Developing Successful Online Degree Programs at a Historically Black University

Abstract

This chapter presents an overview of the process of building online degree programs from the ground up utilizing data from the process at a four-year liberal-arts institution in the United States that also has a designation as a Historically Black College (HBCU). The university has expanded both its research and global focus in the past several years, and the development of online degree programs was a natural extension of a desire to produce global leaders through the lens of a traditional liberal arts degree program. This chapter discusses some of the challenges HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions (MSIs) face entering the online education marketplace, particularly the challenge of how HBCUs and MSIs can use their historic legacy and missions to distinguish themselves from competitors and meet the needs of online students.