Dr. Jesse Stommel, director of the English literature and new media program, was featured in a March 2013 Portland Business Journal article about how online offerings are shaping the future of higher education.

Excerpts from an article by Matthew Kish in the Portland Business Journal, March 1, 2013.

Experts say the day is quickly approaching when a student takes a handful of online classes from an organization like Western Governors University, completes a smattering of free massive open online courses from a venture-capital backed startup, then spends only a year or two on a college campus in order to finish a bachelor's degree.

"We're going to have to be very nimble about thinking about accreditation and how we grant degrees," said Jesse Stommel, co-founder and the director of Hybrid Pedagogy and director of the English and digital humanities program* at Marylhurst University. "The notion that people are going to get all of their learning from one place and from one institution is going away. And it's going away relatively quickly."

While the challenges of making online education work are huge, so is the business opportunity.

Oregon colleges and universities are plowing ahead with plans to rewrite their business plans.

Read the full article at BizJournals.com (subscription required)

*English literature and new media program as of April 2013.