of them is open-circuit broadcasting via local corrmercial television channels. Cost is an advantage here because commercial stations, in order to meet the public service requirements of their station licenses, often are in a position to donate air time to educational institutions. However, while the air time is free, it often may not represent the choicest times of the broadcast day for reaching the widest possible audience and at a tine'when most people have a psychological "set" to learn. Public 57 service time for education is often clocked between the hours of 6:30 and 8:00 a.m. weekdays. Nonetheless, there are consortia which have been offered, and have accepted, these broadcast times. In fact, they see that time period as an advantage for their courses. The Southern California Consortium for Community College Television has found the hours from 6:30 to 7:30 a.m. "a good time because it is before people go to work".100 Many ITV consortia prefer more flexible schedules than those which are possible on most, if not all, commercial television stations. Some, such as the Community College of the Air in Baltimore, Maryland, have turned to public broadcast stations as an answer to the issue of schedul- ing. Without the pressures imposed by revenue and ratings, these tele- vision stations can usually offer an ITV consortium greater choice of air time within the broadcast day, even with options of broadcasting lessons in what are prime time periods on commercial channels. But, here, too, there are limitations, because even some public television stations are becoming more and more audience conscious, and may not, at tines, be able to offer access to those time periods most desired for the greatest amount of course exposure. Then, too, public television does not serve all of those communities presently served by institutions of higher education. An even more ideal arrangement would be, when possible, to combine all the virtues of both worlds, connercial and public, and utilize the facilities of both of the above-mentioned broadcasters in implementing 100Gross, "The Southern California Consortium," p. 17. 58 an ITV consortium. A third alternative is to establish an Instructional Television Fixed Service (ITFS) system for the express purpose of disseminating pro- grams. This would circumvent the problems inherent in depending upon either commercial and/or public broadcasters by opening up the entire broadcast day for first, second, and even third showings of lessons. “ At the same time, however, it would also create problems, not the least of which would be monetary. The average cost of establishing an ITFS system for a ten school, or campus complex, reaching 150 classrooms has been estimated at over $160,000.10] Over a period of ten years the cost, roughly estimated, would reach a quarter of a million dollars for main- tenance.102 In addition to engendering high costs, ITFS has another built-in disadvantage: its signal cannot be received on home television sets. Special down converters have to be installed to receive and translate its signal for the standard television set. Thus, the audi- ence is immediately restricted to classrooms or other designated viewing areas. Employing an ITFS system would be virtually self-defeating for an ITV consortium attempting to reach large segments of the population with college-level courses. A variation of the ITFS approach is closed-circuit television (CCTV), which depends upon microwave or coaxial cable to distribute its signal. There are two varieties of CCTV: (1) domestic and (2) commer- cial. The domestic systems are those set up by educational or other 10]George N. Gordon, Classroom Television: New Frontiers j__I_V_ (New'York: Hastings House Publishers, 1970), p. 64. 102mm. 59 institutions to tie together given locations, such as classrooms on a campus, or geographically separated campuses. While, like ITFS, cable operators can plan the broadcast day around no one's needs except their own, all of the costs are borne by the operators themselves. A much more ideal situation is represented by the commerical cable company, or CATV. Educators, in fact, envision CATV as an answer and an opportunity. Beckes says: Colleges may have to develop programs cooperatively to meet and cut expenses. There is no question that CATV systems will pro- vide most of the television of the future and offer opportunit for service which community colleges can ill afford to lose.)0 Johnson observes: In the past, television has had little impact on formal educa- tion. It has tended to be inflexible in use, it has not re- duced costs of instruction dramatically, it has suffered the disadvantages of being passive, it has faced a number of in- stitutional impediments, and its programing has frequently not been of satisfactory quality. With respect to cable television, however, there is reason for optimism.1 Nader says that the "deliberate use of cable would significantly assist the continual learning process for both educationally and economically limited adults and youth".105 The National Education Association has gone on record as favoring the use of CATV for educational purposes as "essential to preserve the public interest, to afford opportunities for educational innovation, and 103Isaac K. Beckes, "Vincennes University: Pioneer in Cable TV," Community and Junior College Journal 43 (November 1972): 11. 104Johnson, Cable Television and Higher Education, p. v. ' 105Shafeek Nader, "Cable TV and the Comnunity College," Comnunity and Junior College Journal 43 (November 1972): 9- 60 to encompass the learning needs of diverse society".106 It recommended to the Federal Communications Commission that "twenty per cent of any CATV system's capacity should be reserved for educational, instructional, civic and cultural applications".]07 The NEA has also recommended that the POD require two-way, both audio and video, capability in all CATV systems. The National Cable Television Association is on record as hav- ing a similar and supporting position.108 Finally, the Carnegie Commission lists CATV as one of the new on f“ __j———Tq technologies which holds the "greatest prospects in the longer run".109 .l'.o CATV offers advantages for ITV consortia not found in other types EFT—YT of delivery systems. First, it provides the possibility of a wider variety of programing reaching more varied audiences. Second, it can be confined, if necessary, within given geographical boundaries. Third, when necessary, it has the capability of reaching small audiences which are geographically dispersed. And last, it offers in the future the possibility of interactive systems.110 With CATV a reality, institutions of higher education should Negotiate agreements for joint operations that would (1) make possible what alone would be economically un- feasible, and (2) prevent unnecessary duplication of 106Schools and Cable Television (Washington, D.C.: Division of Technology, National Education Association, 1971), p. l. 107Schoo1s and Cable Television, p. 1. 108Ibid. , p. 5. 109The Fourth Revolution, p. 8. noSchools and Cable Television, pp. 35-36. 61 services to contiguous geographic areas.111 A last delivery system for ITV consortia, one which poses possi- bilities for the future, is the use of satellites. With the development of satellite conmunications, the scope, flexibility, and immediacy of cooperative in- struction can be increased. . . .A domestic satellite system could facilitate. . .a visual dialogue among colleges throughout the United States.112 Evaluation In order to enhance the effectiveness of ITV consortia, and to possibly lengthen their life span, two aspects of the program ought to be the subject of periodic evaluation: (1) the ITV consortium itself, and (2) the ITV series aired by the consortium. In evaluating both, the ITV consortium and the television series it airs, the objectives of each must be known. In the case of the con- sortium, ideally those goals will have been formulated (l) at the outset of the organization, and (2) in concert with each of the original co- operating institutions. As for the goals of the television series, they, too, (1) should have been formulated prior to production, in the case of locally-produced programs, or prior to airing, in the case of leased programs, and (2) formulated in concert with both administration and faculties of each cooperating institution. Not only should they be known, but consortium and course objectives should pe_measurable. Brown observes that lilNader, “Cable TV and the Community College," p. 9. ilzGumpert, "Inter-Institutional Exchange and Media," p. 279. 62 a major problem facing instructional television research. . . is the lack of clearly stated measurable objectives. Without them it is impossible to measure whether or not a particular approach is a success or failure.”3 When evaluation is an integral, and perhaps mandatory, part of con- sortium operation, only those objectives which are measurable at the outset will be considered. When the objectives are measured they will need, moreover, a ro- ppiate instruments p[_technigues tp_collect and evaluate the data. These could include, when evaluating the consortium organization, written eval- uations from the following personnel: administrators from each of the cooperating institutions; faculty members at each of the institutions represented in the consortium, especially those who participated in the consortium; the consortium staff; the ITV teachers; and other interested parties. In evaluating the television course, weekly and occasional reports from teachers, sampling surveys, correspondence from students, and eval- uation forms filled out by administrators, ITV personnel, and commercial television broadcasters and cablecasters would yield data from which an evaluation could arise.“4 Wisdom dictates, too, that evaluation pf_the data should pe_placed .ig.the_hands pf_ap_evaluation staff 9: person, preferably independent pj_ the consortium and its ITV staff. In this way a more objective picture 1‘3Roscoe C.Brown, "Evaluation of Instructional Television," in‘A Guide 39 Instructional Television, ed. by Robert A. Diamond (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1964): p. 166. 1MK.V. Bailey, "Evaluating School Radio and Television: Some Problems and Methods," Educational Broadcasting International 6 (March 1973): 22-27. 63 would more likely emerge. Finally, the evaluation should b a_cooperative process involvihg the television staff, the teaching staff, the administrative staff, and the evaluation staff. In short, all aspects of the consortium should have input into the evaluation of the organization and its end product, the television course. At a minimum, the evaluation inputs should in- ~..4. clude the administration of each cooperating institution, the consortium officer(s) and representatives, the ITV staff, and the participating faculty members from each institution represented in the consortium. In evaluating the television course in particular, input from students en- lltfi-u. 'u t 0-: .- -' .c.._- Ass-nun: rolled in the course would seem essential. Additional data could be sought from those persons who viewed courses but were not formally en- rolled in them, from faculty members who were not directly involved in either the teaching or monitoring of television courses, from adminis- trators who were directly involved in the consortium, and from the tele- vision broadcasters and cablecasters who aired or viewed the television series. Summary As was noted at the outset of this chapter, it is not possible, nor is it desirable, to design an ”ideal" ITV consortium model for high- er education. None exists, nor can exist, because no one model can be overlaid on all circumstances and be expected to "fit". An attempt has been made to arrive at general suggestions from the literature capable of selection and application to more than one set of needs and circum- stances confronted by ITV consortia. 64 What has been said in the previous pages can be summarized as follows: 1. The needs and goals which form the bases of an ITV consortium should be deeply felt, cooperatively arrived at, and long-range in nature. 2. Cooperation is essential to an effective ITV consortium and ought to exist in the initial planning stages and should involve every 1evel--administration, faculty, and students--in each institution. 3. While no one overall pattern of consortium organization can be recommended, optimal involvement of each member college should take place, and there should be a corresponding freedom from over—organization and bureaucracy. Those personnel who are selected to take part in a consortium's organization should demonstrate effective communication skills and enthusiasm toward their duties. 4. Varied and effective human and technological communications sys- tems need to exist from the outset. Their complexity will be directly related to the complexity of consortium organization: the more complex the organizational structure, the more complex the communication system. 5. A secure, long-range, and multi-input financial base will best meet the needs of well-planned, quality programing, efficiently distri- buted. 6. On-camera teachers, when employed, should be selected according to pre-determined criteria and should be given additional compensation, Inonetary or otherwise, beyond that given for normal classroom duties. 7. To encourage maximum registration in ITV courses, a wide variety of promotional methods ought to be employed, accompanied by procedures :i(-:.‘1‘ .;_ u. H’- 7- 65 which facilitate ease of registration. 8. The most desirable delivery system is one which combines the elements of low cost, flexible broadcast schedules, and mass distribu- tion. 9. Evaluations of both a consortium and its ITV productions can best take place when known and measurable objectives are evaluated by a heterogenous and independent staff. CHAPTER III THE CENTRAL VALLEY CONSORTIUM OF COMMUNITY COLLEGES: A CASE STUDY At the outset of the study 18 questions were formulated, the answers to which were to be sought via the study. Subsequently, how- ever, as the result of a search of the literature, 2 of the original 18 ‘Ti questions, those dealing with the academic standards of televised courses were eliminated from consideration. They proved to be of no signifi- cance because none of the instructional television studies consulted dealt with the issue, thus indicating its irrelevance in the actual workings of ITV consortia. The same search of the literature led to the formulation of 4 additional questions in the areas of needs and goals, cooperation, com- munication and promotion. Thus, the final number of questions upon which the study was based was 20. The reader will discover that the following three case studies, which are the subjects of Chapters III, IV and V, are divided into 10 subheadings. The distribution of the 20 questions throughout the sub- headings is accomplished in the following manner: I Background 1. With whom, and under what cir- cumstances did each consortium originate? 2. What methods of implementation were selected for each consor- tium? 66 II Needs and Goals III Cooperation IV Organization V Communication VI Finances VII ITV Teachers VIII Registration and Promotion IX Delivery Systems X Evaluation 67 ll. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. What were the originally deter- mined needs and goals? By what process were needs and goals determined? What methods were used to gain cooperation among participating institutions? Along what lines was each con- sortium organized? How was authority distributed within each consortium? How were decisions reached? What terms of membership were selected? What methods of communication were used among consortium mem- bers? What means of financing each consortium were chosen? How were course offerings deter- mined? From what courses were televised courses selected? How were television teachers selected and compensated? .PAJJ-.