Hays ? Cindy Elliott was new as dean of Fort Hays State University’s virtual college four years ago when president Ed Hammond set a goal to enroll as many students for off-campus courses as those on campus.

“I thought, how in the world can we get 5,000 students?” Elliott said.

Elliott and the staff looked at where students might be found and narrowed their focus to the community colleges, in and out of Kansas, and the military, which pays 100 percent of tuition for people on active duty.

Working with the community colleges, Fort Hays has tried to offer a seamless transfer of course work, Elliott said.

The effort has increased the virtual college’s enrollment to 1,890 this semester, or 713 more than enrolled in fall 2001, Hammond said.

That brings to 776 the increase in students since the fall of 2001.

And that brought Fort Hays’ total enrollment to 6,392, an all-time high.

Fort Hays’ 13.6 percent enrollment increase was in percentage terms more than any other regents’ university. It’s 10 percent higher than the 10 percent goal Hammond set 18 months ago when the economy started to sour. The university had to make up for a $500,000 cut in state funding this school year.

The school has a three-year goal that aims for 10 percent increases next year and the following year.

Elliott said it was a team effort. The instructors must prepare the courses, and the virtual college support staff must make it available to students in many formats. Some courses are recorded and distributed to students on video tapes, CD ROM and the Internet.

Others are live lectures sent to community colleges where students view the instructor on a television. Six community colleges are on board: Dodge City, Garden City, Seward County, Pratt, Barton County and Colby.

Ray Johnson, educational administration professor at Fort Hays, teaches only virtual college courses during the school year. In the summers, he teaches principals and teachers on campus because that’s when they’re available. After eight years, he sees positives and negatives with it.

“People will come up to me on campus and say, ‘Hello Dr. Johnson, I’m so and so,’ so I don’t get that kind of relationship,” Johnson said.

On the flip side, more students are involved in class. He mandates the students send him weekly e-mails and participate in online discussion boards.

“Students who never ask questions in class are comfortable asking questions online. They have more confidence through e-mail,” Johnson said.

Because more questions are coming in than during a typical class period, it’s more work for the teachers, Johnson said. But that’s work he can do from home while sipping his morning tea.

The convenience to students has helped the college gain many more students than if it relied only on students moving to the Hays area, Hammond said.

“Students that aren’t mobile, because of their jobs, family responsibilities, or other reasons, have an option now,” Hammond said.