Roy Romer, 39th governor of Colorado, is a leader in the initiative to develop a university without walls or parking problems. This virtual university was first proposed at a meeting of the Western Governors Association in June 1995. Educom Review recently interviewed Gov. Romer to find out how the Western Governors University would function compared to the traditional university setting, and in particular, how it would assess and certify its "graduates."
Educom Review: Where did the idea of Western Governors University come from?
Romer: I and Mike Leavitt, the Governor of Utah, came together upon this idea at about the same time, about a year ago. We both understood that this country has a great demand for new skills and knowledge in the workforce because that is the nature of the economy we are going to face in the next century, and because we need to close the wage gap. What this means is that there are many more people to be educated today, and we need to find a way to make learning more affordable and more accessible and still keep it high-quality. We then looked at what was coming onboard with new technology in the form of distance learning, CD-ROM, interactive software, and so on. And it is just obvious that there will be many new ways that we can create a learning experience for a person.
E.R.: Such as . . . ?
Romer: Such as this: Suppose you are a worker at a Motorola plant out in Arizona. You have a certain level of math skills, but you want a higher level of math skills. But you can't afford to leave and go to a campus; you can't leave your job; you can't leave your family. So how can we help you? By creating a place where you can walk into a computer setting and say to that computer, "This is the skill I have now in math; this is the skill I need. Computer, tell me where can I get that educational experience." You also say to the computer, "This is the time I have available, and this is the technology I'd like to use to help me learn." The computer then would scan what's available from 13 western states, and would deliver in a really quality way the educational experience you need. That's the first pillar of our plan, a kind of brokering of courseware from various sources, without creating a new faculty.
E.R.: And the second pillar?
Romer: The second pillar is competency verification. If you have taken a course, you've got to know whether you've really mastered the material. You need independent verification of your competency, once you're done, so that you know you got it. In addition, you need to be able to show your certificate to your employer, as proof of your accomplishment, and have that certificate available if you want to move on to another job or qualify for another college program. Independent verification of competency is a really important pillar of our new approach to the creation of a program based on individual learning experiences. And that was the concept that brought us to create what we at first called Virtual University and now are calling Western Governors University.
We are trying to make education more accessible at a more effective cost, but the great uniqueness of the idea is that we are going to develop a verification of competency - a new approach, a new network, a new system, so that we can judge the quality of education beyond high school. Instead of focusing on just the quality of the input (how many faculty and all that), our focus will be on judging the output, and that means judging whether you have it or you don't have it. It's analogous to professional training and testing programs. If you're training to be a pilot, you first get classroom training and then flying instruction, but finally, when you finish all your training, you go over to the federal government and you say, "Give me a test, and if I pass the test, let me have my license." That is independent verification of competency that is universal in its recognition and its importance.
E.R.: Would you anticipate developing tests across the whole range of possible subjects?
Romer: I would anticipate being able to test on any subject that we offer.
E.R.: Would it be possible to grant whole degrees based on your testing activities?
Romer: That will come later. I think that what we initially are going to do is put together a series of skill-level acquisitions to try to meet the specific immediate need and then those skill-level acquisitions will eventually lead to a definition of a degree. Let's take the two-year degree of a junior college. A person comes in and says, "Okay, I want these technical skills A, B, C and D." Then after he gets those technical skills, he says, "Look, I'd like to have a degree from a two-year institution. What do I have to add to what I've already got to get that degree?" We'd say, "Here's what you've missed. You take that, and you get a certificate of competency in it. Now you've got the whole ball of wax, and if you add a verification of competency for the whole ball of wax, there's no reason why you should not get a degree" - which is merely saying this person has successfully matriculated through this course of material which we think deserves a degree at the two-year level.
E.R.: Consider this hypothetical question. Suppose someone showed up at the doorstep and said, "I'd like to take the test," and you have no notion of how he or she claimed to have learned the material. The person simply said: "I know all about the subject. I'll blow the test away."
Romer: I don't have that answer yet. If your test is in, let's say, 32 separate modules that you had to accomplish, my cut at it is if you sit down and take the exam for each one of those 32, rather than take the course, and prove that you've mastered it, I don't care whether you take the course. Now that's my personal view. I don't know if our institution would take that view but I would recommend they do it, because it is logical. What we are trying to do is give somebody an accurate badge that he or she knows subject X or Y or Z. Let's go back to the example of the pilot. If you walk in and pass the flight test, I don't know that I'd care whether you take the course. Probably the federal government has some requirement that you take the course, just for added insurance.
