|
|
| Author |
Message |
Tom |
|
Post subject: Heeger to step down as UMUC President
 Posted: May 07, 2005 - 10:44 AM
|
|
Site Admin
Joined: Mar 03, 2005
Posts: 84
Status: Offline
|
|
President Gerald A. Heeger will step down as UMUC president to take a new job as president of a new for-profit international college venture. Whitney College will be based in Texas but will target students in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Here are news articles from The Baltimore Sun and Inside Higher Ed.
| Quote: |
President of UM's online university to leave post for job at Texas school
By A Sun Staff Writer
Originally published May 6, 2005
The president of the University of Maryland's online school announced yesterday that he will leave his job in August to take a similar position at a new Texas university.
Gerald A. Heeger, 62, has been head of the University of Maryland University College since 1999. During his tenure, online enrollment grew from 20,000 students to nearly 125,000. "My experience at UMUC ... has been most fulfilling," Heeger said in a statement.
Heeger was criticized in 2004 when it was revealed that he owns stock in a student loan company, which could have barred him from working for the university system. State officials were aware of the situation when they hired him and granted him an exemption from conflict-of-interest rules.
Heeger will become president of an international education initiative at Whitney International University, which is to open in Dallas.
University College officials plan to form a presidential search committee to find a successor.
"While the [Maryland] community will miss President Heeger, we wish him great success in his new leadership position," said William E. Kirwan, the university system chancellor.
Source: The Baltimore Sun
|
| Quote: | A group of business and education leaders is preparing to launch Whitney International University as a global, for-profit venture offering a range of courses and programs in much of the world and teaching education in the United States.
Whitney International’s planning has been largely quiet to date. But Gerald A. Heeger announced Thursday that he would be leaving the presidency of the University of Maryland University College to become president of Whitney International. Heeger’s current institution educates students — largely through distance programs — all over the world and during his presidency, the institution has experienced significant growth.
The new university is being created by Best Associates, a Dallas-based merchant bank led by Randy Best, who was also a founder of Voyager Expanded Learning, which sells literacy instruction programs to school districts around the country. Voyager was sold to another company this year for $360 million.
Heeger said that the goal of the new university will be to “expand educational capacity.” He said that in much of the world — especially Asia, the Middle East and Africa — there are “not enough seats.” Whitney officials are already in serious discussions with government leaders and existing colleges about starting programs, Heeger said.
Asked if Whitney would be offering its own degrees, helping governments set up new colleges, or managing existing colleges, Heeger said that it would probably do all three.
He declined to discuss the magnitude of the program, but said that it would be “very sizable” and that the project was “well funded.” Heeger said he anticipated that some programs would start within a year. He said that these programs would involve undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees. In advance of Heeger’s arrival at the company, planning has already started and involves several former college presidents. He said that among the countries that may be early targets for the company are Brazil, India, Malaysia and Mexico, but he stressed that there would be many others, as well.
Heeger also said that the instruction would be in a range of languages, and that it would be a mix of distance education and in-person instruction. He has a track record in growing distance enrollments. During the six years of his Maryland presidency, worldwide online enrollments grew to 130,000, from just over 20,000.
The focus of Heeger’s work will be on the company’s international division, not the teacher education programs in the United States. Rena Pederson, a spokeswoman for Best, said that the company anticipated the creation of new colleges to train teachers. She said that the emphasis would be on training teachers to work in urban areas.
Asked about the name “Whitney,” Pederson said that the company was not connected to any of the famous Whitney families. “The name has a bearing and historical connotation that we thought would fit.”
Whitney is not the only higher education venture looking outside the United States. The international division of the Apollo Group, the parent company of the University of Phoenix, has programs (some with local partners) in Brazil, India, Mexico and the Netherlands, and is planning operations in Chile and China.
Laureate International Universities (formerly known as the Sylvan universities) has campuses in Latin American, Europe and China.
— Scott Jaschik
Source: Inside Higher Ed
|
|
Last edited by Tom on May 19, 2005 - 10:16 AM; edited 1 time in total
|
| |
|
|
|
 |
|
Tom |
|
|
Post subject: President of UMUC Will Join International Education Venture
Posted: May 19, 2005 - 06:19 AM
|
|
Site Admin
Joined: Mar 03, 2005
Posts: 84
Status: Offline
|
|
Here's another article about President Heeger leaving UMUC to start an international online education venture. He has aggressively pursued online education with NYU and UMUC and now he would like to do it without the restraints normally associated with a public school, according to the article.
| Quote: | President of U. of Maryland University College Will Join International Education Venture
By JOHN GRAVOIS and PIPER FOGG
VENTURING OUT: After setting up for-profit marketing arms at two traditional universities, Gerald A. Heeger, president of University of Maryland University College, is about to stepinto for-profit higher education with both feet.
A man renowned for making hay in the difficult sector of distance education, Mr. Heeger, 62, will leave Maryland in August to assume the presidency of a new, Texas-based international education venture called Whitney International University.
Whitney is the creation of Randy Best, founder of a merchant bank called Best Associates, in Dallas. In 1994 Mr. Best started Voyager Expanded Learning, a company that sells reading-instruction programs for schoolchildren. He sold it this year for just over $360-million.
In 1998, when Mr. Heeger was dean of New York University's School of Continuing and Professional Studies, he set up a venture called NYU Online, a subsidiary designed to develop and market online courses for working adults. The following year, in his first months as president of Maryland's University College, he set up a similar venture called UMUC OnLine Inc.
During Mr. Heeger's six years as president of University College, online enrollment climbed from just over 20,000 to more than 125,000. While he says he is still a "passionate believer" in the Maryland college, he wants to focus on emerging international markets.
"There's a lot of demand out there and a lot of educational need, and governments can't do it all," says Mr. Heeger. "If capacity is going to be built, it has to be built using private capital."
Source: The Chronicle |
|
Last edited by Tom on May 19, 2005 - 10:20 AM; edited 1 time in total
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| | |
FAQ
Search
Register
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