-Tc_w '1. -. w-i- 4." How did students enroll in tele— vised courses? ' How did students receive credit for televised courses? What means were devised to pro- mote televised courses to the public? What delivery system, or systems, were selected to make televised courses available to students? What method, or methods, of course evaluation were used? What method, or methods, of evaluation were selected to determine the success of each consortium? The reader will also note a difference of style between Chapter III, and Chapters IV and V. The difference rests in the fact that virtually no written records were available for the study of the first consortiums, the subject of Chapter III. Most of the data were drawn from personal 68 interviews with consortium personnel. The remaining two case studies, Chapters IV and V, were based both upon written records, including min- utes of Board meetings, an official study of one consortium, letters from instructors or record to students, course brochures and memoranda, as well as interviews with administrators and faculty. Background Five community colleges in the central San Joaquin Valley of Cali- fornia, serving major portions of a six county area, cooperated in the Spring of 1973 to air for credit a television course, Art History. Roots of the Central Valley Consortium of Community Colleges, as it came to be known, can be traced to two educators: Mr. Jack E. William- son, Vice President in charge of Instruction at Merced College, Merced, and Dr. Lincoln H. Hall, Dean of Instruction, College of the Sequoias, Visalia. Mr. Williamson reports that the idea of forming a consortium among area community colleges was discussed "informally and formally on some occasions" when two or three deans of instruction would get together and "get to talking about things that could be done".1 The consortium concept "inevitably came up" in these discussions, he reported. A more formal move toward cooperation came in 1966 in the form of a proposal for the activation of education channel 18 by Fresno State College, Fresno. Programing for the proposed station was to include: Course instruction in general education areas as a coop- erative venture between five jun1or colleges. Such ‘Interview with Mr. Jack E. Williamson, Vice President, Instruc- tion, Merced College, California, April 30, 1973. 69 classroom uses of television will be designed to upgrade instruction and to proyide a savings in personnel and in- structional materials. The written proposal for activating the educational television station includes a letter from Mr. John S. Hansen, Assistant Superintendent for Education, for the State Center Junior College District, stating the en- dorsement of six public junior colleges, five of which ultimately formed the Central Valley Consortium.3 Hopes were high, according to the deans, for the cooperative effort through channel 18. However, lack of funds prevented its activation and efforts of the colleges to cooperate lay dormant for five years. In 1971 Dr. Hall was in attendance at a conference held on the cam- pus of San Jose State College. It was designed to acquaint California community colleges with new state legislation dealing with Coordinated Instructional Systems (C15).4 The bill provides for reimbursement for community colleges of up to fifty per cent of costs incurred in C15 pro- grams. A coordinated instruction system is defined as one in which a variety of teaching methods, including the use of mechanical and electronic devices, self-instructional material and other similar teaching techniques, may be used to convey a particular area of knowledge or skills from the instructor to the students.5 2John P. Highlander, "A Proposal for the Activation of Educa- tional Television Channel 18 at Fresno State College," (Fresno, Cali- fornia: Fresno State College, 1966), p. 3. 3Ibid., p. 9. 4Known in California as the Fong Bill, after the bill's origina- tor, Assemblyman March K. Fong. 5California Administrative Code, Chapter IV, Article 1, Section 55301. 70 C15 programs, according to the bill, include television when used for instructional purposes. A second input which ultinetely led Dr. Hall to take initial ac- tion toward the formation of a consortium was a conversation at the aforementioned conference which he had with the acting dean of instruc- tion at American River College, Sacramento. Dr. Hall was told of the recent formation of a consortium of eight community colleges from Modesto in the south to Yuba City in the north. The consortium was broadcasting television courses for credit using services offered to it by Sacramento area commercial television stations. In August of the same year Dr. Hall wrote to the deans of instruc- tion at six other community colleges in the Central San Joaquin Valley: Fresno City College, Fresno; Merced College, Merced; Porterville College, Porterville; Reedley College, Reedley; Taft College, Taft; and West Hills College, Coalinga. Dr. Hall specifically selected the seven institu- tions, including College of the Sequoias, as potential consortium mem- bers because the signals of Fresno television stations, whose services he hoped to use, are received in the geographical areas from which the seven colleges draw their students.6 In his letter to his fellow ad- ministrators of the six colleges he called attention to the need which existed at his institution, and presumably at theirs also, to have in- structors "take greater advantage of the more modern technology, such as audio-tutorial methods, video tape, closed-circuit television, programed 6Interview with Dr. Lincoln H. Hall, Dean of Instruction, College of the Sequoias, Visalia, California, May 1, 1973. 71 materials, computer assisted instruction, etc.“7 One reason for the lethargic acceptance of some of the more modern technology by faculty, according to Dr. Hall, was that "they are not aware of the more recent developments and how they may be applied to our teaching situation".8 As one approach to the problem, Dr. Hall suggested the joining of forces "with other community colleges which face similar difficulties" in a consortium "to make possible a number of joint ventures. . . ."9 "Be- cause of their geographic proximity and common problems" it was suggested that the seven community colleges already named form the consortium. In it they "could find many advantages in such an association".10 A fall meeting was suggested to pursue the subject. On December 3, 1971 twenty-two representatives of Fresno State College and of all the community colleges originally contacted, with the exception of Taft College, met in Fresno. The purpose of the meeting was to hear Dr. Leslie Wilbur of the University of Southern California speak on the experiences of the Los Angeles Consortium, a cooperative ef- ford of twenty-two community colleges. The following spring a meeting was arranged between the college representatives and representatives of Fresno's three corrmercial tele— vision stations, KMJ-TV, Channel 24 (NBC), KFSN-TV, Channel 30 (CBS), 7From a letter by Dr. Lincoln H. Hall to Mr. Jack E. William- son, Vice President, Instruction, Merced College, Merced, California, August 16, 1971. 8mid ‘0 Ibid. 10mid. 72 and KJEO-TV, Channel 47 (ABC). The meeting was held in the office of Mr. John S. Hansen, Assistant Superintendent for Education, State Center Junior College District. Each of the three stations offered free air time to the Consortium. KFSN-TV, which has its own minority council and which is therefore sensitive to the needs of the large Mexican-American population of Central San Joaquin Valley, offered to pay rental fees on . a television series, "History of Mexico”, produced by the Los Angeles Consortium. However, since the series is tied up in litigation and is, therefore, unavailable, KFSN's offer could not be accepted. KJEO-TV i ‘07.: -. ultimately failed to follow up its offer of free time thus leaving only KMJ-TV to air the proposed course. Its offer, however, was particularly attractive to the consortium because it carried with it the promise of free publicity in The Fresno Bee, the city's largest daily newspaper. The Bee_owns KMJ-TV and is read in all of the districts represented by the Consortium. Each member of the Consortium, with one vote per member, was polled for a decision. Votes, as expected, were cast in favor of accepting the offer of KMJ-TV. A decision was also reached by the group that its first televised course would be "Art History", produced by Pasadena City College and one of several courses available for lease through the Los Angeles consortium. Having already discarded the idea of producing its own course, due to the substantial investments of time and money associated with quality local productions, the educators investigated a number of televised courses available in Los Angeles. “Art History" was decided upon because: (1) the course was immediately available, (2) the price was reasonable 73 and was consistent with the amount the Consortium had in mind to pay for a semester, (3) the texts, course syllabi, and course examinations were available, and (4) members of the Consortium had previously previewed individual lessons in the series and were favorably impressed with them. When ultimately the first lesson of "Art History" was televised on February 7, 1973 the Consortium then consisted of five community col- F leges. Taft College had withdrawn because of its proximity to Bakers- field and university facilities there, and Porterville College dr0pped out because it was unable to pay its portion of the projected Consortium expenses. t_flx In Needs and Goals In his initial correspondence to the deans of instruction at the other six community colleges, Dr. Hall articulated five goals which could be met, he felt, by a consortium in the Central Valley. They were: (1) acquaint faculties with modern technology for education; (2) develop courses for presentation on commercial television; (3) conduct coopera- tive research projects; (4) conduct programs for the disadvantaged; and (5) apply for State and Federal funds.H He also left the way open for the formulation of additional goals by the Consortium. Accompanying this correspondence was a mimeographed sheet listing nine advantages of TV courses. They, too, constituted possible goals, as Dr. Hall saw them. They were: 1. The ability to serve people of our districts who would be unable to attend college. Barriers created by dis- tance, travel time and expense, feelings of inadequacy, nIoid. 74 etc., can be lowered. 2. May encourage those enrolling to take advantage of ad- ditional services provided by the college in the future. 3. Provide campus students an opportunity to obtain classes they are unable to take due to scheduling conflicts or closed classes. 4. Provides an opportunity for participating staff to im- prove their professional skills. 5. Some areas can be presented better and more completely by means of television. Provides a concentrated focus of attention. Each student can see clearly and a nearly one-to-one basis can be achieved for demonstrations. Cameras can go to locations classes can not and at re- duced costs. A consortium would provide a pool of expert instruc- tional staff not available on any single campus. Districts may take advantage of local resource people for many students while inconveniencing them only once. Video teaching offers a positive public relations image in the supporting community. Lessons can be repeated as frequently as desired through closed circuit or individual playback on the local campus.12 scoouos Dr. Hall said that for years he had had the feeling that somehow his institution had to "break the bounds" that were limiting it with re- spect to classroom space. When new courses were offered it became diffi- cult, he reported, to locate classroom space on campus. Then, too, since the College of the Sequoias district covers many hundreds of square miles many of those persons who would like to enroll for college courses are hindered because of distance from the campus. He also saw the need to reach housewives, retired people, businessmen, and others who desired to take college courses but were unable or unwilling to take evening courses or to come at all to the campus. Television, he felt, could fill these needs. 12Lincoln H. Hall, "Proposed Southern San Joaquin Valley TV Con- sortium" (Mimeographed.) 75 An undergirding goal, which Dr. Hall expressed in his correspond- ence to fellow deans of instruction, was the general purpose for which colleges often cooperate, viz., the need to pool resources. He said: What I had in mind, and I speak for myself alone, was the face that, operating individually, because of enrollment limitations and also financial stringencies, few of us could accomplish very much. The only other Consortium representative who was able to articulate consortium goals was Mr. Williamson of Merced College. He pointed to the Fong Bill as lending impetus to a consortium, and, associated with it, the move toward developing coordinated instructional systems.14 Dr. Arthur Evans, Associate Dean of Instruction at West Hills Col- lege in Coalinga, stated that the goals of the Consortium were never stated. However, West Hills itself did have a "pragmatic" goal, he stated, which was to become a part of the greater effort to offer a tele- vised course. Since it is a part of that geographical area served by Fresno commercial television stations, it seemed only "logical" to be- come a part of the group offering the course.' "It was the sign of the times; it was the direction things were going."15 Since other colleges were offering televised courses, Dr. Evans felt West Hills should, too. The Dean of Instruction at Reedley College, Mr. Norman Zech, holds the same view of the Consortium goals as that stated by his colleague Dr. Evans. "We never set down any goals or purposes in writing to be 13Interview with Dr. Lincoln H. Hall. 14Interview with Mr. Jack Williamson. 15Interview with Dr. Art Evans, Associate Dean of Instruction, West Hills College, Coalinga, California, May 1, 1973. 76 framed and hung on the wall,"16 he said. Dr. Hall had asked the college representatives if they thought a consortium should be tried in the Val- ley to reach a segment of the population then untouched by them, he re- called. They agreed it should be attempted. Although he is not personally an advocate of formalized goals, he says, Mr. Zech was able to enunciate those which he felt Reedley College could fulfill in participating in the Consortium. The College, he said, sought to offer a service for adults in the community who had not had occasion to come on campus; who might be challenged to be stimulated by something culturally that they could take via television. Our initial thrust at this college was just to participate in some- thing that seemed wgrthwhile from a cultural standpoint as a commun1ty serv1ce. Although offering of televised courses was not the sole purpose for which the Consortium was conceived, and may not have been the domi- nant one, each of the institutions stated separately, and in concert, that their main motive was to offer another service to the communities they serve. At the same time each dean of instruction was sensitive to the need of maintaining a healthy on-campus enrollment and avoiding any innovation which poses a threat to the average daily attendance (ADA), upon which each college's reimbursement from the State is based. None felt that at present the concept of televised courses poses any real threat to on—campus courses. Early in the planning stages of the Con- sortium, Dr. Hall had tried to allay whatever fears were present among the cooperating colleges by pointing to the record of the Los Angeles 16Interview with Mr. Norman Zech, Dean of Instruction, Reedley College, Reedley, California, April 27, 1973. l7Ioid. 77 consortium. The facts reportedly showed that there were no dr0ps in the enrollments of on-campus courses despite enrollments of several thousand students in televised courses. Although none of the deans interviewed could then demonstrate any downward trend in the enrollment of Art classes on his campus as a re- sult of the "Art History" series offered through the Consortium, at 9. least one dean was quick to predict the demise of the cooperative effort should such a trend be detected. '-t§,_' u .