Cal State Dominguez Hills to Reach Out to Students With Satellite Network

Cal State Dominguez Hills in Carson will begin offering classes via satellite this fall.

Eight of the California State University system’s 23 campuses will use a satellite network to offer classes that range from foreign languages to political science. Courses taught on university campuses will be taped and broadcast to students attending classes at locations that are equipped with satellite hookups.

The classes are part of the university system’s Distance Learning Program, which makes it possible for students who live far from a campus to take classes.

Cal State Chico in Northern California pioneered the program in the early 1980s so that students who lived in remote areas could get a college degree.

Dominguez Hills joined the program this year when CSU signed a $1-million contract with Hughes Communications to increase the satellite capacity so that more campuses could participate. Other campuses offering satellite courses this fall include Los Angeles, Fresno, San Bernardino, San Jose, Long Beach and Sacramento.

The classes are broadcast to 31 sites around the state set up at high schools, community centers and educational offices.

“This is a critical part of our future success to meet the growing number of students enrolling in CSU,” Molly Corbett Broad, CSU executive vice chancellor, said Wednesday during a demonstration of the satellite at Dominguez Hills.

For many students, obtaining a bachelor’s degree would be impossible without the satellite program. In the last two years, high school career counselor Adriana Jimerfield has attended Cal State Chico part-time while working toward a bachelor’s degree in sociology. She has taken two classes per semester via satellite.

Jimerfield lives in Grass Valley, a 1 1/2-hour drive from the university. She takes her classes at a satellite hookup site in the Nevada County Schools Office, just 15 minutes from home, and goes to the campus once a semester to visit professors.

“Without the satellite I would never be able to get a degree,” said Jimerfield, 60. “The university is just too far away to drive to after working all day.”