03/23/2000

By Kendall Anderson / The Dallas Morning News

Texas Christian University once relied on high-school fairs to attract many of its students.

Now, the Fort Worth school is looking in Argentina, Hungary and other faraway lands.

Virtually, that is.

TCU has been testing an intensive English language program on a handful of foreign students since last April and plans to offer the course by summer.

The e-program uses video, audio and text to teach TCU's traditional three-week intensive English course to non-English speakers. TCU joins a few other Dallas-area schools that have learned there is a new market for one of the United States' most sought-after products: education.

"We're not going to let a time zone interfere with language learning," said Kurk Gayle, director of the intensive English program, which has grown into an experimental laboratory in the basement of TCU's library. "This is going to totally change the way we do education abroad."

The University of Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas, among other area schools, also are teaching courses that transcend national borders.

"Typically, American colleges have not needed to look abroad because they had enough with their . . . domestic market," said Liz Gurrie, with Hong Kong-based NextEd, a company that helps U.S. colleges sell online programs in foreign markets.

"But with all the growth, many schools are looking to extend internationally."

The number of higher-education institutions seeking online partnerships with foreign schools or governments is unknown. NextEd officials say their business has doubled in the last year. Other experts in the Internet education industry estimate that most of the colleges and universities with online courses are beginning to think globally, even if they haven't taken any concrete steps.

Later this month, UTD professor Donald Hicks will travel to Stockholm and Karlskrona , Sweden, to meet with officials about expanding an online graduate education program. Telecommunications giant Ericsson Inc., which is headquartered in Sweden and has Dallas offices, pays Dr. Hicks to teach a telecommunications course to about a dozen students - a mostly U.S.-based group that includes two in Sweden and one each in Mexico and Germany.

The company is interested in offering more traditional college courses, possibly through UTD, to its 110,000 employees in more than 100 countries.

"One of the major functions of any big corporation is developing employee competence. This is one way to do that," said Dr. Hicks, a professor of political economy.

Business is largely behind the push into international online markets, from funding the costly programs to fueling the demand for graduates. The hottest markets for U.S. colleges and universities are in Asia, where there is a huge demand for MBAs, Ms. Gurrie said.

UD officials said they are in discussions with European University in Geneva, as well as several South American and Asian schools about their online MBA program. The Irving-based private Catholic school is also developing an online English as a second language program, which requires some classroom attendance.

Union Pacific Foundation and Tandy Corp., through grants, have underwritten much of the cost of TCU's international ESL project. University officials declined to reveal the total cost.

TCU officials expect several hundred students to enroll in the class next fall, with that number rising to 500 in a year or two.

"In many parts of the world, the language of business is English," said Dr. Larry Adams, TCU's associate provost for academic affairs.

TCU's program is aimed at foreign students who need only a month or two of English instruction to enable them to enroll at a U.S. school. The program is a substantial bargain for students, saving them the costs of extra months of room and board away from home, Mr. Gayle said.

TCU officials said some of the Latin American schools that have tentatively agreed to use the e-program plan to create their own Spanish-language programs, which would benefit TCU students.

"Whether it's Ericsson or UTD or any big organization, you can't opt out," said Dr. Hicks of UTD. "The Internet just means the neighborhood got bigger. So you've got to learn how to use it."