FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 3, 2003
CONTACT: Dan Roland (800) 552-4770
BY: Dan Roland
The School of Library and Information
Management enrolls seventy-one new Master
of Library Science students for the summer
2003 semester – EMPORIA, KS
The School of Library and Information Management
(SLIM) of Emporia State University (ESU),
Emporia, Kansas enrolled seventy-one new students
in its Master of Library Science (MLS) degree
program for the summer 2003 semester. Twenty-two
new students enrolled for classes on the ESU
campus and forty-nine new students enrolled
for classes in the school’s distance
education program in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Only four of the new students starting classes
on the ESU campus reside in Emporia. More
than eighty percent of the new students traveled
an average of ninety-nine miles to start the
degree program. The distance is made manageable
because SLIM offers all of its classes on
weekends and the typical student attends class
fourteen weekends per year. Each class meets
for two weekends about one month apart and
students use an on-line learning environment
in between class weekends.
This summer marks the third time that SLIM
has delivered its MLS program to Salt Lake
City. The program operates at the invitation
of the State Library Division of Utah and
weekend classes meet in the state library
building. The success of the program continues
to grow as evidenced by the largest enrollment
to date. All but eighteen of the new Utah
students live in Salt Lake County, but students
from Colorado, Wyoming, and Idaho also enrolled.
The average travel distance is only sixty-five
miles, but more than ten percent of the students
travel at least one hundred-sixty miles with
the longest distance being more than four
hundred miles.
The new students range in age from twenty-three
to fifty-nine years with an average age of
thirty-four years. Twenty-one percent of the
students are male and eight percent are of
ethnic minority status.
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