Stevens Wins Award for Best Online University in the Nation

HOBOKEN, N.J. - Stevens Institute of Technology's online university, WebCampus.Stevens, has won the nation's top award for best "Institution-Wide Online Teaching and Learning Programming." The award was announced Oct. 14th by the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C), a prestigious group of learning institutions funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The award will be presented at the 9th Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning in Orlando, Fla., Nov. 15, 2003.

This week's Sloan-C announcement comes on the heels of The Princeton Review's naming Stevens Institute of Technology as the No. 1 university in the nation on its list of the Top 25 Most Connected Campuses.

"The Sloan award acknowledges Stevens' stature as the national leader in quality online university education," said Stevens' President, Dr. Harold J. Raveche.

"It also adds further depth to The Princeton Review's No. 1 ranking, showing that Stevens is clearly at the forefront of higher education in both information technology acumen and superior online university education," Dr. Raveche added. "There is no doubt that Stevens graduates - whether they study online or on campus - are on the cutting edge, exceptionally well prepared to flourish in the networked professional world."

This year's Sloan-C award is presented by a distinguished independent panel of outstanding academic scholars and administrators who include William Messner, Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin Colleges; Judith S. Easton, President, Council for Higher Education Accreditation; and Diana Oblinger, Executive Director of Higher Education at Microsoft Corp., among others.

Dr. Frank Mayadas, Program Director for Sloan's online initiatives, called Stevens' award "most well-deserved."

"This is a very serious and very outstanding committee of distinguished academic people, not in general closely associated with Sloan-C," said Mayadas.

"Their endorsement is a high honor indeed."

The Sloan-C awards were initiated two years ago to recognize and honor the best online learning schools and programs in the country. Sloan-C is a consortium of nearly 450 institutions and organizations committed to quality online education.

"Significantly, this award to Stevens shows that smaller universities can become powerhouses in online education," said Robert Ubell, Dean of Online Learning at Stevens and founding director of WebCampus.Stevens.

The previous Sloan-C top award winners, the State University of New York Learning Network and The University of Maryland University College, are both large, statewide, multi-campus institutions with enrollments of approximately 100,000 and 60,000 respectively. Although Stevens is a significantly smaller institution, its record is impressive for an online program that first started in 2000. This year alone, it has some 2,250 graduate enrollments in online courses. Since its inception three years ago, WebCampus.Stevens has achieved 3,500 enrollments worldwide with students logging on from 36 states and 27 countries. This year's revenue from its online students is expected to reach nearly $4 million.

Ten years ago, online learning was nearly unheard of. Today, according to the Sloan Consortium, 11 percent of all students take classes online. It happens that WebCampus.Stevens today also represents 11 percent of Stevens' graduate programs. The Sloan Foundation has been the principal philanthropic supporter of online education, encouraging its development in US schools of higher education with more than $45 million in grants since 1992.

WebCampus.Stevens today employs 60 full-time and adjunct faculty who participate in frequent, in-depth seminars to ensure quality of course delivery. Courses on WebCampus.Stevens are just as rigorous and include the same content and quality as on-campus courses at Stevens, said Ubell.

WebCampus.Stevens began with a few courses and now offers more than 160. It has also taken a leadership role in developing intellectual property rights, has forged substantial relationships with the leading engineering societies, and will soon inaugurate an alliance in China with the Beijing Institute of Technology.

For more on WebCampus.Stevens, visit www.webcampus.stevens.edu.

For more about the awards, visit sloan-c.org/news.

About Stevens Institute of Technology

Founded in 1870 and celebrating 140 Years of Innovation, Stevens Institute of Technology, The Innovation University TM , lives at the intersection of industry, academics and research.  The University's students, faculty and partners leverage their collective real-world experience and culture of innovation, research and entrepreneurship to confront global challenges in engineering, science, systems and technology management.

Based in Hoboken, N.J. and with a location in Washington, D.C., Stevens offers baccalaureate, master’s, certificates and doctoral degrees in engineering, the sciences and management, in addition to baccalaureate degrees in business and liberal arts.  Stevens has been recognized by both the US Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security as a National Center of Excellence in the areas of systems engineering and port security research. The University has a total enrollment of more than 2,200 undergraduate and 3,700 graduate students with almost 450 faculty. Stevens’ graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America as well as strategic partnerships with industry leaders, governments and other universities around the world.  Additional information may be obtained at www.stevens.edu and www.stevens.edu/press.