| Abstract: | Virtually unknown to the academic world, for over 25 years the U.S. Army has conducted a sophisticated continuing education program for its reserve component officers, marked by many aspects of the nontraditional study civilian campuses are now discovering. This paper discusses goals, courses, delivery systems, faculty, instructional materials and methods, and students of the army program and summarizes the characteristics adaptable to many forms of civilian alternative higher education—credit for life experience, credit by examination, varied yet articulated delivery systems, quality control exercised by residence faculty, maximum use of ad hoc faculty, tangible and intangible student incentives, constantly revised instructional materials, in-service training for instructors, and performance testing—a cost-effective program at once responsible for academic standards and responsive to student needs.A product of the school system he describes, Col. Schoenfeld served as a USAR School Instructor, Chief of Staff, and Commandant. In civilian life he is Joint Professor of Journalism and Wildlife Ecology and Director of Inter-College Programs, the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706. |
