About one year ago, the University of Illinois launched Global Campus, and in that year it has fought off criticism and struggled with low enrollment and lack of faculty participation.

Now with 366 students enrolled in the online degree program – and the administration taking steps for independent accreditation – Global Campus leaders are still confident it will succeed.

“It’s hard to believe that the first embers of the idea for Global Campus emerged almost three and a half years ago, early during the first year of (University of Illinois) President (B. Joseph) White being here,” said Chet Gardner, special assistant to the president.

The intention of the program was to provide students unable to attend one of the three residential campuses in the University system with a University of Illinois degree.

“For many potential students there are barriers to coming to a residential campus; they are older or have jobs or have families,” Gardner said. “It was clear the traditional campuses were not meeting the demands, especially for non-traditional students.”

After being launched, the entity was criticized for its very low enrollment numbers. In January 2008, there were a total of 12 students enrolled in its courses, and nine months later in September of 2008 the total enrollment was 121 students.

Partially due to the low number of students, the Board of Trustees authorized Global Campus to pursue accreditation during its November meeting.

Gardner said the structure under which Global Campus was launched relied on faculty members to propose and develop courses to be taught online. However, the lack of interest and faculty participation resulted in very few courses being available, and therefore, low enrollment.

The faculty-student senates on all three campuses had different positions on the entity, and the Urbana senate was the most notoriously opposed to Global Campus and its accreditation. In multiple meetings faculty have expressed frustration that they had unanswered questions about the program.

Chairman of the senate Nick Burbules has said that, in the coming months, the senate will draft a letter to the Board expressing their concerns and offering suggestions.

“I think it will be constructive, not just a list of complaints,” Burbules said in December. “The accreditation is happening now, and there’s nothing we can do.”

College of Business professor Mark Roszkowski has spoken against Global Campus at senate meetings, arguing University faculty will lose control of the courses and it will a degree less significant.

“UIUC needs to divorce Global Campus in general,” Roszkowski said in December. “Any kind of online degree program would cheapen the UIUC brand.”

There is also expected to be an item on the February agenda requesting that diplomas earned through Global Campus to be distinctively different from one earned at either the Chicago, Springfield or Urbana campuses.

However, with Global Campus now pursuing accreditation independent from the other University campuses, the program’s development is not dependent on faculty cooperation, although Gardner said there must be University faculty members overseeing the development of each course. He said this will allow more courses to be developed, and the enrollment to increase. In January, the Board approved five degree programs that will be launched this year, and Gardner said he expects the enrollment to reach 475 students by May.

One persisting problem is the majority of the programs are for masters degrees, and Gardner said it is essential for undergraduate degrees to be developed. Without independent accreditation, undergraduate programs were slow to develop because they required cooperation from multiple colleges, whereas masters programs are confined to a single college.

Donald Wuebbles, a professor in atmospheric sciences, is one faculty member who did not shy away from developing an undergraduate program for Global Campus in environmental sustainability.

He said sustainability is a fast-growing major, and Gardner approached him about developing a program for Global Campus.

“Global Campus would allow University students to use these courses on campus too,” Wuebbles said. “I saw it as a win-win situation for the University.”

He has arranged 20 courses for the degree program, with roughly 20 faculty members to teach the courses, and he used his experience in designing courses for the Urbana campus to help him create one for Global Campus.

“It’s different because all of the courses are offered online, and you don’t have the interaction face-to-face,”

Gardner hopes that other faculty will follow Wuebbles’ lead in designing undergraduate courses, and that, along with being accredited, Global Campus will grow at a fast enough rate to survive and thrive.

For the future of Global Campus, he would like to have independent accreditation within the next two years. Also, it needs an enrollment of 1,600 student to “break even,” and Gardner said he hopes to have those numbers by 2011. Until then, Global Campus is being financed through a combination of state support, grants, tuition and loans issued by the Board.

“I really admire the Board for (loaning) us the money to fill the gap, they’re acting like venture capitalists and keeping a close eye on us,” Gardner said.

With one year down, $4 million has been borrowed, and Gardner hopes the final loan drawn will be $13 to $14 million.

“I haven’t seen this yet,” Wuebbles said. “But I think it could be a good thing for the community as a whole, and it could really help the University.”