Online Learning: A Global Jesuit University? - Libby A. Nelson, Inside Higher Ed

In a place whose name means “Nowhere” in Swahili, a small group of students -- refugees from several neighboring African countries, including Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia -- are enrolled in online courses taught by 28 Jesuit colleges, mostly in the United States. The courses are part of Jesuit Commons, a project that seeks to bring courses from the order’s universities to refugee camps worldwide. So far, the program has enrolled about 225 students at three camps in a diploma track that will eventually lead to a credential from Regis University, a Jesuit college in Colorado with a well-established online presence; more than 350 students have participated in service learning courses intended to give them knowledge they use while still at the refugee camps. The program is eyeing a major expansion -- and perhaps, in the coming years, the creation of an online-only Jesuit university that would issue degrees of its own. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/03/27/jesuit-universities-offer-online-courses-refugee-camps