A challenge in putting together any program is finding the right people to teach in it.
The model used for most RRU programs is to have as few as one full-time faculty member running the show and doing a bit of teaching, along with a group of what RRU calls “associate faculty” (and who are called “sessionals” elsewhere); the associate faculty do the bulk of the teaching, and are hired for their particular specialty. Rick and Milt, with a broad network of contacts, were able to find really outstanding faculty willing to engage in non-traditional courses right from the outset of the program.
The plan was to have three courses running in that first residency in the summer of 2003, a plan that we realized afterwards was way too much for the students to take in over a three-week time span. Joining us that first residency was Dr. Bill Hammond, a deeply-loved and respected leader in the environmental education field and professor at Florida Gulf Coast University; Dr. Jennifer Good, then a newly-hired faculty member at Brock University (St. Catherine’s Ontario) and an up-and-coming recent graduate from Cornell University in environmental communications; and Dr. Dillon Inouye (Professor of Instructional Science at Brigham Young University who taught Rick Kool during his doctoral program) and Dr. Bob Bennion (Professor Emeritus at Brigham Young University and last doctoral student of the psychologist George Kelly).
Finishing their first residency, the students moved into the first on-line terms. Dr. Barbara Winter (Simon Fraser University and a student of Milt McClaren) taught the course in Instructional Design; noted educator and cybernetician Dr. Pille Bunnell taught the Systems Perspectives course; Dr. Pamela Courtenay-Hall (environmental philosopher at University of Prince Edward Island) offered the Ethics, Worldviews and the Environment course; and Rick Kool (MAEEC program head) ran the Research Methods course.