Parts A and B compare the findings described in the previous section of this report with the findings that Sloan-C derived from the data it obtained from its surveys of the chief academic officers of over 2200 colleges and universities. These comparisons can be succinctly summarized as follows:

• With respect to distance learning, HBCUs exhibited many of the same patterns that Sloan-C identified among the 2200 colleges and universities that participated in its most recent surveys -- Growing by Degrees: Online Education in the United States, 2005 and Making the Grade: Online Education in the United States, 2006.

A. Online HBCUs

1. Distance learning is growing rapidly.

• Sloan-C reported that distance learning enjoyed rapid growth in the U.S. higher education community between the Fall 2004 and Fall 2005 terms. Specifically, the number of students taking online courses for credit increased by 35 percent. (Managing the Grade 2006 , p4)
  
  
• As can be seen from Table A1, the number of HBCUs offering online courses increased by 38 percent between the spring 2006 and 2007 terms. It seems reasonable to infer that the number of students taking online courses at HBCUs grew at comparable rates during this time frame.

2. The Blackboard /WebCT learning management system dominates the higher education community.

• The Sloan-C reports did not indicate which learning management systems were used by the colleges and universities that responded to its surveys. However the Washington Post reported that Eduventures, a leading information services company for the education market, had estimated that after their merger the combined Blackboard/WebCT company would control 80 to 90 percent of the overall market for learning management systems.
  
  
  • "Eduventures Inc., a Boston research firm, estimates that 45 to 50 percent of all schools that use course management software are Blackboard clients, while WebCT of Lynnfield, Mass., has about 35 to 40 percent of the market. (Washington Post, Nov 26, 2005)"
    
    
• As per Table A2, 82.5 percent of HBCUs offering distance learning courses used Blackboard or WebCT as their learning management system.
  

B. Types of HBCUs Offering Online Courses

1. Public colleges and universities are far more active in distance learning than the private (non-profit) institutions.

• In Growing by Degrees 2005, p8, Sloan-C presented a table that showed the percentage of various types of public, private nonprofit, and private for-profit institutions offering online courses in Fall 2003 for various disciplines. Their data for the public and private non-profit institutions are reproduced in the following table. (It is important to note that the percentages shown in this table are penetration rates.  For example, the 51.3% for Public business programs in the first row means that of all institutions that offer business programs, 51.3% of them also offer online business programs.)
  
  
  

  Sloan-C 2005	Public	Private, non-profit
  Business	51.3%	27.3%
  Computer/Information Sciences	43.0%	21.6%
  Education	30.4%	17.6%
  Health Professions & Related Sciences	35.5%	23.4%
  Liberal Arts & Sciences, General Studies, Humanities	54.6%	20.2%
  Psychology	34.4%	9.3%
  Social Sciences & History	40.7%	11.1%

  
  
  
• As per Table B1, in both 2006 and 2007 the percentage of public HBCUs offering distance learning courses (49% and 67%) was more than five times the percentage of private HBCUs offering such courses (8% and 12%).

2. A higher percentage of two year colleges offer distance learning courses than four year colleges.

• In Growing by Degrees 2005, p6, Sloan-C presented the following table that showed the percentage of Carnegie classified institutions offering distance learning courses in Fall 2004. The Associates (two year) colleges have a higher percentage of online course offerings at the undergraduate and graduate levels than all other classes of institutions; and they have a higher percentage of continuing education courses for all classifications except Doctoral/Research. (Note again that the percentages in this table are also penetration rates, as in the previous table. For example, the 74.1% in the third row of the first column means that of all of the doctoral-research institutions running continuing education programs that 74.1% also offer continuing education programs online.)
  
  

  Sloan-C 2005	Doctoral-Research	Masters	Baccalaureate	Associates	Specialized
  Undergraduate Level	64.3%	67.6%	33.9%	77.5%	31.7%
  Graduate Level	78.9%	65.8%	32.2%	100.0%	58.2%
  Continuing Education	74.1%	48.5%	29.1%	70.8%	26.3%

  
  
• The following table combines data displayed in Table B2, by combining public four year and private four year entries and by combining public two year and private two year data. In both 2006 and 2007 a far higher percentage of two year HBCUs offered distance learning courses than four year HBCUs.
  
  

  HBCUs	2006	2007
  Four Year Distance Learning	22	30
  Total Four Year	90	90
  Percent Four Year Distance Learning	24.4%	33.3%
  Two Year Distance Learning	7	10
  Total 2 Year	13	13
  Percent Two Year Distance Learning	53.8%	76.9%

  
  

C. Differences in Distance Learning Activities Among HBCUs

The remainder of this report provides a plausible explanation of our finding that distance learning is not associated with the highest graduation rates among HBCUs.

• We cannot compare this finding with the Sloan-C reports because Sloan did not address graduation rates nor any other statistical measures of academic performance. Indeed, it is possible that the negative result that our study obtained for HBCUs might also be valid for the 2200 colleges and universities that participated in the Sloan surveys.

