60 for 60: Durham Tech was second community college in North Carolina to offer telecourses

In celebration of Durham Technical Community College’s 60th anniversary, the College is publishing 60 for 60 – a storytelling campaign that highlights the people, places, and events that have progressed and shaped the College’s six decades of impact. To view more 60 for 60 stories, visit www.durhamtech.edu/60for60.   

When the television industry was booming in the 1970’s, Durham Technical Institute took advantage. In 1979, the College led the initiative of developing the North Carolina Consortium for Instructional Telecommunications (NCCIT).

President Phail Wynn, Jr. and Augusta Julian, former Durham Tech employee, developed the idea of offering telecourses throughout the North Carolina Community College system, which led to the development of the consortium.

This initiative allowed community colleges, technical colleges, and technical institutes to use technology to provide distance learning to adults in North Carolina.

Wynn served as chairman and Julian served as project director to establish the state-wide initiative.

The idea of telecourses sparked when Julian attended a telecommunications conference led by the Dallas Community College System.

At the time, Julian’s sister was a working mother and student at Randolph Community College.

“I knew students (including my sister) would benefit greatly with options for alternative schedules,” said Julian. “I knew that the statewide public television system had been offering televised instruction for a number of years, and I thought community colleges, and the excellent courses I was seeing that had been developed by Dallas Community College System and others, would be a wonderful way to offer more students who needed this kind of help.”

Establishing telecourses throughout North Carolina would give individuals an opportunity to learn at their own pace and time.

The NCCIT initiated an agreement with the University of North Carolina Center for Public Television to utilize the statewide public broadcasting system.

“It was unclear for quite a while if UNC-TV would work with us and everything depended on that,” said Julian. “There were lots of barriers, but folks came together to figure it out.”

In September of 1980, the first broadcast telecourse was aired and within two years, 19 schools in the community college system joined the movement.

Durham Tech became the first community college in North Carolina to offer a statewide broadcast of courses, and within a two-year period, Durham Tech had the largest enrollment in the consortium-sponsored telecourses.

Although the courses were broadcast for anyone to watch, to receive college curriculum credit, students were required to register, attend orientation sessions, workshops and evaluations.

Some of the first courses offered were An Introduction to Computer Programming, An Introduction to Humanities, An Introduction to Business, and An Introduction to Sociology. Each semester, different courses were added.

The Consortium also established the telecourse project Utilizing Telecommunications for Non-Traditional Instruction in the North Carolina Community College System. This project was implemented from 1981 to 1982 to analyze community needs to allow the institutions to learn from the students participating in the telecourses.

Institutions were able to learn significant information about students through surveys and research; like students preferred time to view courses, which channel they preferred, their reasons for enrolling in telecourses, their education level, and demographics.

This data allowed institutions to better serve the needs of students participating in telecourses.

In the 1990’s, telecourses at Durham Tech transitioned to the Campus Learning Center department. Under their leadership, they continued to broadcast courses through television stations and added telecourses via cassette videotapes.

Telecourses were offered for the next 20 years.
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Contact Desiree Patrick, M.S., Communications and Public Relations Coordinator, at allisontowsond@durhamtech.edu