E.R.: Well, you have a real commitment to the idea that performance is more important than schooling.
Romer: You know, I've read a lot about Lincoln. Lincoln sat out there under a tree, with a candle, and studied the law. He didn't sit in a class, he didn't do class time and get a grade. He eventually learned enough that he was able to go somewhere and have someone verify his competency so he could be admitted to the bar. Well, let me tell you, there's a very big idea here, and it is very important to me. Our existing institutions of higher education - and what we're developing now is not a substitute for that; it's an additional market - measure input all the time: how much money they cost, how hard it is to get into them, how many Ph.D.s they have, and so forth. They do not typically subject their products to an objective measure of output. If I'm an outsider or a potential employer, I don't know what happens in those four years; I've just got to hope and assume that those products of the educational system really learned what they were supposed to have learned.
Now, when we get this new university going, there will be objectively administered output measures to verify the results of the learning process. And I've got to tell you, a whole lot of existing institutions will be saying, "Whoa, wait a minute! What's happening? All those folks coming out of that system are getting better jobs than our own graduates! Why is that?" The answer will be: because those folks have proven that they really do know what they're supposed to know. And employers don't know whether other graduates do or don't know what they say they do - because other schools haven't given them neutrally administered objective tests.
E.R.: Have you encountered much resistance to your ideas?
Romer: Well, a new idea always encounters some resistance. But I don't think we will face much opposition if we make it clear that this represents an additional market. It's not meant to replace existing institutions. Of course, the existing higher education institutions know that change is going to happen to them too, but that's not what this effort is all about; we are not after their base. We are saying that there is a whole new market out there that is going to have to be served. And we're saying that if we can tap it efficiently, then they can learn from what we are doing and can incorporate elements of our approach in the way they do business. Many of those institutions don't offer classes after three o'clock in the afternoon; what do they tell a guy who works from 7 to 3:30 and has to get an education? Afternoon and evening may be the only time he has for it. I think the market mechanisms will drive quality and good price, if we allow the market mechanisms to move correctly.
E.R.: Are you planning to focus on professional and technical education, as opposed to traditional liberal arts and science education?
Romer: No, not really. I think the initial demand for this university may be for professional and technical education, because if a person is out on a job and can't break away, he or she is going to be very focused on the need to obtain some set of specific skills. But a lot of employers now are telling their workers: "If you can't communicate, you can't sell for me, and if you don't understand the culture of the West you can't sell in the West, so go out and take some Western history." Jobs are different now, and require a lot of different kinds of skills.
E.R.: Let's go back to the idea of testing. How will that work?
Romer: Let me give you an illustration of just one of the ways it might be done. We've got to do everything we can with what we've got already out there. Now, Sylvan Learning Centers are all throughout the western United States - probably the whole United States. We may contract with a center like that, which is already out there and say, here, we'll develop the learning material and you develop and administer the test. I don't know if there are competency examinations in freshman and sophomore English. I don't know if they are already out there. Maybe, maybe not. And if not, there's a lot of work to be done. I'll admit that what we're attempting is challenging. But it's supported by the right rationale.
E.R.: What kinds of people have been involved in planning this?
Romer: Well, we are looking at those consultants and people on existing faculties that have the most experience (a) in putting together this system to provide certification of competency; and (b) those that are experienced in putting together an electronic catalogue or network of course offerings.
E.R.: Would the course offerings be limited to materials that could be developed within the western states?
Romer: Well, at the moment, it's the Western Governors who are the ones doing this. That could change. We don't know whether we will include others or not, and we don't have any aversion to that possibility. It's just a question of what can be successfully managed. Let me give you another piece of this. Novell Corporation in Utah, which is in the computer networking business, has an educational program called the Novell Engineering Certificate. If you get one of those certificates, man, you can get a job anywhere, because everybody knows that really signifies quality. If you earn one of those certificates you've really got to know your stuff. Now Novell ought to be a part of our university. We ought to say, hey, Novell, you don't have to be a college or university to offer that. Offer that course through us. Keep the quality in it. You do it like you are now, and we'll do the testing with you. And the certificate doesn't have to be a Novell certificate. It can be a Western Governors University certificate. There are other companies doing similar programs. Why don't we open up that supply to the market out there?
