Concordia’s President to Help Make ‘Virtual University’ a Reality

Concordia University President D. Ray Halm will take a partial leave of absence during the coming school year, devoting half of his time to establishing an interactive video network based at the Irvine campus.

The “virtual university” will connect seminaries, universities, high schools and congregations affiliated with the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church across the United States.

Funding for the four-year, $6.2-million project is coming from a foundation that Halm said wishes to remain anonymous.

The Concordia University Education Network, or CUENet, will begin transmitting 12 college-level courses by satellite and fiber-optic networks next year.

It will also be used as a communications link among pastors, teachers and other Lutheran Church members.

The Education Network as planned would eventually link all 10 Concordia universities, 60 Lutheran high schools, two seminaries and 6,000 congregations.

As part of the change in Halm’s responsibilities, Concordia fine arts Dean Robert Baden has been promoted to the new position of executive vice president at the 1,200-student campus.

Halm taught a course on the modern novel last spring in a test of the “compressed video” technology. It was taken simultaneously by students at Concordia universities in Irvine; Ann Arbor, Mich.; and Portland, Ore.

The creation of the network is an attempt to stretch limited resources and share the organization’s top teachers with a larger number of students, Halm said.

“This technology has been possible for quite some time but it hasn’t been utilized broadly,” he said. “Right now, there is an absolute rush throughout the country to move forward with this kind of technology in education.”