Recently, the HETS Consortium recognized the work and leadership of those partners involved in its Online Learning Collaboration Initiatives through the creation of the Online Learning Collaboration Leadership Award. HETS has designated $1,000 from its FIPSE-LAAP funds to make available this Award, in recognition to a faculty leader who is facilitating the collaboration processes and advancing the creation of a new online program that will benefit HETS member institutions and the Hispanic learners, at large.
Dr. Keville Frederickson, Nursing Professor, Lehman College.
Through this special Award, the Consortium would like to honor the work of the Project Leader who has fulfilled the leading expectations of the HETS office and the overall requirements for guiding an effective partnership among academic collaborators. “For HETS, it is extremely important to acknowledge the efforts of those who, not only lead the work of the group members in a collaborative effort, but also administer the program outstandingly. This is why the Consortium established the Online Learning Collaboration Leadership Award.”, indicated Dr. Nitza Hernandez, HETS Executive Director.
The first leadership award recipient was Dr. Keville Frederickson, Nursing faculty member at Lehman College and Project Leader for the HETS Cross-Cultural Health Care Collaboration Initiative. This Leader was selected after a careful analysis of the basic principles needed for achieving effective collaboration and leadership, and considering the goals and needs of the HETS Online Learning Collaboration Initiatives Program.
Dr. Frederickson has performed with an exceptional academic leadership and administrative work, in order to make possible the creation of an online certificate program in Cross-Cultural Health Care. Since June 2003, this Project Leader has been effectively organizing efforts from eight different HETS member institutions in California, Texas, New York, and Puerto Rico. Dr. Frederickson has communicated continuously and effectively with her partners, managing the fiscal part of the project, and creating her own online module for the program, without any compensation for her work. This voluntary work has been almost a full-time job, besides her role as a full-time Nursing professor.
The HETS Online Learning Collaboration Initiatives Program fosters partnership initiatives among member institutions that result in the creation of unique joint online minors, continuing education certificates, and professional programs. It is one of the HETS programs funded with the US Department of Education´s Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE), since September 2002. So far, more than 50 faculty members and institutional administrators from 14 higher education institutions have been involved in this program and, as a result, up to date, there are a total of four collaboration initiatives being developed, including three online academic certificate programs and one online student support service.
HETS is the first bilingual consortium with the mission to serve the Hispanic community through distance education. Currently, it has the support of 21 autonomous higher education member institutions in the United States, Puerto Rico and Colombia.