“‘.l‘l Cooperation (an-"i“ . Since the Central Valley Consortium brings together community col- leges from four separate districts, and since there is in the State of California no legislation making cooperation among community colleges mandatory, the cooperation achieved among the five participating col- leges was voluntary. Of the seven institutions originally invited to cooperate, those which accepted evidently did so because of the merits they believed were present in the pr0posed organization. No evidence of coercion, overt or covert, was discovered. In the early stages of planning there was brief involvement of the presidents of two of the institutions, Reedley College and Fresno City College, the only two institutions representing the same junior college district. Thereafter, the planning and execution of the Consortium was handled by the deans of instruction. There seem to have been no attempts to involve directly the president of each of the cooperating institutions. With but one exception, the cooperation between the institutions appeared to be excellent. Mr. Zech expressed what appeared to be the 78 concensus of the administrators involved when he said the c00peration among the colleges was "great.“18 "I think" he said, "on this par- ticular project" that the attitude of all the participating schools "was real wholesome and healthy and willing to cooperate."19 The exception referred to was noted by Dr. Evans of West Hills. He cited the existence, at one point, of "some internal conflict" be- tween Reedley College and Fresno City College, both of which represent the same district. The problem, according to Dr. Evans, was one of "in- ternal politics."20 He implied that the District Office ought to med- iate the dispute between the two institutions. lumm Efforts to involve the Art faculties of the five institutions in the planning process for the televised course were minimal. Of the five instructors of record selected to work with the course, only one, Mr. Jerry Livesay of West Hills College, previewed lessons. The other four said they had not been asked to do so. Mr. Williamson, in defense of the administrators, said there had not been sufficient time to in- vite each instructor to preview the video tapes prior to selection of the television series. Mr. Weinschenk, however, admitted, at least for his part, that the selection of the course was done "backwards."21 His staff, he said, should have been consulted before the course was selected, not afterwards. Instead, it was selected by the deans of 20Interview with Dr. Arthur Evans. 2iInterview with Dean Franz Weinschenk. 79 instruction. Subsequently instructors of record were selected on each campus and told that a decision had been made. Dean Weinschenk went on to say: The process should be that we consult with faculties first and find interest there, and assuage their concerns about ITV, then go ahead, rather than going at these decisions administra- tively and then tell faculties to go along with them. . . .That was a mistake we made.22 Faculty resistance to ITV was discovered at Fresno City College. As related by Mr. Walter Witt, Art instructor and instructor of record for the televised course, the opposition came first from the faculty senate.23 Although the Art Department, according to Mr. Witt, saw no threat to on-campus enrollments prior to the senate statement, they sub- sequently came to have opposite views to those they originally held. Among the five instructors of record, four separate occasions to cooperate were provided, all of which took the form of televised pro— grams and which were to be aired as a part of the televised series. Each time they assembled in Fresno at the atudios of KMJ-TV. Twice they met prior to the commencement of the course to tape previews of the tele- lessons for the viewing audience. These programs were also designed to give the at-home students an opportunity to ”meet“ their instructors. A third opportunity to work together came when the group again met at KMJ-TV to tape a review program which was to be aired just prior to the mid-term examination. Each instructor was to have had five minutes to discuss a specific area of art history, but, evidently because of 22Ibid. 23Interview with Mr. Walter Witt, Instructor, Art Department, Fresno City College, Fresno, California, April 24, 1973. 80 insufficient communication, one instructor was not informed of the limit- ed role each was supposed to play and consequently took fifteen minutes of the thirty allowed for the entire production. The program had to be scrapped. The last opportunity was offered to the instructors of record in a review program for the final examination. Organization The Central Valley Consortium of Community Colleges is a de facto "A ‘nrnl‘ a: but not a de jure body. To date, it has no joint powers agreement, by- laws, or other documents of incorporation. Dr. Evans described it as: $.2— just a half dozen individuals who know each other well on a first name basis, who believe and trust in each other and who are willing to share this and be open and not sandbag.24 At this time the colleges have "organized", according to their spokesmen, to do just one thing: air television programs for credit. One administrator referred to it as "our little endeavor." The organization of the Consortium is equally as informal as its agreement to cooperate. It functions without a formally appointed direc- tor, although it does in fact possess one. Virtually all of the func- tions of an executive have been assumed, perhaps of necessity, by Dr. Hall. It is he who calls together the group and it is he who, more than any single individual, has held the group together. All of his colleagues have looked to him for leadership of the Consortium. He takes responsi- bility for calling meetings of the institutional representatives to act on Consortium business, which includes deciding upon future ITV courses, evaluating television broadcast times, scheduling examinations, 24Interview with Dr. Arthur Evans. 81 collaborating on the design of course brochures, and evaluating the con- sortium. Dr. Hall has, by admission, been willing to take on this burden above and beyond his normal load. As of the fall semester 1973, Dr. Hall has been relieved of a portion of his past duties as Dean of In- struction in order that he can devote time to directing the Consortium. The attitude of the other deans toward Dr. Hall is perhaps best expressed by Dean Weinschenk who attributed Dr. Hall's leadership role to the fact that "we all like the guy."25 A lesser, but nonetheless important, role, perhaps comparable to that of co-director, is played by Dean Weinschenk himself. Because of Fresno City College's proximity to KMJ-TV, and due to its experience in producing and airing a television course, Dr. Weinschenk is looked to by his colleagues for help in Consortium business. Below the levels of Consortium director and co-director, unofficial as they are, are the deans of instruction of the five colleges, plus Mr. John S. Hansen, Assistant Superintendent for Education, State Center Junior College District. Dr. Hall and Dean Weinschenk play dual roles, those of director and co-director, respectively, and members of what might be called the Consortium council. In the council each dean of instruction has equal voice and vote in Consortium business. Each is given authority to represent his own institution in the Consortium. The lowest level of Consortium organization is comprised of the instructors of record from each of the five participating colleges. Their role is mandatory under the CIS organization. It specifies that: 25Interview with Dean Franz Weinschenk. 82 (l) a CIS program must be under the supervision of a district employee who holds a certificate qualifying him to teach the subject matter being presented through the CIS; (2) "the instructor shall have the primary re- sponsibility for preparing, having prepared or organizing the instruc- tional material, supervising other staff involved, and evaluating and grading the students using the CIS;" (3) students using the CIS program have "access to the CIS instructor equal to or greater than that common- ly available in the other instructional methods."26 Each instructor of record is required by his institution to monitor the course, which means rising at 6:30 a.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday each week during the senester. West Hills College taped the lessons on video cassettes each day they were broadcast and made them available to students for viewing on campus each Friday. In addition, each instructor of record makes him- self available to answer questions regarding the televised course. Students may either telephone him, usually on campus, or see him during publicized office hours. The remainder of their duties are taken up with proctoring two scheduled examinations, correcting and grading the examinations, and determining final grades for each student enrolled in the televised course. Even though the five instructors of record cooperated on four separate occasions to produce special preview and review programs, no formal organization or leadership appears to have emerged in the group. Institutional membership in the Consortium was originally deter- mined by invitation, and by reception of the signal of Fresno comnercial 26California Administrative Code, Chapter IV, Article 3, sections 55332 and 55333.5. 83 television stations. Each community college within the reception area was invited to participate. The invitations were issued by Dr. Hall. Since the Consortium has no formal organization, there is no specified term of institutional membership. Colleges are at liberty either to join or withdraw at will. Those which do join enjoy voting rights and access to services on an equal basis with all other participating in- stitutions. Communication The system developed by the Consortium to communicate with in- stitutional representatives took three forms: (1) written communications, (2) telephone calls, and (3) face-to-face meetings. The written communications, of which there were a minimum, origi- nated almost entirely from the office of Dr. Hall, in keeping with his role as unofficial executive director. The usual approach was for him to write a letter of Consortium business to each dean of instruction. Other letters were sent to Mr. Ralph Moody of the Extension Division, Fresno State College, and to Mr. William Davidson, Program Director, KMJ-TV, Fresno. Dr. Hall also sent a mimeographed sheet to each dean of instruction listing the advantages of televised courses and giving the steps to be followed in establishing a consortium in the central valley of California. The last type of written communication was to supply each institutional representative with a copy of the proceedings of a meeting of the Consortium. This was done just once, in the fall of 1971 when Dr. Leslie Wilbur, a special consultant from the Los Angeles consortium, was in attendance. Minutes of meetings, unfortunately, were "5 84 not kept. An even more frequent kind of communication used, according to Dr. Hall, was the telephone. He found it more convenient simply to pick up the telephone and call his fellow deans than to direct correspondence to each of them and to wait for answers from them. The cost of calls is reimbursable from the State under the CIS program. The third method of horizontal communication utilized in the Con- sortium council was the face-to-face meeting. The meetings were irregu- lar and were called, generally by Dr. Hall, when there was pressing busi- ness to be transacted. They were generally held in Fresno, in the of- fices of the State Center Community College District, the most central geographical location for all the colleges. Vertical communication, from administrator to instructor of record, was accomplished by the same three methods already described. They took the forms of discussions between each instructor and his dean, telephone calls between the two individuals, and the sending of course syllabi, examinations, and other course materials. In at least one instance an instructor received most of the communication relative to the course, not from his own dean, but from Dean Weinschenk at Fresno City College. Three of the five instructors of record reported communication problems. These problems arose from insufficient information reaching them, generally from their deans. One instructor characterized adminis- trators as "hard-headed businessmen" and said the lack of communication between faculty and administration is "legendary." This same instructor was a member of the majority of instructors of record from the five col- leges who did not preview the telelessons before selection of a course 85 was made. Two other instructors said there “is definitely a breakdown in communication" from their perspectives. They reported that communi- cation between them and the acting director was encouraged but that im- portant information relative to the course, such as copies of examina- tions, arrived at the last minute, thus hindering them from adequately preparing their students for the tests. 4 As for horizontal communication among the instructors of record, it was minimal. It was limited to a few video taping sessions which took place in the studios of KMJ-TV in Fresno and to brief correspondence leading up to the sessions. It was one of these sessions, a review in particular, which lead to a communication breakdown. Each instructor had allotted a ten-minute portion of the sixty-minute review program but, for some reason not explained, one of the instructors took more than twice his portion of the time period. The result was that the review program was scrapped and ill feelings were directed toward the offending instruc- tor. There was, however, communication between the instructors of record and their students. It was facilitated by the publication of the 'telephone numbers of each instructor in the brochure each student receiv- ted prior to registration. Consequently, the instructors received a num- ber of telephone calls from students who were taking the course. Students alsso visited the offices of the instructors to ask questions regarding Course content, grades, etc. One instructor reported that approximately 25% of students taking the course through his institution came to his Office during the semester to discuss some aspect of the course. This was; typical of student response on each of the campuses and represented, 86 according to the instructors, a greater response than shown in on-campus courses. At least three of the instructors made a practice of communicating with the television students by means of letters informing them of the time and place of examinations, the scope and type of examinations, the availability of text books, the availability of video tapes, and other in- formation equally as important to the students. Finances One of the original proposals made to prospective Consortium mem- bers by Dr. Hall was the rental of television courses. It was no doubt apparent to him, and certainly must have been confirmed by the later meeting with Dr. Wilbur, that production of its own television series would prove to be prohibitive for the Consortium. Consequently, arrange- ments were made with the Los Angeles consortium to rent its course, "Art History." The agreed rental price of $3,300 was to be shared equally by the five participating colleges. In addition, each institution was also to bear the remaining costs of advertising, salaries for its secre- tarial help and instructor of record, mailings, and miscellaneous costs incurred. Fifty per cent of the total costs of CIS programs, as pre- viously mentioned, are recoverable under the Fong Bill. Fresno City College's proposed budget for the television course, with the exception of its administrative costs, is typical of those list- ed by each of the five colleges. The administrative costs were those in- curred, according to Dean Weinschenk, by administrators such as the Registrar and himself in the activities connected with arranging for 87 Fresno City College's participation in the televised course. They also included his time and expenses in attending conferences pertinent to instructional television, previewing video taped lessons, preparing pro- posals for televised courses, supervising the instructor of record on his campus, monitoring examinations, etc. The budget was as follows: Direct Costs: Salary of the instructor (Class V, Step 4, Salary Schedule C-3 units) 650 Advertising costs Art work 50 Printing 399_ 350 Mailing 150 Rental fee of video tape 650 Indirect Costs: Administrative costs for preparation of the class 2000 Classified salaries 750 Miscellaneous (includes operation of plant, maintenance, fixed charges) 150 Grand Total $4700 50% of Grand Total 27 (maximum allowance $2350 Each college originally estimated its total costs at $2,000, one half of which they can recover from the State, as stipulated in the CIS program. Normally, some of the colleges in the Consortium assess fees for adult education courses, the normal classification of the television course, but because Fresno City College does not charge tuition for any of its courses, all the participating institutions agreed to waive their 27Franz Weinschenk, "A Proposal for a Television Class in Art 25--Art History, 3 Units," p. 5. (Mimeographed.) 