It will be seen that the key to understanding which HBCUs offer distance learning courses and programs is their commitment to providing educational services for non-traditional students.

1. Alternative Explanations

But before presenting our preferred explanation, we quickly dispose of some obvious alternatives:

• The HBCUs in tables C1, C2, and C3 of the "Findings" section of this report are high performers because they have not implemented many distance learning courses or distance learning degree programs.
  
  Conceivably distance learning students might take longer to complete their requirements than traditional students. But their impact on HBCU graduation rates would be negligible for two reasons. On one hand most HBCUs offering distance learning courses introduced these courses within the last two or three years; hence their distance learning students would not have been included in the calculation of four, five, or six year graduation rates. On the other hand, distance learning enrollments at most HBCUs are still a small fraction of total enrollments; hence they would not have significant impact on overall graduation rates.
  
  
• High performing HBCUs cannot afford the technical infrastructure needed for distance learning (Digital Divide -- hardware)
  
  This hypothesis embodies the concept of the Digital Divide it was originally discussed in the late 1990's. At that time many HBCUs did not have the kinds IT infrastructures that could support state-of-the-art teaching and learning approaches like distance learning. Fortunately, most HBCUs have made considerable progress in closing this hardware gap. Indeed of the 13 HBCUs that are listed in Tables C1, C2, and C3, all but three display links on their Websites to Blackboard or to WebCT, the same learning management systems (LMS) that supports the distance learning courses offered by most American colleges and universities in the U.S. In other words, most of the the high performing HBCUs have an IT infrastructure that could support distance learning.
  
  
  • Blackboard = Claflin, Elizabeth City, Fisk, Hampton, Howard, Stillman, Tougaloo, Winston-Salem
  • WebCT = Morehouse, Spelman
  • No LMS listed on Website = Miles, Taladega, and Johnson C. Smith
    
    
• High performing HBCUs don't have the technical skills required to manage distance learning courses (Digital Divide -- technical skills)
  
  At first glance this hypothesis would seem to embody the Digital Learning Lab's unconventional notion that the Digital Divide is currently best viewed as a gap between the average technical skills of HBCU faculty, staff, and students and the average technical skills of faculty, staff, and students at majority institutions. But the existence of gaps between averages by no means implies that the best HBCUs fall below the majority's average. Moreover, to suggest that these high performing HBCUs lacked the skills required to convert more of their Web-enhanced courses into online formats using Blackboard or WebCT is absurd.

Having rejected these obvious alternatives, we move on to a more controversial, but far more plausible explanation:

• Most high performing HBCUs don't implement online courses or online degree programs because they don't want to.

But no sooner than we consider this explanation, we have to explain the explanation: Why don't they want to? And this leads to an obverse consideration: Why are other HBCUs actively involved in distance learning? Indeed, no explanation will be truly plausible unless it can address both questions: Why do some HBCUs show little interest in distance learning whereas other HBCUs eagerly embrace it?

2. A Focus on Traditional Students Impedes Distance Learning

We begin by assuming that all colleges and universities adopt teaching techniques that best serve their broader educational goals.

• From this bland assertion we infer that the highest performing HBCUs must feel that courses that are 80 to 100 percent online are incompatible with their broader educational goals.
  
  
• Yet Sloan-C reports that most of the chief academic officers of the colleges and universities that offered distance learning courses felt that their distance learning courses were as good as their traditional courses, if not better (See Making the Grade, page 11).
  
  
• The similarity between the patterns of distance learning noted in paragraph #1 (above) encourages us to assume that the chief academic officers of HBCUs would provide similar responses.
  
  
• This suggests that we consider the possibility that the HBCUs that offer distance learning might have different fundamental goals than the HBCUs that don't.
  

In other words we need to identify ways in which the high performers who don't offer distance learning courses differ from HBCUs that are actively engaged in distance learning. Once again Tables C1, C2, and C3 provide the required clues. Indeed we have, until this point, deliberately ignored a second highly significant finding that can be readily inferred from these tables:

• The overwhelming majority of the highest performing HBCUs are private institutions; moreover, they are also some of the most celebrated and selective HBCUs in the country.

Like selective majority private institutions, e.g., Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, these HBCUs not only seek to transmit cognitive content to their students; they also seek to shape their students' characters, and they declare their character-shaping goals quite openly. This point is well illustrated by the following excerpts from cached copies of pages found on the Websites of two of these institutions -- Morehouse College and Spelman College -- on February 1st, 2007:

• From About Morehouse ...
  
  "A Proud Tradition of Producing Outstanding Leaders

  Although times change, Morehouse’s mission remains steadfast: to produce academically superior, morally conscious leaders for the conditions and issues of today, whether “today” is post-Civil War or turn of the new millennium.

