The Vision
The transformation of higher education in rural Nevada requires the abandonment
of the traditional ways of thinking about the college experience. Great Basin College serves a 62,000 square mile
service area touching the borders of Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and California. For Great Basin College,
delivering higher education requires a commitment to an inquiry of every possible way to acquire
knowledge. True, we provide our students with the opportunity for a Platonic scholarly experience
where there is interaction and discourse with a wise mentor, or the guild application of an
apprentice with a master craftsman. So too must we help students acquire tangible
skills through
intangible methods.
Great Basin College fully embraces the power of technology. Few students can graduate from
our school without substantial learning using some form of distance
education method. Our faculty
has pioneered every aspect of distance learning with interactive video, telecourses and synchronous
and asynchronous Internet course work.
The transformative power of learning technology is unconstrained. As an example, quite serendipitously,
distance learning has fostered the creation of a vast rural Nevada community. Students from
every corner of our enormous service area engage in conversations that lead to collective projects
linking far flung communities with a common purpose. A student from Beatty in Nye County works
in partnership with a peer 300 miles to the north in McDermitt on the Oregon border. Their diverse
backgrounds blend to form a single and powerful learning experience that will radiate into and
affect their own communities. Suddenly, Great Basin College is no longer just a center for learning,
but the means for strengthening the value of living in rural Nevada.
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The Promise
The Campaign for Rural Nevada will secure $3.5 million dollars to be distributed to three distinct
areas:
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