88 normal fees. The only costs to students who enrolled in the televised course.were those incurred in purchasing the text book and syllabus, and in driving to campus, or other designated sites, to take mid-term and final examinations. ITV Teachers Since the Consortium leased its televised course from another con— sortium it did not require the services of local ITV teachers. Selection and compensation of on-camera teachers were, therefore, made with the originating institution. Registration and Promotion As specified in the Consortium brochure, registration for the tele- vised course was open to all adults, high school graduates, and, under certain conditions to be determined by the colleges, to high school seniors. Those persons interested in registering for the course could do so by either sending in a registration form attached to the brochure or going directly to the college in their districts. Four of the five cooperating colleges were able to use forms which, when filled in by the prospective student, constituted complete registration for the course. Fresno City College, however, was not able to secure permission from its IRegistrar to abbreviate its normal registration form. Its brochure, 'therefore, included a form on which a person expressed interest in en- rolling in the Art History course. When the form had been forwarded to therCollege the person received by return mail a lengthy registration fornn'to be completed and returned to the Registrar. Dean Weinschenk re- POrrted that of the initial 400 persons who expressed interest in the -——L ' r 89 course by filling out and returning the initial form to Fresno City Col- lege, only 300 actually registered for the course. He attributed the drop-off to the lengthy form used at his institution.28 Since each interested person was directed to register with the col- lege in his district, there was not the problem of cross-registration, and, since registration fees were not charged, there was not the problem of distributing fees among the participating institutions. The televised course carried 3 semester units credit, and was iden- tified by a different course number at each institution. Approximately 850 persons initially enrolled in the course through the five colleges. To promote the course, a number of different methods were utilized: radio, television, newspapers, and printed brochures. KMJ-TV sent a camera crew to the campus of each participating college to shoot approxi- mately five minutes of 16mm film on each campus. The film was used as a part of three half-hour television programs which were aired prior to the first lecture of the ”Art History" series. They were designed to acquaint the communities both with their colleges and with those instruc- tors who would be monitoring the television course. In addition, twenty public service announcements and three one- minute news stories appeared on KMJ-TV. Newspaper coverage in The Fresno Bee, which owns KMJ-TV, was pro- vided in the form of ten two-column by ten inch advertisements which appeared beginning January 17, two weeks prior to the beginning of the COUY‘SE. 28Interview with Franz Weinschenk. 90 All coverage of the course on KMJ-TV, including the three half- hour promotion programs, and in The Fresno Bee were without charge to the Consortium.29 Public service announcements and news items also appeared on radio stations and in newspapers in Merced, Visalia, and Coalinga. Materials were prepared in some instances by the colleges and in other instances by the local stations. By comparison, the intensity of the coverage was less because The Fresno Bee and KMJ-TV are received in the areas served by each college. A In addition, several thousand brochures were printed and distribu- ted to the public. These were distributed to several groups, such as public school teachers, on-campus college students, evening college stu- dents, etc. The brochure included: (1) an outline of the course, by topics; (2) qualifications of the lecturer; (3) a brief course descrip- tion; (4) a brief description of the Consortium; (5) the times of day, days of the week, and channel for receiving the course; (6) registration instructions and form; (7) text book purchase information; (8) examina- tion dates and times; and (9) names and telephone numbers of instructors of record on each campus. Last, the course was publicized by word of mouth. In some cases news of the availability of the course was spread during the regular registration periods for on-campus courses. 29Interview with Mr. William Davidson, Program Director, KMJ-TV, Channel 24, Fresno, California, May 1, 1973. 91 Delivery,$ystems In order to get the course to the prospective students it was de- cided from the beginning to approach the commercial television stations serving the Fresno area to determine which ones would be willing to co- operate. This action was dictated by at least four factors: (1) the successful experience of the Los Angeles Consortium in using commercial television stations; (2) the belief that free air time would be avail- able on Fresno stations; (3) the nonexistence of a public television station serving the Central San Juaquin Valley; and (4) the unavail- ability of a cable television system or systems, reaching the students of all five colleges in the Consortium. KMJ-TV, Channel 24, was chosen. The time available for airing the course was 6:30 to 7:00 a.m., Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Forty-four half-hour sessions were scheduled comnencing Wednesday, February 7 and ending Friday, May 25. In the beginning of the Consortium it was suggested that video tape copies of the lessons be made for on-campus closed-circuit broadcasting. The closest this came to being accomplished was at West Hills College where the instructor of record arose each morning the course was tele- vised, went to campus and recorded the lessons using the College's video cassette machine. The tapes were made available each Friday in the Col- lege library for students who either missed them or wanted to review them. Both deans of instruction and instructors expressed interest in the eventual benefits cable television can bring to television courses. Dr. Evans noted that in sparsely populated districts, such as that served by West Hills College, cable television appears to offer unique possibilities 92 for instruction. Although a cable company now serves his area, Or. Evans indicated that the cost of renting television courses would be prohibi- tive for West Hills College itself.30 Evaluation No formal evaluatior of the Consortium was planned by the member institutions. An informal evaluation of the group's efforts, however, did take place in the summer of 1972, prior to the broadcast of the first television course. At that time a meeting of the deans of instruction was held during which each institutional representative was invited to express his reactions to the cooperative effort to date. Dr. Hall re- ported that to the best of his knowledge there was a consensus of the deans in favor of continuing the organization.31 Evaluation of the television course was left to the discretion of each institution in the Consortium. Four of the five colleges conduct- ed evaluations. In each case, the evaluation was based upon two sources of data: (1) the reactions of students enrolled in the course as tab- ulated through a written questionnaire, and (2) the reactions of the col- lege administration, and the dean of instruction in particular. The written evaluations were submitted to the State as part of the CIS program requirements, and included the following information: (1) a brief description of the television course, (2) an identification of the producing institution, (3) the title of the television consortium through which the course was offered, (4) an identification of the —— 30Interview with Dr. Arthur Evans. 3iInterview with Dr. Lincoln Hall. 93 commercial television station which carried the course, (5) a descrip- tion of promotional efforts on behalf of the course, (6) a notation of enrollment figures, (7) the mid-term and final examination arrangements, and (8) a summary of student responses to the television course. No explanation was given by the one college concerning its deci- sion not to evaluate the course even though participation in the CIS program requires an evaluation. Appraisal The strength of the Central Valley Community College Consortium can be traced primarily to the voluntary leadership of Dr. Lincoln Hall, and to the willingness of his fellow deans to accept him in the capacity and to cooperate with each other. Dr. Hall adopted, according to one of his colleagues, a "second mile" philosophy32 and this was sufficient to virtually sustain the workings of the group. His approach to the direc- torship was best expressed when he said: The work that has been done so far by me has been done on my time, and if it has cut into my work here at the college, I just have to make that up on my own time. There is a certain job that must be done here and I do that. And, if I don't do it here as a result of involvement in Consortium activities, I take it home and do it at night.33 What may be the Consortium's main weakness lies also in the iden- tified strength of Dr. Hall's leadership. His fellow deans relied too heeavily upon his leadership role to the end that decisions were danger- ansly delayed to the detriment of all involved, including both ‘ 32A biblical expression indicating going beyond what is asked or expected of an individual. 33Interview with Dr. Lincoln Hall. 94 administrators and students. A case in point was the determination of a television course for the 1973 fall semester. No decision was reached until after the close of the 1973 spring semester which meant that dead- lines had passed at each of the five participating institutions prevent- ing the course from being announced in the fall schedules. This in turn meant that complete promotion of the course was not possible and there- fore student enrollment would be adversely affected. The reason for the delay was apparent: Dr. Hall, because of the press of his regular duties, failed to call together the other deans. Since the mantel of leadership rested upon him, and since it is apparent that none of his fellow deans wished to assume the leadership of the Con- sortium, no leadership was exercised when it was most needed. Although the leadership problem is temporarily "solved" in the re- leased time arrangement made through Dr. Hall's institution, the "solu- tion" can be viewed, at best, as being only temporary and partial. First, there is no indication that he will be given released time beyond the academic year 1973-1974. There is certainly a question as to how long one institution of the five participating in the Consortium will bear an unequal share of the load. How long can it be expected to finance that portion of Dr. Hall's time which is given in service to the Con- sortium? It will almost certainly soon call upon the other four col- leges to commit their deans in similar fashions. What, then, will be the fate of the consortium, and ultimately the educational needs of those hundreds of students who responded by enrolling in the television course, if leadership of the group is left to a rotational basis? Not one of the remaining deans indicated any willingness to direct the Consortium. 95 It is apparent that a long-term solution to the leadership problem must be sought if the Consortium is to maintain the most efficient ser- vice to the community. The goals of the Consortium, likewise, need attention. First, those goals were not arrived at by consensus. It is little wonder, there- fore, that individual Consortium members were unable, for the most part, to articulate them. Second, since the goals are mainly community service oriented, they do not appear to be high-priority in nature and will like- ly be dropped when difficulties in meeting them interpose. Since the spring semester ended without a decision having been made to offer anoth- er televised class in the fall, partial fault can be found in the weak commitment of the Consortium to its own goals. Even though over 850 per- sons enrolled initially in the course, this enrollment was not interpreted, in the words of one dean, as a "mandate" from the public for continued courses via television. Television does not appear, from discussions with the deans of in- struction, to be part of the long-range goals of the colleges in the Con- sortium. It was stressed that the organization was formed to, in the long run, achieve other cooperative goals. In such a climate, instruc— tional television can be very easily lost sight of as a goal of cooper- ation. As for communications and c00peration, they have been effective among the deans of instruction in achieving a climate of affirmative action. Praise for mutual efforts and for the efforts of the director were everywhere evident at this level. 95 Vertical communication and cooperation from deans and the Consortium director to instructors of record, however, did not elicit comparably positive conments from the instructors of record. As was previously in- dicated, three of the five instructors reported communication problems with their deans and the Consortium director. Those problems centered around the following: (1) failure to include the faculty in the process r of previewing and selecting televised courses; (2) failure of the college administrations to allay the fears of faculties regarding the possible impact of televised courses on campus enrollments; (3) failure of some "n' ‘fl'. - deans to approach sufficiently in advance the persons they had selected ,! o.