Shawnee State University has received a $45,000 three-year grant from the Ohio Learning Network to establish a regional learning center on campus designed to serve southeast Ohio.

SSU joins Bowling Green State University, Kent State University, Miami University and The Ohio State University in offering a regional learning center.

“SSU is excited about the opportunity to serve southern Ohio as a Learning Community Initiative Regional Center,” said Michael Field, Ph.D.. provost and vice president for academic affairs at SSU. “Our new Teaching and Learning Center will be the heart of these activities, and we look forward to working with other universities and colleges because collaboration is healthy and productive. We will share what we know with others, and I'm sure we will learn from them as well.”

Barbara Kunkle, Ph.D., said that OLN was interested in SSU because ... “We were doing new and exciting things by sharing and learning technology from each other on campus.”

Kunkle will co-direct the center with Eugene Burns, Ph.D., associate professor, biological sciences.

According to the OLN Learning Communities initiative, the SSU center will be responsible for hosting two annual events, a summer/fall kick-off for new and experienced learning communities and a mid-winter Learning Institute.

The center will be required to provide a Web Site with events, ideas, resources, news and learning community data and serve as an ambassador of the benefits of learning communities while strengthening the state's infrastructure of support for learning communities.

Kunkle said, “We will also be required to administer small mini-grants for learning community activities at the various colleges and universities in southeastern Ohio.”

SSU has had faculty learning communities on campus for the past five years, according to Kunkle. One of those communities, Cyber Trek, was started about four years ago and was facilitated by Burns.

“It has been one of our most successful faculty learning communities on campus,” said Burns.

Institutions in southeast Ohio that will be a part of the SSU regional learning center include: Belmont Technical College, Central Ohio Technical College, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Hocking College, Jefferson Community College, Marietta College, Muskingum College, Ohio University-Chillicothe, Ohio University Eastern, Ohio University-Lancaster, Ohio University Southern, Washington State Community College, University of Rio Grande, Rio Grande Community College and Zane State College.

FRANK LEWIS can be reached at (740) 353-3101, ext. 232