By Jack Sintic and Giselle Rhoden
Since the announcement of Bellarmine’s new OnCourse program and tuition increase on Feb. 9, the university has formed a task force and explored answers to the many questions students have asked.
Mark Wiegand, associate provost, and Patrick Englert, associate vice president for student affairs, lead the task force, which is officially called the OnCourse Implementation and Management Committee.
The task force formed in the first week of March following student and faculty backlash after the program was announced.
Greg Hillis, a professor of theology who serves on the task force, said: “Students felt that it was sort of sprung upon them, and I think it kind of was. The communication wasn’t very good. Faculty felt like it was sprung on them as well.”
“We wanted to advocate on behalf of students,” Hillis said.
The goal of the task force is to “look at the implementation process for the OnCourse program… and talk through what different stakeholders, different groups were hearing, what some of the concerns were and try to get information,” Wiegand said.
“We’ve taken that information and brought it together and are going to be having a series of communications over the next few weeks to students, to staff, to faculty, helping to explain the program and get other questions answered,” he said.
In addition to answering student and faculty questions and addressing concerns, the task force will watch the program operate and “assess the implementation and assess the accessibility of the program… look at the affordability and to begin to also study the achievement,” Wiegand said.
This information will help guide the committee in its decision-making with the program.
Hillis said nearly all Bellarmine students will be able to opt out of OnCourse. However, if a student opts out of OnCourse, it is a permanent decision.
Current students who are not eligible to opt out include: “active-duty military students and full-tuition scholarship student-athletes.”
Graduate students are also ineligible to opt out because OnCourse is already included in the graduate credit hour cost structure.
According to an email on April 12 from university president Dr. Susan Donovan, “There is one opportunity for the student to opt-in which will be at the end of the following academic year. The student cannot opt-in until the end of the Spring Semester 2022.”
Hillis said: “This is a decision that students need to make with their advisers about whether they opt out or not.”
Students who opt out of the program will not be charged the additional $25 per credit hour for OnCourse and will be responsible for purchasing all books and course materials on their own.
Additionally, part-time students will be refunded $15 per credit hour.
According to Donovan’s email, “the total amount to be refunded to the student’s account is $350 for each semester the student remains in opt out.”
Those who choose to opt out of OnCourse will not be provided additional funding through the financial aid office for textbook expenses and cannot receive bookstore gift cards for textbooks, emergency funds, etc.
Any students who want to opt out must do so through the selfservice.bellarmine.edu portal between April 15 and May 28, 2021.
Hillis also said all incoming students will not be given the opportunity to opt out of the OnCourse program. Students who first enroll at BU to attend in the Fall 2021 semester must participate in OnCourse.
Students whose area of study requires them to take licensing exams expressed concerns about keeping their textbooks. Originally, students had to return books provided through the OnCourse program. However, there are now options for students who wish to hold onto their textbooks.
“The option will be available for all students to purchase books at the end of the semester. That can be both as a hard copy or as an e-copy,” Weigand said.
The OnCourse decision also raised a debate among students and faculty because of news that most or all books would need to be provided in a digital format for affordability.
Nelson Lopez, an associate professor of Spanish and former chair for the department of global languages, said he understands that students need a physical textbook.
Hillis, however, said he thinks digital textbooks will be beneficial for everyone.
“It’s going to work very well for all of us to use e-books,” he said.
Wiegand said that the OnCourse program requires the use of as many digital textbooks as possible.
“The business model for the program… it’s important to use as many e-sources as possible, that’s just part of it. I think [there’s] a number of advantages to that. There are certainly some challenges to that. A big advantage to it is the environmental friendliness to it all,” Wiegand said.
Hillis said faculty will have the option to request a physical textbook or an e-book for their classes.
According to an email message Donovan sent to faculty, all faculty members may request print or digital textbooks. The message said other universities that have partnerships with Follett have a typical split of 55% print text and 45% digital texts.
Some faculty said they are as frustrated as students about the lack of communication on how the program will work.
Lopez said, “It’s very hard for us to make choices of textbooks if we do not know at that time what textbook we should use.”
This has also raised a concern for professors who in the past have not required textbooks for their courses about whether their students would have to pay the $25 per credit hour even for classes without textbooks.
“I’m not for it at all…if you can teach a course without using a textbook, more power to you,” Lopez said.
Despite the backlash, there are some who feel this program, even with its challenges, can be beneficial.
“Some students were really thrilled about that [OnCourse] because they are in programs that have very expensive textbooks, and they spend more than that per semester. But there are some students in other schools like the humanities or something like that where they’re not paying anywhere near that amount [$350 per semester],” Hillis said.
Wiegand said that the task force and Follett are doing their best to make this program beneficial for the Bellarmine community.
“In working with our partners at Follett, they have been very open and very responsive to making this work for Bellarmine. Working for Bellarmine means working for faculty, working for students, working for new students that come to Bellarmine…,” Wiegand said.
The task force sent email messages to students and faculty and will send a series of emails over the coming weeks to explain the plans for the OnCourse program and to answer other questions students and faculty may have. The emails will also have links to the OnCourse FAQ page.