Paul Quinn College Partners with Instructional Design Pioneer to Scale Urban Work College

DALLAS, May 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Paul Quinn College ("Paul Quinn"), one of the most innovative small colleges in America, today, announced a partnership with instructional design firm, iDesign, that will harness the potential of digital learning to make general education courses available, online. iDesign is building an initial set of courses to be launched this summer and will continue to develop additional courses each school year -- free of charge to Paul Quinn -- in an agreement structured to improve both access and affordability for students, 90% of whom are Pell Grant eligible. 

"This partnership reflects a belief in the transformative potential of technology to address issues of equity and access for students from under-resourced communities," says Michael J. Sorrell, Esq., President of Paul Quinn, who was recently named one of The World's 50 Greatest Leaders by Fortune Magazine, alongside influential luminaries like Oprah Winfrey and Tim Cook. "Our relationship with iDesign will be a game-changer.  It is about making it easier for working students across the country to gain the educational experiences necessary to create new pathways to economic opportunity, while balancing career and family priorities." 

Since 2015, Paul Quinn College has pioneered the "New Urban College Model," a version of higher education which adapts the Work College system to an urban environment while reducing student tuition and providing students with the ability to graduate with less than $10,000 of student loan debt.  Paul Quinn is the first federally recognized Minority Serving Institution ("MSI") that is a Work College.  It is also the first MSI in the Work College Consortium, and the first work college in Texas. The institution's partnership with iDesign will advance this approach, which emphasizes entrepreneurship and job opportunity, to give busy students the flexibility to earn a degree while gaining valuable work experience.

"iDesign views Paul Quinn's approach--and thought leadership--as the most important work in the field of higher education today," said Paxton Riter, Chief Executive Officer of iDesign. "This is about doing our part to support their mission, by helping faculty to create learning experiences that can empower even more local students to thrive in school and in life."

To learn more, please visit http://idesignedu.org/.  

About Paul Quinn College
Paul Quinn College is a private, faith-based, four-year, liberal arts-inspired college that was founded on April 4, 1872 by a group of African Methodist Episcopal Church preachers in Austin, Texas. The school's original purpose was to educate freed slaves and their offspring. Today, we proudly educate students of all races and socio-economic classes under the banner of our institutional ethos, WE over Me. Our mission is to provide a quality, faith-based education that addresses the academic, social, and Christian development of students.

About iDesign 
iDesign partners with colleges and universities to build, grow and support online and blended programs.  We are passionate about helping faculty harness the potential of emerging technologies to design courses and degrees that make an impact, whether they are fully online, flipped, blended, adaptive, or competency-based. Our unbundled, fee-for-service model is rooted in a commitment to flexibility and institutional autonomy, while our analytics platform supports continuous improvement through rigorous measurement of student engagement and course quality. From statewide university systems to private colleges, our custom solutions pair instructional design with technologies to enable great teaching. For more information, please visit http://idesignedu.org/.

SOURCE iDesign

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http://idesignedu.org