‘ to serve as instructors of record; and (4) failure of the Consortium di- rector and some deans to put examination materials in the hands of in- structors of record far enough in advance of the examination dates. Horizontal communication among the instructors of record is like- wise open to repair. Infrequent meetings to plan television review sessions and lack of formal leadership led to ineffectual communication among the five instructors of record. Students in the televised course were deprived of one entire review session due to poor communication a- mong the five instructors. In the area of finances an irony exists. At the present rate of expenditure, with renting television courses and having no paid director, the colleges can admittedly continue to cooperate without great finan— cial burden to any one institution. However, if a full-time director is hired--the need for which may increase--the colleges indicate they would then be compelled to withdraw for lack of financial resources. The most needed item thus becomes the least affordable. 97 In the areas of course registration and promotion the Consortium demonstrated little need for improvement. Virtually all of the normally used methods of advertising a course were employed. The success of the promotional efforts can be measured in the significant first-time enroll- ment figures of 850 students. Those figures might be further enhanced if Fresno City College is able to convince the office of the Registrar at its institution to ab— breviate its registration form. A loss of one-fourth of those persons originally expressing interest in the course would appear to be attri- butable to the cumbersome registration form being used. Finally, the availability of only a single television outlet, i.e., commercial television, in the geographic area served by the Consortium has placed a restriction on the number of persons who can be served by the cooperating colleges. Not only has course exposure been limited to comnercial television stations, but only one of the four most powerful stations in the area has carried the series, and then at an early morn- ing hour when it could not or would not be viewed by all those who might otherwise tune in. Solutions to the above-mentioned problems lie in: (l) the hiring of a full-time Consortium director and at least a minimal support staff; (2) cooperative examination of the most pressing educational needs of the cooperating colleges which can be best served by application of ITV, and cooperative definition of Consortium and ITV program goals; (3) fun- damental involvement of faculty members in the decision-making process of the Consortium especially as concerns its ITV courses; (4) earnest development of more open and consistent communication between college 98 deans and/or Consortium representatives and the instructors of record on their campuses; (5) the unification of instructors of record into a sin- gle organization with both appointed leadership and recognized lines of communication; (6) the securing of an additional financial base beyond CIS to perhaps include the sale of course materials and the assessing of course fees; and (7) the ultimate expansion of television coverage to in- clude public television and cable television outlets when, and if, they become available within the geographic area served by the Consortium. The efforts of the Central Valley Consortium of Community Colleges to air a televised course have amply demonstrated both the need for and acceptance of instructional television in their respective districts. The citizens of the districts have responded affirmatively to the offer of instruction by television. The ultimate decision as to the future of the Consortium now rests with those in positions of responsibility at each of the five participating institutions, and most specifically with the deans of instruction. CHAPTER IV TELEVISION CONSORTIUM OF VALLEY COLLEGES: A CASE STUDY Background On May 25, 1971 administrators from colleges in the Central Joaquin Valley, ranging from Marysville in the north to Modesto in the south, met in Sacramento, the center of the geographical area. At the meeting the superintendents of the community college districts which were represented authorized the formal development of an organization which had had its in- formal beginning in 1969. In that year, seven community colleges planned and produced an ETV series, "Campus Discovery", which was aired on KCRA— TV, one of Sacramento's commercial television stations. Following the cooperative venture it was "noted that the same group could produce in- structional television courses for TV for credit and all colleges could benefit from this, via exchange of credits, etc."] The group ultimately gave rise to the Television Consortium of Valley Colleges. At the earliest meetings of the Consortium, representatives from the community colleges and one four-year institution were present. The community colleges were: Columbia Junior College, Yosemite Junior Col- lege, Sacramento City College, Butte College, Cosumnes River College, Modesto Junior College, Sierra College, and San Joaquin Delta College.2 lMinutes of the Television Consortium of Valley Colleges, June 17, 1971, p. 2. 2Minutes of the Television Consortium of Valley Colleges, May 25, 1971, p. l. 99 100 Sacramento State College was the only four year institution represented at the meeting. Later meetings were attended by representatives of Yuba College, the University of California at Davis, Napa College, and tele- vision stations KVIE and KCRA. By the time the Consortium aired its first course the number of colleges had been pared to seven. Almost immediately the organization began drawing upon the expert- ise of the largest and most successful conmunity college consortium in the state, the Los Angeles consortium. One of the first directives given the Consortium was to rewrite the Joint Powers Agreement drawn up by the Los Angeles group. In addition, it was suggested that Dr. Leslie Wilbur, coordinator of the Los Angeles organization, be considered as an informal consultant to the new group.3 Secondly, the Consortium began looking to Mr. Robert Wyman, whom the group almost immediately elected as its president. Cosumnes River College, where he serves as Associate Dean of Instruction, had led in the production of telecourses. In 1971 and 1972 it presented two courses in the Los Rios Community College District which drew total enrollments of 1,089.4 Thus, the new group which he headed was able to draw upon his experience with successful telecourses. Third, the Consortium was backed by the additional television ex- periences of two of its other member colleges, Modesto Junior College and San Joaquin Delta Community College. Modesto had produced a course 3Minutes, October 14, 1971, p. 1. 4John C. Crabbe, Master Plan for Television Consortium pf Valley Colleges, Report to the Television Consortium of Valley Colleges, Sacramento, California, June 22, 1972, p. 11. 101 in Business Management, while Delta had aired California History. For over a year the Consortium met on the average of every month and a half, including the summer months of 1971 and 1972, resolving mat- ters of organization, finances, etc. After video tapes of courses pro- duced at other colleges were viewed, legal and financial factors connect- ed with renting courses were considered, a call was issued in June 1972 to the participating colleges. It was suggested that they submit any proposals they might have for producing programs for use by the Consor- tium. When the group reconvened in September, only one proposal had come in. Not surprisingly, given its previous record of producing telecourses. Cosumnes River College declared it was ready to produce a course for the Spring semester, 1973. It would consist of forty-five half-hour presen- tations in Humanities I. The proposed budget was $16,900. By the November meeting of the Consortium the course was in pro- duction, and in January it was announced to the group that the video taping would be complete within two weeks following the beginning of the course. In February of 1973 the first lesson in the series, "Classical Humanities", was aired to six cities in the Central San Joaquin Valley. At that time the Consortium consisted of seven active members: American River College, Consumnes River College and Sacramento City College, all located in Sacramento; and Butte Junior College, Durham; Modesto Junior College, Modesto; Sierra College, Rocklin; and Yuba College, Marysville. 102 Needs and Goals The goals of the Consortium, which appear in the Master Plan, seem to have been arrived at in concert by the cooperating colleges.5 They are as follows: 1. 10. 11. To serve people of our districts who never come to college. Distance, travel time and expense, feelings of inadequacy, etc., can be eliminated. To add another dimension to traditional teaching by making use of a medium that has demonstrated its capacity to cap- ture the imagination, to challenge the viewer, and to move people to action. To offer an opportunity for inservice improvement of pro- fessional skills for participating staff. To reduce redundancy in on-campus teaching so that faculty can be relieved of routine and duplication of effort and thereby be freed to give greater time and attention to more Specialized efforts. To improve the quality of teaching by exposing the best of teaching skills to other teachers. To provide a pool of expert instructional staff not avail- able on any one campus. To take advantage of local resource personnel for many classes, while inconveniencing them only once. To provide lessons that may be repeated as frequently as desired through closed circuit or individual playback on the local campus. To offer courses which are presently impossible due to limited enrollment. To relieve the increasing pressure on the educational facility by dispersing the center of the learning ex- perience throughout the community. To provide a greater number and variety of opportunities for students to take courses they might not otherwise be able to take because of limitations imposed by class 5The goals are not listed in the minutes of the Consortium meetings. 103 schedules and maximum unit loads on campus. 12. To present material in courses developed from outside resources not normally available to the colleges in the area. 13. To upgrade the understandings and skills of the com- munity by presenting vocational courses addressed to area needs. 14. To discover new techniques in the use of television in teaching. 15. To provide a laboratory for pre-vocational training on campuses where such course work is being offered. 16. To perform community services that become available to all members of the community in their own homes.6 There was no evidence of any additional goals held by the colleges either separately or collectively. Cooperation As is the case with all college level consortia in California to- day, the cooperation displayed among the institutions composing the Tele- vision Consortium of Valley Colleges was entirely voluntary. The volun- tary nature of the organization made it possible for colleges both to join and to withdraw at will. From the outset of the Consortium, attempts were made —- and those successfully -— to involve the highest administrative levels of the com- munity college districts. At the initial meeting of the Consortium, superintendents of the five Community College Districts were present. In addition, presidents of several of the colleges were periodically in— volved in Consortium planning. The president of each consorting 6Crabbe, Master Plan, pp. 14-16. 104 institution was also asked to suggest the names of candidates for the position of Television Consortium Coordinator. The Chancellor's office in Sacramento became involved in Consor- tium business when it was asked by President Wyman to work with him in adapting the Joint Powers Agreement from the Los Angeles Consortium to the focus of the Valley Consortium. The burden of Consortium business, however, lay in general with the deans of instruction of the participating institutions. With but one ex- ception, they were the appointed representatives to the Consortium, hav- ing received their appointments from the president of each college. Only one member college sent a non-instructional officer as a representa- tive. Problems were said to have arisen in this instance because the re- presentative, following the Consortium meetings, had to communicate in turn with his dean of instruction, and communication was delayed or in- efficient. As yet the Joint Powers Agreement has not been signed, thus forc- ing the deans to function as a council with one vote each in Consortium business. Cooperation among these administrators, according to all evidence available, has been generally good. The Consortium President praised the level of "mutual trust" achieved within the Consortium. In general, his estimate was supported by his fellow deans. Six of the seven inter- viewed, including the President, had positive comments to offer regard- ing cooperation at their level. The only adverse reaction, interesting- ly, came from‘within the Los Rios District. It is worthy of note that it is: (l) the only multi-college district in the Consortium, (2) the 105 location of the Consortium President, (3) the location of the only con- sorting college actively doing television production for the Consortium, (4) the only district which has not signed the Joint Powers Agreement and which, therefore, is hindering the Consortium from becoming a legal entity. Indications are that resistance to signing the document exists at the highest levels within the Los Rios District. The source of the criticism was one of the deans of instruction within the district. The dean said the problems within the district cen- ter around the location of television production facilities. The dis- tance between the campuses causes an "inconvenience", the dean said, mak- ing it difficult for the other two colleges in the district to "work out their problems" in producing courses. The dean also felt that the loca- tion of production facilities has led to possessive feelings toward the equipment by the college on the campus of which it is housed. As for input of faculty members into the television course, only one instructor had a part in its planning and production. He was one of the three on-camera instructors, a faculty member at Cosumnes River Col- 1ege, the producing institution. The remaining six instructors of re- cord did not share in either development or execution, although the pro- ducing college reportedly had drawn up plans to involve faculty members from other colleges. Its call for assistance was not answered affirma- tively by the consorting schools. However, none of the instructors of record interviewed was among those who were asked to participate. Whether the basis of faculty nonparticipation lay in failure to ask or failure to respond, one dean of instruction may have summarized the feel- ings of his fellow deans and their faculties when he said that he felt a T-Al i. l —‘___ I.