Ray Schroeder is UIS Professor Emeritus of Communication and Senior Fellow at the University
Professional Continuing Education Association. His professional career, now spanning more than half a
century, continues to expand daily. Holding degrees in Speech from Augustana College and Radio and
Television from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Ray began his academic career as
a part time instructor of Radio-TV in 1972. Serving as a radio news reporter for public radio station WILL
at the time, he quickly expanded his academic appointment, becoming a full-time instructor in 1975.
Two years later, Schroeder was hired at Sangamon State University (SSU) as an Assistant Professor of
Communication. He taught fulltime while building a television studio and editing facilities for the
University. In 1984, Schroeder created the SSU Television Office and secured a 21-year sustaining
contract for the university to provide community access cable television services in Springfield. Ray
served as interim executive director of the SSU Institute for Public Affairs 1991-1993.
In 1997, Ray took a leadership role in the emerging field of online learning, establishing the UIS Office of
Technology Enhanced Learning (OTEL). Beginning as a tiny unit, working out of a temporarily-vacant
chemistry laboratory, OTEL launched servers, software and assembled expertise to support the delivery
of online classes at UIS. Those efforts quickly grew into support for entire degree programs as
Schroeder collaborated with Professor Burks Oakley II, then Associate Vice President for Academic
Affairs and Director, University of Illinois Online. Together, Schroeder and Oakley fostered the
development and funding of multiple degree programs.
The strength and reputation of the UIS online programs grew quickly through the 1990s and into the
twenty-first century. Both Ray and the university received many national awards and recognitions.
Most notably the university was recognized repeatedly by the Sloan-Consortium (Sloan-C), later re-
named the Online Learning Consortium (OLC). Among the most prestigious university-wide recognitions
are the 2008 Sloan-C Ralph E. Gomory national award for Quality Education and the 2007 Sloan
Consortium Excellence in Institution-Wide Online Teaching and Learning Programming. In 2009, UIS
Provost Harry Berman joined Ray in conceptualizing and establishing the Center for Online Learning,
Research and Service (COLRS) to create a unique holistic approach to integrating the Internet into the
three-part mission of faculty members. This UIS approach to online learning is often emulated at other
leading universities.
Ray Schroeder was individually honored nationally with the 2002 Sloan-C Most Outstanding
Achievement in Asynchronous Learning Networks. Further, Ray received the 2002-2003 Sloan-C
Distinguished Scholar in Online Learning award and, in 2010, he joined 15 other national leaders,
including Burks Oakley and UIS Professor Karen Swan, as the Sloan-C Inaugural Fellows. His Fellow
citation reads: “For increasing access to higher education by cultivating a breadth of online degree
programs and for chronicling the progress of the theory and practice of online education through new
media.” Also, in 2010, he received the Sloan-C Inaugural A. Frank Mayadas Leadership Award. The
following year, Ray received the University of Illinois Alumni Association Distinguished Service Award. In
the summer of 2011, Schroeder and the COLRS unit launched the innovative eduMOOC, which was, at
the time, the largest online class with 2,700 students located in 70 countries worldwide.
In 2016, the American Journal of Distance Education and the University of Wisconsin, Madison awarded
Schroeder the prestigious Mildred B. and Charles A. Wedemeyer Award for Outstanding Practitioner in
Distance Education, and also that year, the United States Distance Teaching and Learning Association
(USDLA) Hall of Fame Award for “significant contributions to the field of distance learning through
leadership, technology, research and teaching.” Schroeder has more than 250 national and
international papers published or presented in his field, including many book chapters and keynote
speeches. Today, fully forty percent of UIS students are enrolled in online programs.
Ray continues his highly-productive career as Senior Fellow of UPCEA. In that capacity he publishes
nationally and internationally, daily curated reading lists on professional, continuing and online
education as well as the popular bi-weekly column “Online: Trending Now” column in Inside Higher
Education. This year he continues his leadership through delivering national keynotes, workshops and
conference presentations on the impact of generative AI in higher education.
