Thai princess launches expanded distance-learning program

Highly-successful venture developed at University of Oregon

JULY 16, 2006—A Thai princess visited the University of Oregon this summer, launching the expansion of a thriving distance-learning program developed at the university.

Her Royal Highness Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol dedicated a gift of 1,700 books—a collection containing some of the royal family's favorite items on Thai culture and history. The princess also marked the opening of an exhibition at the University of Oregon's Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art to celebrate the 60th anniversary of her grandfather's accession to the throne.

But perhaps the most exciting stop on her visit came on a quiet Sunday night at a TV studio in Knight Library. There, while it was Monday morning in Thailand, the princess helped some of the university's top professors launch math and science portions of a highly successful distance-learning program.

The program started out as an instructional series for Thai English teachers and was developed by Leslie Opp-Beckman and other faculty members of the University of Oregon's American English Institute. Opp-Beckman, a senior instructor at the institute, led the creation of the videoconference series for Thai teachers of English in 2002 at the request of the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok and the Royal Thai Distance Learning Foundation, which is sponsored and charged by the king to improve education for all Thai citizens, especially those in rural areas.

On that Sunday in the TV studio, along with the princess and Opp-Beckman, faculty members Ken Doxsee, professor of chemistry; Dean Livelybrooks, senior instructor in physics and Jill Baxter, associate professor of math education, broadcast live lessons to an audience in Thailand.

The instructional series developed at the university has been broadcast to more than 10,000 public primary and secondary schools throughout Thailand and its border regions near Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and China. The effort has been so successful that Thailand asked the University of Oregon to develop new distance-learning programs for math and science.

Because of the success and growth of the distance-learning program in Thailand, the Thai Distance Learning Foundation in 2004 supported creation of a non-profit organization dedicated to building connections and enabling transfer of knowledge between the U.S. and Thailand. The U.S.-Thai Distance Learning Organization's (DLO) headquarters is in Eugene.

Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Russ Tomlin, who coordinated the campus portion of the princess's royal visit, said the trip and the relationships behind it have broader implications for the university's Asia initiative, which seeks to boost educational offerings and expertise on the world's largest continent.

"The relationship with Thailand creates opportunities to expand the university's engagement not just in Thailand but in other parts of Southeast Asia as well," Tomlin said.