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Game Changers: Education and IT
Conclusion
Western Governors University was implemented with the mission to utilize
technology to develop a new competency-based model in higher education, to
make higher education more affordable while improving educational quality,
and to expand access to populations that are traditionally underserved by higher
education. WGU’s model—unique because of its competency-based model,
disaggregated faculty roles, the student-centric culture that adapts quickly to
emerging student and industry needs, and the fact that it does not develop
its own courses—increases accessibility to students through its flexibility and
affordable cost, and the mentoring model tailors academic support to each
student. In this way, it serves as a valuable resource to students as well as to
states in need of an educated workforce equipped with those skills deemed
essential in the twenty-first century.
Notes
1. M. Shachar and Y. Neumann, “Twenty Years of Research on the Academic Performance
Differences between Traditional and Distance Learning: Summative
Meta-Analysis and Trend Examination,” MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and
Teaching 6, no. 2 (2010): 318–34.
2. A. P. Carnevale, N. Smith, and J. Strohl, Help Wanted: Projections of Jobs and Education
Requirements through 2018 (The Georgetown University Center on Education
and the Workforce, 2010), retrieved from http://cew.georgetown.edu/jobs2018/.
Robert W. Mendenhallis President of Western Governors University (WGU). Prior
to joining WGU, he was general manager of IBM’s K–12 education division, a $500 million
worldwide business. From 1980 to 1992, he was president of Wicat Systems, Inc.,
a public company providing computer-based K–12 education and corporate training.
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