Bill Murphy 2002 Barrier Buster Award

June 16, 1949 - January 4, 2001

Bill Murphy Tribute
Bill was a leader in distance and continuing education nationwide. Murphy's work included many firsts for Extension. He designed the first national auction and sale of feeder cattle via satellite and audio technologies and developed and produced the first graduate class for Extension field personnel that was distributed on a national network.

Bill was also heavily involved in the first Extension Technology Conference, held at Virginia Tech in 1987 and served on the planning committee for the next several conferences. This conference is now the major educational event for technology enthusiasts in Cooperative Extension nationwide.

Murphy's work won many national awards, and he received the Award of Excellence in Teleconferencing from the Agricultural Communicators in Education and the Most Distinguished Program award from the National University Teleconference Network for his program, "Aids - A Burning Issue: Community Education and Action."

He was a member of the program/operations council of Ag*Sat and was a major contributor to the early successes of this consortium, now called ADEC.

Bill began his career as a high school science teacher at Roanoke in 1973. After serving as 4-H Extension agent in Floyd County from 1977 to 1982, he joined the faculty at Virginia Tech and continued his graduate work. He was assistant director of resident instruction for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, an Extension specialist in computing resources, distance education specialist and coordinator of the Extension Program Development Unit during his career.

Bill was devoted to his wife Marcia and two sons Ben and Geoff.

2002 Barrier Buster Awardee
Gary Miller & The Pennsylvania State World Campus Team

Dr. Gary Miller and his Penn State World Campus Team not only have eliminated the barriers of time and place for thousands of students, they have worked effectively to overcome numerous institutional hurdles in order to mainstream online distance learning. The World Campus team has provided significant leadership in raising awareness and understanding within the national higher education community of effective approaches for online delivery in distance education as this field has developed in recent years.

In creating the World Campus as a fully integrated campus within Penn State's instructional mission and academic community the team worked diligently to change many existing universitypolicies, approaches and structures as well as create entirely new ones to ensure successful institutionalization of a virtual campus within Penn State.

The World Campus model of integration and institutionalization within the university setting serves as a prototype for the still developing field of online distance education nationally. This is recognized by the Sloan Foundation as it made one of its largest investments in asynchronous learning networks in the World Campus. Dr. Miller and his team actively share their experiences
and expertise through ADEC, through the Sloan Consortium, national meetings, consulting and technical assistance.

Credit and noncredit enrollments totaled 5,119 in FY00-01, up from 2,964 in FY 99-00 and 846 in FY 98-99.82 percent of World Campus students are 24 years of age and over. Students come from all 50 sates and 49 countries around the globe with more than 60 percent of them from outside Pennsylvania. Learning On-line Magazine said: "Penn State's action may mean a sea change for the world of university on-line learning....Now the Dean is going to look at corporate training and see opportunity to fund departments and programs..."

Gary E. Miller is Associate Vice President for Distance Education and Executive Director of the World Campus at The Pennsylvania State University, where he is also Affiliate Associate Professor of Adult Education. He is a member of the ADEC Board of Directors, serves on the Executive Committee of the International Council for Distance Education and the Board of Directors of the Midwest Universities Consortium for International Activities, Inc. He served on the Taskforce on Quality Principles in Distance
Education for the American Council on Education.