President Sands and panel discuss online courses at President's Forum - ELENA SPARGER Staff Reporter, Purdue Exponent

Acting president Tim Sands introduced a discussion on online learning on Tuesday, revealing that federal support for research at the University is down, a loss that the University plans to recover with revenues from online courses. Sands said that federal support has dropped 26 percent, and awards are down 24 percent overall. The event in Fowler Hall was attended by about 150 of the University’s faculty and staff members. It was paneled by Dale Harris from the College of Engineering Timothy Newby from the College of Education Ananth Iyer, associate dean of graduate studies from the School of Management, and Mary Sadowski, dean of Purdue’s extended campus. “We’ve got to find other ways to find the revenue to replace what has been essentially lost from the state,” Sands said. According to Sands and the panelists, online courses are a viable option for creating a source of revenue for the University without creating too much in expenditures. http://www.purdueexponent.org/campus/article_af22e2a0-0617-5a32-a73c-a8f81c6693a5.html