  Martin Luther King Jr. led the country through one of its most transforming civic movements; David Satcher resuscitated the issues of health care disparity and access; Maynard Jackson taught the world the value of diversity and equal access as the first African American mayor of Atlanta; Donn Clenendon scored in the history annals and was part of a miracle when he was named a World Series MVP; and Shelton “Spike” Lee continues to challenge how the world views blacks in life with critically acclaimed films. All helped changed the world. All are Morehouse men.

  Preparing Young Men to Change the World

  With the right resources, politicking or posturing, anyone can be a leader. Right? Wrong. At Morehouse, we are redefining the meaning of leadership. It’s not about attaining the highest title or position, but about attaining skills such as compassion, civility, integrity and even listening. Morehouse is poised to become the epicenter of ethical leadership as we continue to develop leaders who are spiritually disciplined, intellectually astute and morally wise."

• From Spelman Just for Parents ...
  
  

  "You and your daughter share high expectations, and so too, does Spelman. The College will ask a lot of her, but she can expect even more in return:

  • To follow in the footsteps of extraordinary Spelman alumnae who have cleared a pathway of unparalleled success for themselves, and for her, by forging a reputation of exemplary achievement;
    
    

  • To be mentored by distinguished and caring professors and staff who have in common a love of teaching and an abiding appreciation for the intellectual, ethical and leadership capacity of women; and
    
    
  • To grow into womanhood with her Spelman ‘sisters,’ kindred spirits who share comparable goals, similar aspirations, and a unique sense of camaraderie that will last a lifetime.

  Talented young women, just like your daughter, have come to Spelman for more than a century seeking the very best in higher education. What they have found is a private, independent, historically Black college for women – ranked by U.S. News & World Report among the Top 75 Best Liberal Arts Colleges in the nation – a safe and secure place built just for women,where the education of women is at the very heart of the institutional mission."

In the face of the positive assessments of the quality of distance learning courses noted by the Sloan-C report cited earlier, one can reasonably assume that current technologies enable such courses to convey knowledge and skills to their students efficiently and effectively. Nevertheless, common sense raises serious doubts that online instruction can provide the kinds of intense, character-molding personal experiences afforded by face-to-face classroom interactions with instructors, by frequent office meetings with instructors and advisors, and by participation in the daily rituals of campus life. And the psychological effects of these personal experiences will be amplified on a traditional student body composed of younger, full-time students precisely because they are younger, hence more malleable.

3. A Commitment to Non-Traditional Students Encourages Distance Learning

Whereas traditional students attend daytime classes on a full-time basis, non-traditional students have work or family commitments that prevent them from attending daytime classes and/or from carrying full-time course loads.

• Traditional students are typically between 18 and 24 years old; non-traditional students are usually older than traditional students.



• Courses are more accessible to non-traditional students if they are offered on evenings and weekends, at multiple locations, and via distance learning.

As can be seen from the following table, the four HBCUs that were shown as offering distance learning courses in Tables C1, C2, or C3 also offer programs for non-traditional students. All four institutions offer face-to-face courses on evenings and weekends; and the two private institutions, Hampton and Howard, offer courses at multiple locations.

In other words, like highly successful, for-profit operations such as the University of Phoenix, DeVry University, and Strayer University, these high performing HBCUs use distance learning as one of their strategies for making their courses more accessible to non-traditional students.

The December 2006 edition of the DLL's Directory of HBCU Programs for Non-Traditional Students sheds additional light on this point. As per its name, this Directory only includes HBCUs that offer degree programs for non-traditional students at the Associates, Bachelors, or Doctoral levels; hence it does not include HBCUs that offer online certificate courses, nor does it include HBCUs that offer credit courses online, but not enough for a student to completely satisfy all of the courses requirements for a degree.

• There are 21 HBCUs in the Directory.
• 6 HBCUs only offered distance learning courses, but no face-to-face courses.
• 15 HBCUs offered courses in the evenings and on weekends.
• 6 of these HBCUs also offered distance learning courses.
• 6 of these HBCUs offered courses at multiple locations.

In other words, evening and weekend courses are the preferred strategies for making degree programs more accessible to non-traditional students (15 HBCUs), distance learning is a close second (12 HBCUs), and multiple locations come in third (6 HBCUs).

According to the January 2007 edition of the DLL's Directory of HBCU Distance Learning Programs, 40 out of the 103 HBCUs, i.e. 39%, offered distance learning courses of some kind -- certificate or credit. But we have just seen that 12 of the 21 HBCUs most committed to non-traditional students, i.e., 57%, offered distance learning degree programs. We can summarize these contrasting results by saying that commitments to non-traditional students encourage HBCUs to provide distance learning programs.

We end this report by invoking one of the Gateway's recurring themes. It is an unfortunate fact that nowadays many college age students drop out of school (or cannot enroll). If they ever return to school, they are likely to do so as non-traditional students. Given the disturbingly high drop-out/low enrollment rates of African American male students, it is imperative that HBCUs make special efforts to provide this particular group with accessible opportunities to complete their education. HBCUs can provide such opportunities by offering classes on evenings and weekends, by offering classes at locations closer to where their students live, and, yes, by offering classes via distance learning.