Howard University Distance Learning 

Divinity school uses satellites, Internet 

Web posted April 19, 1998

By Bill Broadway
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- Howard University's School of Divinity has introduced an innovative satellite and Internet communications system to help churches develop outreach programs and to offer credit and noncredit courses to ministerial students, clergy and laity.

The technology includes economical ways of transmitting two-way audio and video information via satellite and through regular telephone wires.

A student sitting in Seattle, for example, could respond directly to a question from a professor in a Howard classroom, and the teacher could hear the student and zoom in on the student's face for more direct interaction. Or members of a congregation in Texas could ask questions of a leadership panel at Howard without leaving the church.

This type of connection, called ``video-conferencing,'' is not new. But the technology typically is very expensive and accessible only to well-heeled clients, said Martel A. Perry, executive director of Howard's International Faith Community Information and Services Clearinghouse and Training Center.

Perry, working with such technology companies as Hughes Network Systems, Hewlett-Packard and MicroAge Inc., developed new, more affordable ways of transmitting signals. Hughes, based in Germantown, owns DirectTV, a popular home satellite broadcasting service.

With Howard's prototype system, soon to be available on the general market, a church can become a ``distance learning center'' for a one-time cost of $4,500 to $10,000 (plus long-distance telephone charges), depending on whether the church wants a telephone line connection or satellite linkup. Perry, who studied numerous programs in this country and abroad, said he found a church in Florida that pays $5,000 a month for its video-conferencing capability.

The cost of converting the divinity school, once a residence for Franciscan seminarians, into a modern high-tech center was inexpensive compared with other systems, which can run millions of dollars, Perry said. He and others waived overtime fees or contributed materials to help get the program going. But even if those costs were included, installing video cameras in all 14 classrooms, the chapel and other locations and setting up a state-of-the-art control center would cost about $400,000.

``If that system can be replicated at that amount, it would be remarkable,'' said Katherine Amos, director of accreditation and educational technology at the Pittsburgh-based Association of Theological Schools. The association, an accrediting institution recognized by the Department of Education, has more than 200 members, including Howard, in the United States and Canada.

It ``sounds far-reaching,'' Amos said of Howard's program, although she has not seen it in action. ``If they have the capability of going into a number of churches across the country, it could be a model for other seminaries.'' Most schools with video-conferencing capabilities are hooked up to three or four sites at most, she said.

Howard's system, which is being tested through a pilot program at five churches across the country, can accommodate two-way interactions with up to 19 sites, Perry said. But any number of sites could observe the exchanges between Howard and other churches on their video monitors.

Affiliate churches also can talk with one another, a prospect that excites the Rev. William D. Booth, Perry's pastor at First Baptist Church in Hampton, Va. First Baptist is one of the churches in the pilot program, which continues through May. Other trial centers are in North Carolina, Illinois, California and Ohio.

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