‘ 106 that Cosumnes River College would have gone on with the course by itself if necessary. It is not surprising, too, that no cooperation existed among the instructors of record as a group. Neither periodic nor regular meetings were scheduled for discussion of problems, exchange of views, reactions to the course, etc., although the teachers expressed a desire to meet. The deans had discussed an annual workshop to promote a feeling of fac- ulty involvement and to update the faculty on the current direction of the Consortium. To date, no workshOp has been conducted. Interviews with the instructors of record brought to light reti— cence to participate as the student on-campus contacts for the television course. One dean spoke of having to "coerce" a faculty member into tak- ing the position. It may not be coincidental that his institution had next to the lowest enrollment for the course among the seven participat- ing institutions. In fact, the three lowest enrollment figures for the course were recorded in the three colleges which manifested cooperation problems. Another of the three colleges has a distinct comnunication breakdown between its dean and its intended instructor of record, re- sulting in the latter's adamant refusal to function in the capacity of campus student contact. He rechanneled all student contacts to the dean's office. In the third institution in question, both the dean and the instructor of record displayed general apathy toward the course as seen in lack of course promotion and of initiation of student contacts. In a fourth college, where the dean of instruction was enthusiastic about the course, the instructor of record reported that his initial feeling toward the course, upon being asked to participate, was that of 107 reluctance, followed by enthusiasm, followed later by apathy and even disappointment. He reported avoiding his dean when the latter feeling, prompted by disappointment with aspects of the course, developed. Only two of the seven instructors of record could be classified as coopera- tive or very cooperative. It is interesting to note, too, that the deans of instruction "l often felt their communication with their campus representatives was better than the representatives themselves reported it to be. Three deans freely admitted or implied communication difficulties with the appointed faculty members on their respective campuses, ranging from ‘a complete breakdowns to difficulties in conmuni cation. Only one instruc- tor of record was enthusiastic about conmunication with his campus supe- rior in the telecourse. Organization Like its neighbor to the south, the Central Valley Consortium of Community Colleges, the Television Consortium of Valley Colleges is not yet a legal entity. Presumably, however, it is closer to the goal than its southern neighbor since it has gone to the length of drawing up a formal Joint Powers Agreement which lacks the signatures of three col- leges. In the absence of a legal agreement, and preparatory to it, the Consortium has functioned, as one dean put it, as an "alliance" of col- leges. At its second meeting the eight community colleges than in attend- ance nominated and elected a President, Vice-President, and Secretary- Treasurer. Later, the position of Treasurer was set apart from that of L LUV-34.1 ' 108 the Secretary, and the Business Manager of one of the colleges, in accord- ance with the Joint Powers Agreement, was named to the position. The three elected officers of the Consortium serve as the Executive Committee, which meets periodically apart from regular Consortium meetings. Special committees were also appointed by the President when particular needs arose. At the first meeting of the Consortium, even before the organiza- tion had selected its officers, consideration was given to the employ- ment of a part-time Coordinator who would be hired on a consultative basis. A job description was drawn up and sent out to the Consortium members. Applicants were screened by the Executive Committee and pre- sented to the Board of Directors. Ultimately Mr. John C. Crabbe was hired and served for a period of five months. His function was to han- dle interdistrict agreements, refine the Joint Powers Agreement, estab- lish plans for sharing materials and future television programs, write proposals for more money, and find sources of other funds.7 His find- ings were recorded in the Consortium's Master Plan. Also in the Master Plan, provision was made for an Auditor, one of only two positions specified in the document. He is to be "the auditor or controller of the same member of the Consortium as the Treasurer".8 His duties are to: (1) provide strict accountability of all funds re- ceived and disbursed, (2) pay demands against the Consortium, and (3) employ a certified public accountant or public accountant to make an 7Minutes, June 17, 1971. 3Joint Powers Agreement, Article 12. m 109 annual audit of the accounts and records of the Consortium.9 The general body of the Consortium, called the Board of Directors, is composed of one official representative from "each of the signatory districts or colleges".10 It functions to establish policy and procedures concerning all activities and endeavors of the consortium including but not limited to the following: curriculum development, selection of staff, collection and disbursement of funds, programming and production.ll Its authority extends to: (1) appointing officers or employees of the Consortium, (2) employing other individuals or organizations, (3) receiv- ing and disbursing funds, (4) making capital expenditures, (5) adopting by-laws and regulations for the government of the Consortium and trans— action of its business, and (6) amending the Joint Powers Agreement, subject to the approval of the Governoring Boards of the participating districts or colleges.12 The Board must meet at least six times a year as specified in the Joint Powers Agreement.13 At its meetings each member college is allot- ted one vote, and a quorum is constituted by a majority of the member colleges. Membership in the Consortium is open to community and junior col- leges who are willing to execute 9191p , Subsections a-c. lolpig,, Article 4. lip-92. £15- lzlpig,, Article 5, Subsections a-e. 13Ibid., Article 8. 110 an agreement with the Board of Directors whereby said district agrees to comply with the terms hereof and to pay the fee prescribed or subsequently set by the Board of Directors....14 It is also open, on an Associate Member basis, to colleges and univer- sities. Although they are ”eligible to participate in Consortium activities subject to any rules or regulations which may be established by the Board of Directors",15 they are granted no voting privileges. In addition, they are charged a fee equal to usage cost plus an amount which in the best estimate of the Board of Directors will cover an appropriate portion of the development costs as amortized over the useful life of the Consortium production.l5 ‘Wffit‘j 17:23 ififl Although two four-year institutions did attend Consortium meetings, only one, Sacramento State College, joined on the Associate Member basis. The University of California, Davis, was represented at three meetings but did not join the Consortium. Members may withdraw from the Consortium by sending written notice of intention to the Board of Directors on or before August of any year. Any funds contributed to the Consortium by the college or district will not be returned except in the event of the dissolution of the Consortium. However, a withdrawing member may still continue using Consortium program- ing by the payment of a nominal fee "to cover costs of maintaining, storing and distributing and using the programs."17 The right to use l41bid., Article 19. l5Ibid., Article 20. 151-29. 2112.. l71bid., Article 14. 111 the programs terminates when they are no longer made available to the Consortium itself. In the event the Consortium dissolves, surplus funds, if any, are returned to members and former members in proportion to their contribu- tions. Other property or assets of the Consortium shall be disposed of in a manner to be determined by the Board. The lowest level of Consortium organization is occupied by the in- structor of record. His role, as mentioned in Chapter III, is called for and regulated by CIS legislation and is, therefore, consistent on a state-wide basis. In the case of this Consortium, each was selected from the Humanities Department, or the closest existing department, of his institution by the dean of instruction, or some other administrator. If and when the Joint Powers Agreement is signed, the organization of the Consortium will have been formalized. Up to that time it will continue to function as a cooperative effort of institutions which wish to have a part in getting instructional television programs to the citi- zens of their districts. For the 1973-1974 academic year five additional community colleges joined the Consortium, bringing membership to a total of twelve. Communication A three-fold method of communication was utilized in the Consortium. This consists of: (1) written correspondence and printed materials, (2) telephone calls, and (3) scheduled meetings. The written correspondence was most prolific at the Board of Direc- tors level, consisting mainly of the minutes of Board meetings. Copies 112 of the minutes were distributed to Board members but there is no evidence they were made available to the instructors of record or to other faculty members. Numerous letters were sent from the Secretary of the Consortium to Board members and to the Presidents of the member colleges. At the out- set of the Consortium, in particular, the Presidents were called upon to aid in the selection of personnel for the organization and were kept in- formed of Consortium business, such as the amount of participation fees being charged each school. Letters were also sent to those persons who registered for the course providing such information as time of the tele- vision lectures, identity of the instructors of record, and dates of examinations. A flow of printed materials also came from the Consortium office including copies of course syllabi, brochures to be distributed by each school, c0pies of the course examinations, and copies of the Joint Powers Agreement sent out for comments and revision. Equally as numerous were the face-to-face meetings held by the Board of Directors. They were normally held at Cosumnes River College, the home institution of the Consortium head, and came from one to eleven weeks apart. During the two years of its existence, the Board met a total of twenty-one times, or an average of ten and one-half times per year. Although the meetings lasted from one to two hours each, one dean conmented that they did not last long enough. Another complained that they were not scheduled far enough in advance. The direction of the bulk of the communication was from the Presi- dent to his fellow deans. A portion of it, as already indicated, also 113 went vertically from the Consortium to superintendents and college presi- dents. Relatively little that originated with the Board or the Presi- dent flowed directly to instructors of record on the seven campuses. Apparently it was intended that they receive the mainstay of their in- formation through their respective deans. The third method of communication at the Board level was the use of the telephone. Mr. Wyman, the Consortium President, indicated that due to the reasonably small number of schools presently in the Consortium it was relatively simple for him to pick up the telephone and communicate with the individual deans. However, as the number of member schools in- creases, as it is hoped will occur, telephone communication may decrease. A fourth avenue utilized was the telelesson. Each began and ended with the telephone numbers of the participating colleges. Students were urged via the announcements to call the local campus to be put in con- tact with the persons appointed to assist them in the course, viz., the instructors of record. The telephone numbers of instructors of record were not provided on the air. At the local level, instructors of record kept in touch with the Consortium office, their deans, and students enrolled in the television course using the same methods employed at the Board level. Of particu- lar interest are the on-campus meetings conducted by the instructors of record with students enrolled in the course. These meetings served several functions: (1) to enable faculty to meet students and vice versa, (2) to answer students' questions regarding course content, examinations, requirements, etc., and (3) to administer examinations. The meetings were held from two to four times during the semester and were conducted 114 on but two of the seven campuses. Another communication device was the instructor-to-student letter. Only one instructor of record composed and sent such a letter. It was extensive and contained, in order, the following information: (1) the days of the week, time of day, and television channel on which the pro- grams could be seen, (2) telephone numbers, both office and home, and times of day during which he could be contacted, (3) the text book titles, authors, and purchase information, (4) availability of alternative read- ing materials, (5) course requirements, (6) types of tests from which the student could choose, (7) dates, times, and places of examinations, (8) due dates and mailing address for course projects, (9) grading ra- tionale, and (10) explanation of extra credit procedures. At least two other colleges did send letters to enrollees but none contained as extensive information as that contained in the above-men- tioned'one. Most of the instructors did have contact with their students by telephone, however, even though their office telephone numbers were not furnished to students initially. Students, in most cases, were able to secure those numbers after first contacting the college. One instruc- tor, the same one who sent out the letter mentioned above, furnished his students with his home telephone in the belief that a portion of those viewing the course at 6 o'clock in the morning had daytime jobs and needed, therefore, to reach the instructor after the work day and after his normal office hours. He was the only instructor who provided stu- dents both his home telephone number and alternative hours during which to reach him. 115 Contact between the instructors of record and the Board of Direc- tors was severely limited. Only one meeting between the two groups took place in the two years during which the Consortium has existed. Finances Financing of the Consortium during the 1972-1973 academic year can be looked at from two perspectives: (1) sources of funding employed by the Consortium, and (2) sources of funding to which it gave considera- tion and for which it hoped. Since it was proposed at the first meeting of the Consortium that the colleges produce their own television courses and not lease one, the group was forced to adopt a financial base that would yield substantial yearly revenue, given the comparatively high costs associated with pro- ducing original television programing. With reimbursement from the State promised through the C.I.S. legislation, the Consortium decided to assess each member institution on the basis of its Average Daily Attendance (ADA), which is equivalent to the Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) formula used by the State Colleges in California. Initially a figure of 38¢ per ADA was decided upon by the Consortium but later raised to 43¢ per ADA in order to raise the minimum amount of money projected for production of the course. With a minimum enrollment of 800 students, approximately $20,000 was necessary for the 1972-1973 academic year. The estimated cost of producing the course was $16,900. In order to reach the goal, the Master Plan had projected the "break even" enrollments, based on 1970-1971 State aid per ADA and one three-unite course, to be as follows: Butte College, 50, Sierra College, 40, Yosemite College 103, Yuba College, 116 54, San Joaquin-Delta College, 115, Los Rios Conmunity College District (American River College, Sacramento City College, and Cosumnes River College), 241. Although the number of colleges participating dropped to seven, the total course enrollment surpassed by 129 the minimum number needed. Discussion took place as to the possibility of producing the tele- courses using the facilities of commercial television stations, but two factors led the Consortium away from that course of action. First, pro— duction costs would be significantly higher: an estimated $24,500- $30,SOO per course as compared to $18,500 to produce the same forty-five half-hour programs using the facilities of one of the colleges. Second, the policies of the stations prevent programs produced in their studios from being distributed to other television stations. Consideration is presently being given to renting courses from other community college consortia, both in and out of the State. Here, too, the costs are substantial, as illustrated here. Source Course Cost Miami-Dade District Man and Environment $20,000 Los Angeles Consortium Law of the 70's 13,200 Los Angeles Consortium Fundamentals of Art 1,600 A second funding source used by the Consortium was the assessment of a stipulated fee. This was done just once when the organization voted to hire a part-time Coordinator. Each college contributed $500 for a total of $4,500.18 18As of January, 1972, there were nine colleges in the Consortium. 