College Of Marin's Distance Education Program Gets $200K Grant

NOVATO, CA – College of Marin's Distance Education program recently received a $200,000 grant to develop and strengthen online education programs.

The community college, which has campuses in Kentfield and Novato, received the funds through the Improving Online Career Technical Education Pathways grant program developed by the California Virtual Campus-Online Education Initiative. The program is aimed at helping community colleges develop online programs.

College of Marin's proposed project, Creating Online CTE Pathways, aims to develop new online and hybrid CTE certificates and degree programs. These programs are already developed as on-campus programs with less than 50 percent of the respective courses offered online, according to the college.

The proposed online certificate and degree programs include:

• Business, Administration AS-T
• Business, General Certificate
• Hospitality Management AS-T
• Hospitality Management Certificate
• Multimedia Studies, Entertainment Certificate
• Multimedia Studies, Entertainment AS
• Multimedia Studies, Graphic Design AS
• Multimedia Studies, Graphic Design Certificate
• Multimedia Studies, Web Design AS
• Multimedia Studies, Web Design Certificate

Other nine-unit, short-term certificates in multimedia graphic design and digital illustration will also be developed, according to the college. These certificates will provide up-skilling opportunities for employees currently working in the field. These short-term certificates will also be ladder certificates, which can lead to degree completion.

In addition to the course development within the CTE programs, existing gaps within the CSU/UC general education patterns will be filled by adding online courses such as art history, math, economics and public speaking, according to College of Marin. Developing these courses will allow academic degree programs such as anthropology and psychology to be offered over 50 percent online.