Cartoon by Victor Ballesteros

Evolution never stops. Neither does progress. Professors adapt the way they educate students, transitioning from the traditional note-taking exchange and into the digital world.

But, like biological evolution, change in the classroom is a sluggish process. Slow and steady may be the right pace for tortoises in the Galapagos Islands, but unacceptable in a fast-moving world.

Southwestern College’s online educational evolution starts with Blackboard, an online learning resource that can, if properly implemented, revolutionize a student’s integration of their education onto the Internet.

Blackboard’s potential is virtually limitless, allowing student access to Powerpoint presentations, notes, practice exams, lectures and projects as well as direct communication with professors using message boards. Some professors do not integrate their class into the system. Worse still, the entity responsible for Blackboard is drastically underfunded and understaffed. Just two people run the massive network.

SWC’s Online Learning Center is a major component of academic success. Rather than hiring additional support for a service that is both practical and widely utilized, Blackboard relies on one full-time administrator, Larry Lambert, and his part-time assistant, Todd Williamson. Two people run a system that manages 1,880 active courses, nine active organizations,13,081 active users, and supports an average of 157,187 page views per day. Lambert and Williamson are good — really good – but even the supermen of cyberspace cannot be expected to do the impossible much longer.

This is detrimental to student success. A resource that is so widely implemented should not be under-supported, especially when it serves 80 percent of the student population. The future is already here and it is Blackboard.

“The faculty needs to change the paradigm between face-to-face and online education,” Lambert said.

He is absolutely right.

When both face-to-face education and online education are being downsized, this leaves an institution of higher education to ponder what it can offer. One cannot be considered more important than the other because while face-to-face interaction is important, online classes offer a chance to learn to those who would not have it otherwise.

There is a clear trend showing that online education allows working students to pursue their education. Surveys conducted by the Online Learning Center indicate that 21.3 percent of students said that taking online classes allowed them to continue their studies.

Students have also shown a trend that they are satisfied with their online education. Almost 70 percent of those surveyed expressed satisfaction with their online experience while 5.3 percent claimed dissatisfaction. A common complaint expressed in the survey was that the server would crash, a problem caused by a shortage of staff monitoring the system. Regardless of a staff shortage, SWC has become the #4 institution in Online Education in the state of California, according to Instructional Technology Council. It has integrated more than 50,000 users into the system and allowed students suffering the burden of a busy schedule to pursue their education in their free time.

Such rapid growth has a price. At one point, the department had eight employees running it. Not anymore. With its current funding, the Online Education Department has hit what Lambert calls a “glass ceiling.” Growth is in sight and attainable if given ideal conditions, but with the resources the department brings in being diverted to such an extent, the department is left struggling.

Increasing funding for a resource that provides both essential and widely-utilized services for the school is not only smart, but also common sense. SWC’s quality of education will greatly improve when online education is augmented rather than stripped down.