ST. LEO - On Friday, Catherine Ellison visited Saint Leo University for the first time. Today, she will graduate with a degree in business administration.
When her college boyfriend graduated from the University of Texas three years ago, Ellison found herself in a bind. He was leaving to attend medical school at American University of the Caribbean in St. Maarten. She was still taking classes at a community college in Austin.
"We either would have had a long distance relationship, or I would have had to put my education off," said Ellison, 25.
But after thinking it over and searching around online, Ellison came across Saint Leo University's Center for Online Learning.
"It was the answer to our prayers," Ellison said. She followed her boyfriend to St. Maarten and continued her own studies there as he attended medical school. This summer they are getting married.
For 21/2 years, Ellison has been attending classes, writing papers, and sweating over exams - all online. She is one of 60 such students who have traveled to Saint Leo to walk the stage and accept diplomas at today's 3 p.m. commencement in the Marion Bowman Activities Center. Twenty-five more online students will accept diplomas from afar.
Ellison, 25, is a more traditional college student than Saint Leo University's online program tends to attract. Most of the school's online graduates are older, full-time working people with families, said Dr. Jody Conway, the online center's assistant director.
"Some of them are transfer students; some just have their high school diploma when they start with us," she said. "But for one reason or another they didn't get to take that traditional route out of high school to college."
The Center for Online Learning is separate from Saint Leo University's regular programs but has equal accreditation. The program is the third largest of its kind in the nation; students log on from 40 different countries.
Students can get degrees in business, accounting, criminal justice, computer information systems and liberal arts.
Professors record video lectures and ship textbooks to students in the mail. They give quizzes and exams online through timed testing engines with safeguards designed to thwart dishonesty.
Conway, who teaches online courses, says the anonymity of an online classroom can level the playing field.
"You don't see hair color, you don't see ethnicity, you don't see any of that," she said. "You have no way of knowing anything other than their academic ability and their insight into the subject."
Online class discussion sessions are held through message boards and even group work is assigned. The school has also created an online forum, IRoar, designed to allow students to gather online socially.
Here, the program's 7,500 students can congregate in clubs, play fantasy football and hang out in chat lounges. "We not only want to nurture their academic needs, we want to make sure that their intellectual, spiritual and social needs are also met," Conway said.
Ellison said she's made good friends with the other students and professors online.
"Graduation will be the first time that I meet a lot of them." she said. "So I'm kind of excited to put faces with names."
John Yugovich, another online Saint Leo student, has been working on his degree in business administration for three years from Detroit. The 50-year-old graduate will speak at today's commencement.
Since dropping out of school when he was in his 20s, Yugovich had always hoped to go back. He wanted his two children, now ages 6 and 9, to have a dad with a college education.
"I want to come off credible when I tell them that education is important," he said.
Juggling his responsibilities as a student, parent, husband and real estate broker has not been easy the past three years, Yugovich said.
"The amount of work and the concentration of it is very heavy," he said. "You cannot fall behind it at all."
The effort was well worth it, said Yugovich, who will speak at today's commencement.
"I stand here today," he will tell the audience, "to show that it is never too late to continue your education."
[Last modified May 10, 2003, 02:16:13]