“It’s Gratifying,” EOU History Professor Comments on Forbes Ranking
By Garrett Christensen on Monday, August 7th, 2023 in More Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News
LA GRANDE – Recently, the Eastern Oregon University’s Online History Degree Program, along with several other programs, was named the best of 2023 by Forbes. Elkhorn Media Group had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Nicole Howard, professor of history for EOU, about the Forbes ranking and what it means for the history faculty.
In short, “I’m really pleased about it. We didn’t know anything was happening on that front, so the department is obviously happy. It’s gratifying because we’ve worked pretty hard over the past several years to up our online game. It’s nice to see the work paying off,” Howard explained.
Over the past several years, the EOU online history program has continued to expand its online presence, primarily in terms of accessibility of classes and ease of scheduling for students as was described in the Forbes Article. According to Howard, emphasis has been placed on offering essential classes (capstone, research, etc.) on a more frequent rotation, if not available every term, to avoid students being left in holding patterns or taking courses they don’t need/enjoy just for the sake of staying enrolled. As stated by Howard:
“What we’ve worked on is making it easier for students to matriculate through the degree without having to wait for courses to come up. That’s always a bummer for a student when they need a course, and they have to wait a term or two to get it. So, we’ve really scheduled in an efficient way, and we’ve tried to offer things that students want, things that they need, and make sure that they can get through no matter when they start.”
This also plays into the overall re-prioritization of the online degree program. A combination of general investment over the past six years and the demand for robust online infrastructure sparked by Covid means the actual quality of learning between the on campus and online programs is much more synchronized. As Howard explained:
“I think one of the great things has been the fact that our on-campus faculty, with very little exception, are teaching the full degree online as well. You don’t have what you see in many programs where there’s online adjuncts teaching the online program and then the on-campus faculty teaching on campus. Our online students get the same faculty, the same expertise, the save vigor that our on-campus students get.”
In fact, two of EOU’s history professors teach online exclusively. While Howard estimates that the “lions share” of teaching is still done by the on-campus tenure faculty, the online program still has more than enough offerings to remain on-par with the in-person courses. As best described by Howard:
“I think for students who are really interested in learning and really want to engage in developing their research skills, improving their critical thinking and critical reading, we’re a really good program for that.”