E.R.: How have established faculty reacted to your ideas?
Romer: There has been a certain amount of skepticism, but I'm finding that good, creative faculty look with excitement at the possibilities. Look, we're coming into a new era. The traditional "talking head" in front of a class of 30-plus kids in college tries to accomplish three somewhat distinct educational transactions - (1) delivering information; (2) delivering skills; (3) providing coaching in the ability to reason. We need to look at that cluster of transactions and break it up. We don't need a talking head any longer to deliver information, so we reverse it, and make the whole process student-oriented rather than faculty- and institution-oriented. It's the student who needs to be sorting out what it is he or she needs to know, what course offers it, and how to get it. What that means is that technology will lead to a reexamination of how you spend faculty time.
E.R. For example?
Romer: A typical professor who is on campus and who has been talking in classes forever might now say to the students, "From now on you're going to get your information through technology, through the Internet or through CD-ROMs. And we'll take the same approach to building your skill levels, so if I'm teaching you a language you may get practice through interactive software. The upshot of this is that I'm going to spend all my time dealing with your reasoning process, your ability to assimilate knowledge, solve problems, work in a group, communicate." We should end up with a much more efficient use of faculty time once we take the traditional role of faculty and reexamine it in the light of what technology can bring to the process. That's going to happen with or without a Virtual University. Going beyond that to the idea of the Virtual University, we'll see an important new way of delivering the educational experience. Back to your question: Faculty, I hope, will be excited by the new possibilities of delivering a product better. Some will undoubtedly be fearful and say to themselves, "Hey, I've taught this course for 29 years because it was my dissertation and, my God, if this gets going, they are going to make me teach what people need out there rather than what I got my credentials in." Wouldn't that be a tragedy!
E.R.: Why did Governor Wilson of California choose not to join your efforts?
Romer: He felt that the California system is so large that California can go it alone. I think he made a mistake. They could gain a lot - they don't need to be a Balkanized area. But, you know, let 'em go. Maybe we can learn from each other.
E.R.: If you can get your certification in place, you've unlocked quite a bit of power, because you could be trusted to certify anybody in anything!
Romer: Yes, I believe the testing is the key to it also. In fact, it's what makes me most excited about this. A lot of people can put together a new way of brokering delivery. In fact, that's happening. The unique thing about us is the independent verification of competency. Let me tell you why this is so critical. Let's take the President's program of subsidizing higher education - $10,000 a year as an income tax deduction, or a $1500-a-year grant toward junior college tuition. Remember that one? Man, you're putting up that kind of money, you've got to have something that verifies that the money is being used effectively. So if we can get more measurement into this system it will do wonders.
Can I give you another analogy? My daughter is buying a car. We dug out J.D. Power car reviews the other night. And we are looking at quality and price, right? Well, the J.D. Power report gives us a really good assessment of these products; you can rely on it because it is consumer reaction that indicates that over the last five years this car is a hell of a lot better than that car. That's what my daughter and I have to look at before we take our money and buy good quality at a good price.
But in higher education I can't do that. There is no way I know what the heck the quality is on a value-added basis. I can say that it is more difficult to get into such-and-such school, that it costs more to get into it, and that it has more Ph.D.s on the faculty. But I don't know how good they will be in using the four years of my daughter's time in their institution. So what I need as a consumer is some method of verifying what is the result, the outcome, of a two- or four-year experience and what is the price of that compared with others down the street. Now what I am trying to say is that measurement used properly can be very helpful to make the free market work. And I think that if we get this done right through a verification of competency, it will provide a tool to consumers that they definitely need. And consumers with good information are going to drive more changes in higher education than anything else!
E.R.: One thing that puzzles us is that, apart from the fact that it shows the creativity of the Western Governors, why is it a Western Governors University? Why isn't it a Governors University? Why isn't it a National University ?
Romer: It's just that we started it out here. Believe me, there is an openness to this. It's like a farmer - you are out there putting some test corn in, you want to put it in a plot so you can kind of control it. The United States is a pretty big plot, and I think we have a relationship to each other that is tight, and we need to kick it off. I don't think there are going to be any barriers to expanding it. We just need to get off the ground. And that's what we're going to do.