Rationale and Participants
Before the spring of 2008, no system was in place that would enable students to take courses within a collaborative network of Catholic seminaries and theological institutions. Because of the distance between seminaries and theological institutions, students who desired to take courses outside their curriculum had to rely on nearby universities to accommodate them. To resolve this problem, a number of academic deans agreed in the fall of 2006 to spearhead a Catholic Distance Learning Network in which member schools would be able to offer their courses online and receive enrollments of students from other member schools at no tuition cost to the students or member institutions.
We have accomplished this in two ways:
- We qualify theology faculty to teach online, and
- We ensure opportunities for the continuing education of theology faculty in the use of appropriate technologies.
In the first instance, we are offering over the summers of 2007, 2008, and 2009 three online courses dealing with how to teach online. The courses focus on the creation and adaptation of a syllabus for online teaching and learning, differences between transmissive and transactive methodologies, online course assessment, and student evaluation.
Enrollment will be open to any full-time faculty member within the 60-school network. Applicants will submit an online application form with a specific course they would like to teach online in mind. Ten applications will be chosen from these submissions each spring. Faculty selected to attend the summer course will receive the services of an onsite educational technologist who will work with them on physically translating their course materials into cyberspace concurrent with the pedagogical instruction being received in the class.
Upon successful completion of the course, the faculty member will receive a certificate qualifying him or her to teach in the Catholic Distance Learning Network along with a $500 stipend. All courses designed over the summer will be offered by the faculty member through the network in the spring or following fall semester. To view faculty who have already received certification in online teaching and learning, click here.
In the second instance, we will offer over the next three years nine asynchronous conferences (three a year – in March, August, and December) on online teaching and learning as concerns theological studies.
These conferences will be open for participation to all 60 member schools and linked through our website so that schools outside of our network will also benefit from them.
Over the next three years, we hope that all member schools will incorporate the possibilities that a collaborative network like ours offers for registration and come to rely upon it as a means of sharing human and material resources between institutions.
CDLN Steering Committee
- Bernard Stratman, S.M.
Executive Director, NCEA Seminary Department (Washington, D.C.) Supervisor - Sebastian Mahfood
Assoc. Prof. of Intercultural Studies at Kenrick School of Theology (St. Louis, MO) Coordinator - Jeremiah McCarthy
Director of accreditation and institutional evaluation at ATS (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) - Jim Rafferty
Former Member of the Association of Theological Schools Technology Committee (Minneapolis, MN)
- Dick Benson, C.M.
Academic Dean at St. John's School of Theology (Camarillo, CA) - Patrick Russell
Asst. Prof. of Scripture Studies at Sacred Heart School of Theology (Hales Corners, WI) - Sergius Halvorsen
Distance Learning Coordinator at Holy Apostles College & Seminary (Cromwell, CT) - Todd Lajiness
Academic Dean at Sacred Heart Major Seminary (Detroit, MI) - Mark Latcovich
Academic Dean at St. Mary Seminary and School of Theology (Cleveland, OH) - Sandra Magie
Academic Dean at St. Thomas School of Theology (Houston, TX) - Richard Siepka
(Pastor of St. Andrew's Church in Buffalo, NY) - Tom Walters
Academic Dean at St. Meinrad's School of Theology (St. Meinrad, IN)