117 Still another source of revenue developed by the group was the sale of course syllabi. Students were charged one dollar per copy, and sale was promoted via the telelessons. It was hoped that sufficient funds could be raised to defray the purchase price of 2" broadcast video tapes used in the airing of the lessons over commercial television chan- nels. Because not all enrollees purchased syllabi, the Consortium fail- r~ ed to raise the funds necessary to purchase the video tapes. Additional means of securing funds were explored during the period in which the Consortium course was in production. Hopes had been pinned on the passage of Assembly Bill 2118 which was to have provided some this; _ $200,000 for the promotion of instructional television. Passage of the bill would have brought approximately $25,000 to the Consortium treasury. The bill was vetoed by Governor Ronald Reagan in 1972. At one point it seemed to the colleges that they could qualify for Community Service funds in their local districts since many residents were watching the lessons without registering for the course but benefit- ing nonetheless. Later, it was concluded that the funds were not appli- cable toward C.I.S. cost reimbursement. On three occasions the possibility of securing federal monies was considered despite the fact that the Master Plan had warned that "inves- tigations of the possibility of obtaining" those funds “for organizations of this sort have not been too fruitful".19 A possible future source of revenue for the Consortium is the leas- ing of telecourses which it produces. To that end the following 19Master Plan, p. 38. 118 statement was unanimously agreed upon by the Consortium: The Consortium reserves the rights of all telecourses unto itself in perpetuity and grants member institutions of the Consortium the right to redistribute the courses on public television, on-campus closed circuit, or community CATV during the same period of time it is being originally broadcast.20 While the statement permits the consorting colleges to rebroadcast programs, it also establishes ownership of them. The cost of renting . w its first television program to outside agencies has been set, as of 1973, at $75.00 per lesson, or $3,375. for the series of forty-five half- hour lessons. ‘ ITV Teachers The Classical Humanities course produced by the Consortium was the result of the efforts of three instructors at Cosumnes River College, two in the Humanities division, one of whom is the division chairman, and an instructor from the Music department. The bulk of the course was pro- duced by the Humanities instructor. It was almost natural that he be given the primary responsibility for the course since its television version was an adaptation of a successful classroom course he had taught. Of the forty-five thirty-minute lessons in the series, he produced thirty-two. Three were produced by the Music instructor, leaving ten which were done by the division chairman. Selection of the main course instructor was made on two criteria already alluded to: (1) successful classroom teaching based on class en- rollments of an on-campus course, and (2) previous on-camera experience 20Minutes, September 14, 1972, p. 2. 119 in a televised course produced by Cosumnes River College. Virtually every administrator and instructor of record interviewed had praise for this instructor's on-camera work. Their compliments arose from lessons they had viewed and from frequent positive student feedback. The other two instructors were selected because of their expertise in selected areas and to help lighten the load of the main course instructor. Selection of the instructors was made by the dean of instruction at Cosumnes River College based on the factors already enumerated plus those of availability and willingness. It should be noted, however, that the Humanities division is composed of only two persons, and the Music instructor was the only member of his department who was willing to cooperate in the production of the course. Although the main instructor had received remuneration for a pre- vious telecourse produced by his institution, none was provided for the Consortium course even though it was produced through his college. He was not able to explain the difference in policies. The decision of the Consortium not to pay the instructors runs contrary to earlier discus- sions by the Board. In two separate meetings in which released time, salary, residual rights, etc., were discussed "in depth" it was agreed that the ITV teacher would be an employee for the duration of the project. It is presumed, despite the notation that “this situation will remain flexible in order to satisfy the needs of each individual project",21 that the on-camera instructors were to have been paid for their work. Zlninutes, June 29, 1972, p. 1. F——— 120 Released time was granted to the instructor who produced the bulk of the telelessons, but he felt that the amount of released time was in- adequate. He was relieved of one on-campus course but felt that in view of the fact that he acted in the dual capacity of on-camera teacher and instructor of record, even more released time should have been granted. He indicated that his District is reluctant to cooperate in this area. No released time, moreover, was granted to the other two instructors for the course. These practices were at variance with the recommendations given by the Consortium Coordinator. The Master Plan states that an ITV teacher should be given either a summer assignment or its equivalent, or one-half released time during the semester for course preparation?2 Residual and revision rights of television teachers were also the subjects of discussion at least once at the Board level. A "strong point" was made relative to these areas. However, when the Master Plan was drawn up, it made this recommendation: Telecourse instructors will convey all rights to courses to the Consortium and no residual ri hts as such for re- use of the courses will be granted.2 However, it does take cognizance of the need to update televised courses periodically and suggests that the instructor be given the first oppor- tunity to do so. The instructors for the Classical Humanities were not granted these rights. 22Master Plan, p. 32. 231oid., p. 31. 121 Registration and Promotion The Valley Consortium, like the Central Valley c00perative dis- cussed in Chapter III, broadcast its course open-circuit over comnercial television stations and cable systems. Although, as noted in Chapter II, courses reaching the public in this manner may pose registration problems, especially with cross-registration, no such problems were encountered. .. Students, if they desired, could register for credit through a college not located in their district. This was accomplished by an agreement by the colleges to regard the entire area served by the Consortium as a "free territory". Students were permitted to enroll in the television [WA ‘ fl course without having to obtain the interdistrict permits normally nec- essary to take courses outside of one's district. Registration, which was open to all college age and adult persons, was accomplished by mail or in person at the local college. If a student chose to register by mail, he removed a printed portion of the Consortium brochure and mailed it to the Registrar of the college through which he desired credit. The Registrar, in turn, forwarded to him the necessary registration forms for enrollment in the course. Fees were charged only to adults, those 21 years and older, in accordance with the normal handling of extension classes. They were de- termined by the individual colleges and ranged from a low of $1.00 to a maximum of $15.00 for the credit course. Each college retained the money it collected. Initial enrollment as of May 15, 1973, totalled 929. A break-down for the seven colleges was as follows: American River College, 89; Butte College, 214; Cosumnes River College, 161; Modesto Junior College, 122 191; Sacramento City College, 168; Sierra College, 41; and Yuba College, 65. Generally, the enrollment figures reflected the amount and lead time of promotion. The two colleges which admittedly gave the course the earliest and most wide-ranging publicity received the highest re- turns for their investments. Those institutions which received brochures ,. too late for early distribution, failed to distribute them widely, made little use of local media, or had mix-ups in communication with the media had correspondingly smaller enrollments. Promotion followed the same pattern mentioned in Chapter III, viz., the use of the print media, radio, and television. However, the Valley Consortium emphasized local college more than did its neighbor to the south. Although advertisements appeared in the Sacramento and Modesto Bee_newspapers and on KOVR, Channel 13, Sacramento; which overlaps much of the geographical area served by the colleges, many promotional ac- tivities were designed to be carried on locally. As part of the course expense, 48,000 brochures advertising the course were printed; 7,000 for each college. They were placed on auto- mobiles in parking lots, in banks, hospitals, fire stations, police sta- tions, public libraries, school libraries, and supermarkets. In addi- tion, they were sent to PTA's, church councils, to persons on cultural mailing lists, and to persons who had previously enrolled in continuing Education courses. The brochure contained the following information: (1) the course title and number of credits, (2) a description of the Consortium, (3) the television channels on which the lessons could be received, (4) a 123 brief statement of the course focus, (5) statements indicating that cred— it and fee requirements were to be set by each campus, (6) the names and college mailing addresses of two of the three instructors, (7) the titles, in order, of the 45 lessons, (8) the mailing addresses of the seven consorting colleges, (9) a statement saying that textbook informa- tion could be obtained from the local college bookstore, and (10) an application for enrollment form. Notably absent were the names, address- es and/or telephone numbers of the seven instructors of record, the dates, times of day, and days of the week when the lessons could be seen, and dates, times, and places of examinations. A few colleges did repair the shortcomings of the brochure by printing inserts which contained addi— tional information. Two colleges reported having received the brochures too late for effective distribution, another reported an insufficient staff to distri- bute them, and a fourth said it "did not do much" by way of promotion in general, including dissemination of the brochures. That meant that al- most 60% of the schools carried out ineffective distribution of the bro- chures. Nearly blanket coverage of the Consortium service area was accom- plished through one-half page advertisements placed free of charge in the Sacramento and the Modesto Bee) both of which are owned by McClatchy Newspapers and Broadcasting, owners of the television station which broad- casts the telecourse. These papers are read in nearly all of the cities in which the colleges are located.. Additional advertisements were placed in the local newspapers of Durham, Marysville, and Rocklin and in the campus paper of California State University, Chico. " l 7‘ '—' I'll - fl“ " s1 , ‘ 'I 124 Spot announcements telling of the course were broadcast over radio stations in Durham, Roseville, Auburn, and Modesto; and public service announcements were aired on KOVR, Channel 13, Sacramento, and Cable Com 5 in Modesto. Additionally, the course was promoted by word-of-mouth in registra- tion lines at the beginning of the spring semester 1973, and through the printed schedule of on-campus courses. One college, however, deliber- : " t 17723." --'r"?‘_~'b " ' ‘. ’t' ately omitted mention of the course in the regular schedule in order to s— — allay the fears of faculty members who view television courses as com~ ‘W‘ petitive with scheduled courses on campus. Despite advice given in the Master Plan which says that "a care- fully designed publicity program" is essential in reaching potential students, four of the seven colleges indicated definite dissatisfaction with their promotional efforts. The most general complaint was identi— fied with lack of planning due either to lack of enthusiasm or of suffi- cient lead time. Again, there was a direct correlation between the num- ber of students enrolled at a given college and the depth of its pro- motional efforts. Delivery System The geographical area served by the Consortium colleges is also covered by the ideal combination of television signals: commercial open- circuit, public broadcast, and cable. Of the three commercial television stations serving Sacramento, the Consortium chose the McClatchy station KOVR, the CBS affiliate in Sacramento. The decision was based on the following factors: (1) the 125 station offered free air time to broadcast the course; (2) the station promised to publicize the course on the air free of charge; (3) the station, which is owned by the leading daily newspapers of Sacramento and Modesto, offered the Consortium free newspaper advertisement of the course. The course appeared on KOVR Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings from 6:00 to 6:30. The station's signal is received in each of the areas served by the seven colleges making up the Consortium. “‘3..- If, Two of the colleges, Butte and Yuba, are served by KIXE, Channel 9, Redding, a public broadcast station. The northern-most college in the Consortium, receives a strong signal from Channel 9, which is still further north, while the Marysville area, the location of Yuba College, is on the fringe of the reception area and receives a weak signal. Channel 9 also broadcasts the course Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, as did Channel 13, but from 6:00 to 7:00 in the evening. The first half-hour was a repeat of a previous lesson and the second half-hour was a new lesson for the day. The same colleges also received the signal from Channel 13, Sacramento. One of them, Yuba College, also received the course via Bi-Cities Cable Company, which meant that residents of its area could choose from among one or all of the three separate video sources available to the Consortium. Bi-Cities aired the course from 10:30 to 11:00 a.m. That meant that the course was seen in the Marysville area three times a day: 6:00 - 7:00 a.m.; 10:30 - 11:00 a.m.; and 6:00 - 7:00 p.m. No other college district received the telelessons from a wider variety of sources. One other city, Modesto, is presently served by Cable Com 5, a cable television service which boasts 10,000 subscribing homes. 