Duke University Withdraws From Online Course Group

Duke University has pulled out of Semester Online, an education consortium that will offer online undergraduate courses for credit, after faculty members objected.

The consortium announced April 30 that it would offer 11 courses this fall, from Boston College, Brandeis, Emory, Northwestern, the University of North Carolina, Notre Dame and Washington University in St. Louis. But the Arts and Sciences Council at Duke, which represents faculty members from the university’s largest undergraduate college, voted 16 to 14 last week against participating in the consortium. While Peter Lange, the Duke provost, saw the consortium as expanding the courses available to Duke students, some faculty members worried that the long-term effect might be for the university to offer fewer courses — and hire fewer professors. Others said there had been inadequate consultation with the faculty.