The University of California system’s Board of Regents has reversed a ban on students receiving degrees for classes taken exclusively online after its Academic Senate added an “experience requirement” for students for the first time in 2023.
Photo Illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Rawpixel | Wikimedia Commons
The University of California is ending a ban on allowing students to pursue their degrees entirely through online courses.
On Feb. 14, the UC Board of Regents voted 10-1 to overturn a decision made a year ago by the Academic Senate. That 2023 decision essentially banned online degrees in the university system, requiring anyone seeking an online degree to obtain an exception to that “on-campus experience” requirement.
The vote has raised questions about the balance of power between the regents and the Academic Senate.
Most popular stories
More popular
“It is within the authority of the board to make a decision in the area of degree requirements, but the way it was carried out was detrimental to shared governance,” said James Steintrager, president of the Academic Senate.
Steintrager said there are no immediate plans to respond to the regents’ decision, adding that the Senate does not have the power to override it. But, he said, there will be a response about the regents’ decision-making process.
“I was surprised by the way they did it, because they listened to the arguments but they didn’t ask meaningful questions,” he said, referring to the lack of questions during his presentation at the meeting. “It seemed like they had the will to act without being informed.”
UC Board of Regents Chairman Rich Loeb acknowledged the precarious balance of governance during the Feb. 14 meeting.
“We have been trying to figure out how best to uphold the rights and responsibilities of the board, while maintaining respect and the boundaries of shared governance,” Loeb said. “Ultimately, we decided to abide by the bylaws and take the matter up as a recommendation to the (Academic) Senate.”
The latest move is not the end of the debate. In late 2023, faculty leaders and university administrators formed a 20-member presidential task force to analyze the effectiveness of online degree programs and evaluate teaching approaches. University leaders characterized the committee as a way to “deliver high-quality in-person, hybrid and online offerings for students, including innovations that promote engagement and learning no matter where students are located.”
The task force’s review is necessary because much of the research on the effectiveness of online courses is done at for-profit institutions, said UC Chancellor Katherine Newman.
“Those institutions are not like the University of California,” he said during this month’s regents meeting. “The data that is being released is not particularly comparable, and that’s why it’s so important to have a working group that looks at it.”
The working group is expected to present its own recommendations to the Academic Senate later this summer.
“We have experts who have been working on this issue of what constitutes quality at UC, and that will be a central theme in our discussions,” Steven Cheung, co-chair of the task force, said in a previous interview with Inside Higher Ed. “I think I can speak for the faculty and administration when I say that we’re not interested in a second-rate program; it has to meet the quality of the University of California system.”
Steintrager said the Academic Senate’s initial “on-campus experience” requirement was primarily intended to ensure that no undergraduate student could earn their degree from courses offered entirely online. “It was about closing a loophole for unintended fully online degree programs. This was not recognized by the board,” he said.
On the regents’ decision to overturn the ban, Steintrager said he had less of an issue with the revocation and more of a problem with how the regents made the decision.
He said the filing appeared to be a formality “at best.”
“Which is not, in my view, the way a university of the caliber of the University of California should conduct its business,” he said.
JOBs Apply News
For the Latest JOBs Apply News, Follow ©JOBs Apply News on Twitter and Linkedin Page.