126 Residents of the area were able to view the course from 6:00 to 6:30 a.m. on Channel 13, Sacramento, and again on Cable Com 5 at 7:00 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m., and 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The programs were repeated on Friday and Saturday plus evening showings. Four of the colleges, then, received the course from one source only, viz., an open-circuit commercial television station, while each of the remaining institutions received it via two or more video sources. One of those was fortunate to have access to three separate television outlets. Evaluation Evaluation of the Classical Humanities course, like other aspects of the Consortium, was left to the individual colleges. Each was left to design its own instrument to determine success of the course. Those colleges which exercised their option--and not all of them did--adminis- tered the instrument at the time of the final examination or following the completion of the course. This meant that the questionnaires were filled out by students either while they were on campus or after they had returned home. Appraisal First, attention should be given to the goals arrived at by the Consortium. Of the sixteen stated in the Master Plan three focus upon the classroom teacher and the benefits that will supposedly accrue to him by the employment of ITV. One of the goals relates to the benefit the local colleges will receive via relief of pressure on campus facil- ities. The remaining twelve goals constitute a list of benefits to be flL-xloii '_ 0" Iifdi‘ 5'5”] 2.”, ‘ .0. .4 l 127 received by the student-community group. While the latter goals are always legitimate ones, more careful attention must be given by administrators on the various campuses and by the Consortium to faculty needs, not the least of which is security. Several of those interviewed expressed for themselves and for their colleagues concern over what is seen as the competitive nature of ITV. They feel that it has already kept, or is capable of keeping, students out of their classrooms. Yet each of the goals drawn up by the Consor- a. . c ". o . T. \ e. 4‘ .- .‘I I 4 j! I; 1 tium, which do not appear to have had faculty input in their formulation, is concerned with in-service training, reduction of routine duties, and i; improvement of teaching skills. While no teacher would deny the im- portance of each of these goals, they do not rank first in priority when teachers view, as they apparently do, their jobs as threatened. With college enrollments no longer rising, and in some cases falling off significantly, classroom teachers look suspiciously upon anything which would supplant them. If indeed ITV actually brings more students to the campus, as some administrators are arguing, and results in surges in classroom enroll- ments, then careful documentation must first take place. It will be an essential part of the information needed to convince faculties that ITV is an ally not an enemy. Five of the goals relate directly to a need which has become the focus of other college—level consortia: the adult member of the conmun- ity who is unable or unwilling to take courses on the local college cam- pus. This appears, at this time, to be the least objectionable, most pressing, and most enduring of all the goals at which the Consortium 128 arrived. It deserves even greater attention than has been given it and holds out the greatest promise of acceptance by elements hostile to ITV. It may also hold out greater promise for acquisition of funding than other goals stated. A second area of attention pertains to the degree of autonomy grant- ed by the Consortium to its component institutions in the transaction of course-related business, especially as pertains to publicity and evalua- tion. While maintenance of local autonomy is both vigorously guarded and highly desirable, it poses problems for the Consortium which might otherwise be avoided. Because all cooperating colleges were left on their own to publicize and evaluate the telecourse some poor as well as excellent work was done. Avoidance of poor performance, or non-perform- ance, could be accomplished in at least two ways: (1) the employment of a full-time Consortium Director whose duties would include design, in consultation with faculty and administration, and execution of publicity and course evaluation, and/or (2) agreement upon minimum academic stand- ards for each televised course and implementation of those standards. A general broadening of the level of participation in the Consor- tium is also needed. A special effort should be made to involve facul— ties from each cooperating institution in the planning, if not the pro- duction, of all telecourses originating with the Consortium. Faculty members who functioned as instructors of record for the Consortium's first course complained, almost to a man, at not having had opportunity to participate in its planning. An annual workshop, which was originally proposed for instructors of record, should by all means be instituted and continued. This would Iii—F'rw'i‘i‘fl mg. n “a tan-r .nnn.’ 129 promote a needed feeling of involvement in the Consortium and of comrade- ship among the instructors of record. More effective communication is likewise needed among the instruc- tors of record and the campus representatives of the Consortium, the deans of instruction. Breakdowns occurred when instructors were approach- ed at the last minute and asked to assume responsibility for the tele- me vised course, were not offered either released time or compensation in exchange for television course duties, or were not consulted regarding academic standards. Following the Master Plan recommendations should lead to the solution of these problems. ‘r Stricter attention to the Master Plan will also avoid dissatisfac- tion on the part of ITV teachers and instructors of record. Those who function as on-camera teachers must receive an ample amount of released time for course production or financial compensation, preferably both. Less than positive feelings by the telecourse's main instructor resulted when he received no remuneration and inadequate released time to pro- duce his portion of the course. Equally frustrated were the instructors of record who, too, re- ceived neither compensation nor released time for additional duties. These Consortium actions were contrary to both the recommendations of the group itself and the accumulated experiences of other ITV consortia. Communication is also lacking among some of the consorting col- leges, arising over misconceptions of location of production facilities and the worth of the Consortium in general. These problems may be trace- able to misunderstandings, personalities, etc., and could likely be resolved by bringing them to light and discussing them frankly. 1|. Jakob: Ea. . . 6..:: ll— . or . l 130 Organizationally the Consortium is on the threshold of expansion with the possible addition of five more colleges and the ultimate reac- tivation of two schools, bringing tota1 participation--assuming no fur- ther dropouts—~to fourteen. The result would be a further taxation of the energies of the present Consortium leadership, with special atten- tion to its President, whoever he may be. Any part-time director, under 1-, the present arrangement, will in all likelihood, be a dean of instruction ‘ or another administrator. The assumption of duties pertaining to a con- sortium of ten or more colleges would necessitate released time, a con- cession which many community college do not appear to be willing to make. $17 The most feasible alternative is the hiring of a full-time director with full-time secretarial help. While the colleges try to avoid the ex- pense of a full-time consortium staff, the maintenance of viable consor- tia by means of part-time, unpaid staff is most difficult. The tendency for consortia to grow beyond manageable proportions of part-time staffs is virtually inevitable. As a consortium grows, and especially as it continues producing its own courses, as in the case of this consortium, so do its financial needs. The ADA costs per institutions have doubled in one year. Two colleges, representing almost one third of the members, which cooperated in the 1972-1973 academic year, expressed reservations regarding the depth of the financial commitment necessary to remain active in the Consortium. Even though reimbursement per college for actual expenses incurred in telecourses is provided by the State, each school must initially have the money to expend. That, according to one dean, is a problem. Attempts should be made to hold down course-related expenses. 131 An immediate solution would be the leasing of college-level courses from other consortia, or from other available sources. Ultimately ex- changes of ITV courses with other colleges across the country may be possible. The other alternative, that of securing additional funds from non- state sources, is less predictable and, therefore, less desirable. In general, greater attention needs to be given to executing plans well in advance of deadlines. While a schedule was agreed upon at the highest level, it was not always carried out in time to meet deadlines. Communication, promotion, and administration-faculty relations will benefit as a result. The foregoing comments are not meant to suggest, however, that the Consortium is not characterized by significant strengths, not the least of which is the general degree of cooperation achieved among its offi- cial representatives on the Board of Directors. Despite two weak links in the chain, these men achieved enviable cooperation among themselves in accomplishing Consortium business. It now remains for the upper eche- lon of the organization to open the door to their respective faculties and initiate a like feeling of cooperation with them. The resulting unity can only continue to improve the picture for ITV in the community colleges of the Central San Joaquin Valley. Equally praiseworthy was the quality of the course produced by the Consortium as determined by the frequency of positive comments from instructors of record and through them from students who took the courses. Although production techniques were not unique, the on-camera performance of the main instructor was mentioned again and again as 132 having been outstanding. He was evidently able to establish a rapport with viewing students usually expected only in the classroom. This first course it is hoped will be looked upon as a benchmark for future Consortium productions. The quality of the course is indicative of the thorough planning evident over the brief history of this cooperative. The degree of plan- ning is no doubt traceable to the extensive involvement of all levels of college administrators and the frequency with which the Board met. It is also seen in the move of the Board to hire a Coordinator to research guidelines for the cooperative. Those guidelines, in the form of the Master Plan, are capable of giving positive and firm direction for the future. Last, the delivery systems available to the Central Valley Consor- tium for reaching the public can be regarded as among the best in the State of California. The versatile broadcast day which they provide in combining the virtues of cable, commercial open-circuit television, and public broadcasting helps to insure the largest possible audience for future telelessons. If the Consortium continues producing first-quality courses or renting ones of similar caliber, delivering them diversely, and is able to resolve its personnel problems, the future of the Consor- tium should be secure. PPM“- Inna—“7:277”! CHAPTER V THE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA REGIONAL INSTRUCTIONAL TELEVISION CONSORTIUM: A CASE STUDY ":1 Background Potentially the largest higher education consortium in the State of California, the Northern California Regional Instructional Television Consortium, can ultimately embrace as many as forty-two institutions: FF thirty-four two-year colleges, two State colleges, and six State uni- versities. Within the proposed service area of the Consortium is a total population in excess of 7 million. The origin of the Northern California Consortium is unique. Unlike the two consortia previously examined, it began at the highest adminis- trative levels in the State of California. The joint efforts of the Chancellors' offices of the California State University and Colleges, deans and staff members of the California Community Colleges, and deans and staff members from several state universities and colleges culmi- nated in the submission of a proposal in the fall of 1971 to the Coordi- nating Council for Higher Education. The project was funded the follow- ing spring, with additional money coming from the Continuing Education reserve fund of the California State University and Colleges. A Search Committee was formed, and the services of a Consortium Director were sought. In the summer of 1972 Dr. Stuart Cooney, formerly of the American Samoa television project, was hired for the position. 133 134 He immediately began the involved task of making contact with the many state colleges, universities, and community colleges in northern Cali- fornia. In addition he expanded his staff to include an Assistant Direc- tor, in charge of promotion, and a secretary. Toward the end of the first fiscal year, and in an apparent effort to end it with some concrete project, arrangements were made for the 1.. Consortium to air its first course. The plans were to begin on a small scale. Two institutions, California State University, Humboldt, and California State University, Chico, agreed to cooperate in airing a course, "Health, Poverty, and Public Policy." Produced by Chico, it ‘3‘. . featured an instructor from its Political Science Department. The for— mat combined 15 televised hours of instruction with 8 hours of discus- sion. Eleven viewing sites were selected in schools, television stations, college classrooms, and one private home where students gathered on five Saturdays from April 14 to May 12, 1973. The sessions began at 8:30 a.m. and ended at 1:00 p.m. and included two 1 1/2 hour television presenta— tions and two 30 minute discussions led by appointed persons, usually faculty members. The daily schedule ran as follows: 8:30 - 9:00 Group discussion at multiple sites. 9:00 - 10:30 TV presentation by lecturer and guest speaker. 10:30 - 11:00 Break for relaxation and discussion. 11:00 - 12:30 TV presentation continued. 12:30 - 1:00 Discussion. The course was broadcast over KIXE, Channel 9 in Redding, one of the public broadcast stations in Northern California. Approximately 140 persons enrolled in the course. 135 Needs and Goals Generally stated, the goal of the Consortium is "to make widely available the resources of colleges and universities in the solution of conmunity and regional problems."1 The vehicle by which these resources are to become available to a greater number of persons and agencies is #1- L television. Ultimately the cooperative envisions addressing itself to problems of increasingly greater magnitude by involving faculties, stu- dents, agencies, and comnunity populations "comprehensively in a variety of problem-solving transactions."2 Specifically, the thrust of the Consortium is toward that segment of the adult population which "finds it difficult or impossible to approach campus-centered educational activities."3 They are isolated by geographic, economic, and/or cultural barriers, thus bringing their for- mal education to a standstill. What is needed, then, is a problem-oriented, region-wide educational program designed to reach these individuals. Otherwise, they will find it increasingly difficult to function in a world which demands that each adult be an informed and responsible citizen, and a growing, develop- ing individual. The common educational methods now being employed in higher education are inadequate to this need.5 To meet the need the Consortium proposes television as "one kind of solution" because it is "a convenient, effective, and available educa- tional delivery system. " lThe Northern California Regional Instructional Television Con— Three-Year Plan and Follow-On Proposal," Sanoma, California, sortium: December 15, 1972, p. 1. 2Ipid. 3Ibid. 4Ibid., p.2. 136 The need for a consortium of colleges to reach the untapped popula- tion was seen as arising out of: (l) the inability of most institutions of higher education to bear the cost of developing high quality ITV pro- graming, and (2) the unavailability to students of television courses produced by institutions with which they are not affiliated. With that need in view, the Consortium set out to effect the "close cooperation amdjointLMilization of facilities and resources among community agen- cfies mniinstitutions of higher education" to "make possible the produc- tion of