Dear Colleagues,
Sal Khan, founder of the Khan Academy, has said “Digital learning is not the future of education-it is the present.” If we agree with Khan, we might also turn to John Dewey, who has been quoted as saying more than eight decades ago, “If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.” This means that digital learning, like other types of learning, must continue to evolve.
Regarding the Forward-Focused Digital Transformation Initiative, we, like many other R1 institutions, are changing our digital learning strategies to include eight-week asynchronous courses at the bachelor’s and master’s levels, ethically integrating AI into our teaching and research activities, expanding the use of Canvas across all courses, and upgrading 180 classrooms across our campuses. We are well underway with these efforts and have been engaging in meaningful and productive conversations with various stakeholders.
We are committed to discussing the initiative and gathering feedback. President Hemphill and I are meeting with department chairs, associate deans, and deans to further discuss our efforts. Senior Associate Vice Presidents Bonnie Van Lunen and Chrysa Malogianni have been meeting with department chairs and school directors to discuss the plan for transitioning courses to the new schedule. In addition, I have visited 18 departments and talked with more than 300 faculty already this semester. I have also had seven different sessions with more than 50 faculty where we discussed the future of our institution.
These meetings will continue throughout the academic year. Indeed, they won’t stop at the end of this semester. In fact, during the Spring 2026 semester, our Monday Meet-Up series, which includes weekly campuswide discussions about a specific book, will feature discussions about , by Carnegie Mellon Professor Michael D. Smith. His book is based, in part, on his view that “our current system of higher education, despite its good intentions, is financially and morally unsustainable.”
Enrollment data shows that the industry standard for online courses is moving towards eight-week asynchronous courses. We have many things in our favor as we expand into this space. I’ll highlight three of them. First, ever since the mid-1950s when distance learning was first offered at Old Dominion, learning innovations have been in our DNA. I frequently speak fondly about how, in 1998, our University was the first institution in the U.S. to offer academic programming to Navy ships, while they were at sea. Among others, would show up to campus at 4 a.m. on Sunday mornings to have their courses broadcast to the USS George Washington, an aircraft carrier, while it was in the Persian Gulf. Showing up to teach at 4 a.m. certainly demonstrates a longstanding commitment to innovation! The faculty didn’t do this for better parking. They did it to deliver quality education to a group that would benefit from it and, quite frankly, such opportunities would not have been available without our faculty’s unwavering commitment and innovative spirit!
A second point that strengthens our move to eight-week online courses is that they are not new to the institution. Many are surprised to learn that we have been offering courses this way for the past decade. Since last fall alone, we have offered 937 online courses in compressed formats, and those courses accounted for 21,041 registrations. Our data shows that students fare as well, if not better, in those courses.
The third thing we have going in our favor is that we have a community that continues to embrace innovation and the ultimate mission of higher education – to improve society by providing educational opportunities to a wide range of students, especially those who otherwise wouldn’t be able to access the benefits of a higher education due to various constraints. Coursera co-founder Daphne Koller has said, “I feel proud to have been able to help learners around the world transform their lives via access to the best learning.” The change we are implementing will be transformational and instill even more pride in the Monarch community. Collectively, we will help to level the playing field, so that one’s likelihood of success in life is determined not by their high school zip code, but by access to high quality education.
ϲ holds a special place in my heart. I have spent nearly a quarter of a century here, certainly the majority of my adult life. I can’t imagine caring more about an institution. Please be assured that every decision I make is driven by genuine concern about and a firm commitment to the future of ϲ!
Brian K. Payne, PhD
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice
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Norfolk, VA 23529