ARIZONA STATE SENATE
Phoenix, Arizona
REVISED
regents; off-campus courses;
report
Purpose
Establishes reporting
requirements of the Arizona Board of Regents relating to university extended
education.
Background
Laws 1999, Chapter 148
modified the program evaluation process for Arizona state government, creating
the Strategic Program Area Review (SPAR) process to provide the Governor and
Legislature an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of
programs crossing state agency lines.
These reviews are a permanent part of the biennial budget process and
result in decisions to retain, eliminate or modify particular programs.
The Senate Committee on
Education reviewed one of the three specified programs to be evaluated in the
2000 legislative session: University Extended Education.
The mission of the Arizona
State University College of Extended Education, Northern Arizona University
Personal and Professional Develop program and Office of Management Development,
and the University of Arizona Extended University is to provide credit and
non-credit education to non-traditional students seeking courses at
non-traditional times and sites.
The Joint Legislative Budget
Committee (JLBC) and the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budgeting (OSPB)
reached the following findings after reviewing self assessments of the extended
education programs: (1) off-campus
courses serve a valuable function in making university education available to
students who otherwise may not be able to attend classes. The number of courses offered off-campus has
risen significantly in the past several years.
The Arizona Board of Regents, however, has not provided any general
policy guidance on the appropriate level of off-campus courses in the overall
mix of educational offerings, (2) coordination among universities relating to
distance learning may be inadequate and may create duplication of services, and
(3) the Arizona Board of Regents policy that describes which students will be
counted for General Fund enrollment formula funding does not clearly address
the wide range of extended education course delivery methods that currently
exist in the state.
S.B. 1318 addresses these
joint findings and specifies reporting functions of the Arizona Board of
Regents relating to university extended education.
Provisions
1. Requires the Arizona Board of Regents to submit a report to the Governor, the Senate President, Speaker of the House and the JLBC relating to its policy for the use of off-campus courses.
2. Requires the Arizona Board of Regents to submit a report to the Governor, the Senate President, Speaker of the House and the JLBC relating to its policy to coordinate off-campus course offerings.
3. Requires the Arizona Board of Regents to submit a report to the Governor, the Senate President, Speaker of the House and the JLBC relating to courses offered through alternative delivery methods and associated costs and quality issues.
4. Specifies the report to be submitted by November 1, 2000.
5. Provides for a general effective date.
Amendments Adopted by Committee
1.
Makes
conforming changes to align with the SPAR recommendations for university
extended education as adopted by the Senate Education Committee.
Senate Action
ED 1/27/00 DPA 6-0-3-0
Prepared by Senate Staff
January 31, 2000