J O E L CO L E M A N
Chancellor Jerry Falwell, Jr. speaks at the first webcast meeting for Liberty University Online faculty members.
FIRST-EVER WEBCAST KEEPS ONLINE FACULTY CONNECTED TO CAMPUS Liberty University held its first-ever webcast meeting on March 7 for faculty members in its online program. Liberty currently has more than 2,000 faculty members around the globe teaching courses with Liberty University Online. More than 1,200 logged in to the webcast – including faculty in Columbia, Germany, and South Korea. They were joined by about 300 residential faculty who attended the event in Arthur S. DeMoss Learning Center. Faculty members were introduced to academic deans and had the chance to hear from Chancellor and President Jerry Falwell, Jr., Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs/Provost Dr. Ron Godwin, and Vice Provost Dr. Ron Hawkins. A special video presentation surveying Liberty University’s academic life, athletic programs, and spiritual activities was shown for the first time. (You
Making the edition available online for free “just sounded like common sense,” she said. SELAH has consistently won design awards and was recently awarded a Gold Crown Award from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. These initiatives, primarily developed within
can view the video on Liberty’s YouTube page.) In welcoming online faculty to the webcast, Godwin said the purpose was to help them connect “as real, true members of the Liberty University academic family.” “We want their experience to be comparable in every way possible (to residential faculty),” he said. “We want this to be a global community of scholars and academics that are servicing a global population of Christ-centered students.” The event was a collaboration of different departments and offices within the university, including Marketing, Information Technology, Technical Productions, and the offices of the Chancellor, Provost and Vice Provost. They worked in conjunction with Cisco, an external vendor. Because of its success, the administration plans to hold online faculty meeting webcasts four times a year, twice during the fall semester and twice in the spring, with more interactive features.
the university’s Marketing Department, were implemented in consideration of the needs of the university’s various audiences and to create ways to keep them connected. “Understanding the needs of a school that has nearly 100,000 students and a myriad of alumni and supporters all over the world is the first step in developing connections,”
Kennedy said. “Liberty is more than a university; it is a family, united by a goal to be Champions for Christ in every area of life. Liberty Marketing will continue to make strides toward fostering connections and allowing the entire Liberty family to share and celebrate together for years to come.”
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