Higher education, in focus

Class in session at National University's satellite campus in Redding

By Kerri Regan

July 11, 2000 Web posted at: 10:26 AM EDT (1426 GMT)

REDDING, California (Redding Record Searchlight) -- There are no fraternities or sororities at this university.

Just students, most of them parents with jobs, serious about getting an education and getting out to pursue employment in the fields of their dreams.

The brick office building at 2195 Larkspur Lane is an unlikely locale for a college campus, but the Redding satellite campus of National University has managed to draw a sizable clientele since it opened Aug. 30.

The 10,000-square-foot north state campus is one of 25 regional learning centers operated by San Diego-based National University, founded in 1971 as a private, non-profit school.

With intensive, twice-weekly night classes and a variety of online courses, the school is tailored for re-entry students.

"The whole university was founded to help adult learners," said Alice Scharper, lead teacher for the school of arts and science. The average student is 34 years old, and about 85 percent work full time and have children, administrators said.

Overall, National University offers 47 graduate and undergraduate degree programs, 17 teaching credential and certificate programs, 18 online degree programs and more than 140 online courses. It serves about 12,500 full-time students. It is accredited by six agencies, including the Western Association of Schools and Colleges and the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

The Redding campus, where about 165 students are enrolled, offers bachelor's degrees in interdisciplinary studies and business administration, master's degrees in business administration and education, and teaching credentials.

Online, north state students can get bachelor's degrees in global studies, business administration and nursing, teaching credentials, and master's degrees in business administration, electronic commerce, nursing and psychology.

Course descriptions are the same at National University satellites throughout the state, so students at every campus receive the same caliber of instruction, administrators said.

And the university has a habit of offering programs that its students ask for, Scharper said. The Redding campus recently hosted a well-attended open house for nurses to gauge the support for a bachelor's in nursing program, and the counseling program was launched because of a shortage of social services and mental health therapists in the north state, said Greg White, an associate professor in the psychology department.

The university is governed by a board of trustees and proceeds from tuition go back into development of the university, administrators said.

The education is not cheap, though the school does offer financial aid. Undergraduates pay $165 per unit and graduate students pay $185 per unit. National University runs on the quarter system so most courses are five units.

But for some students, it's the only way to go.

Nancy Morgan of Anderson, 38, has two young children and works as a substitute teacher while she's pursuing her master's degree in education and her teaching credential from National.

"I like the one-class-a-month program," Morgan said. "I knew there was no way I could try to keep up with three classes and two children and a job and a husband."

Though the courses are "intense," Morgan said she feels like she's learning useful information. She began her seventh class at National University last week.

Going to school during the day was simply not an option, she said, but National's schedule "would work with where I am right now in life."

She said she's impressed by her fellow students, who are all sharply focused on finishing their educations, and by her teachers. One of Morgan's previous teachers is a Redding-area principal who would describe an incident that happened at school that day, then ask the students how they would have handled it.

Ed Duggan, interim head of the school of education and a retired Shasta High School principal, said he "hand-picked" every teacher in the education program. All are teachers or administrators in the north state, he said.

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