Daphne Koller, a professor at Stanford University and an internationally known expert on massive open online courses (MOOCs), served as the opening speaker at a two-day symposium at California State University, Northridge on the future of higher education. Koller, co-founder of Coursera, an education company that partners with top universities and organizations around the world to offer courses online for free, was one of several experts on education at the event held Sept. 30 and Oct. 1. Photo by Lee Choo.

Dozens of faculty, staff, community leaders, students and others attended the two-day event, which was themed “Higher Education in the Brave New World: How Students Learn in the Context of How Professors Teach.” The symposium was part of a CSUN faculty initiative launched in 2011 in response to concerns about the future of public education. Photo by Lee Choo.

The panel discussion on the first day of the symposium took on the topic “Models For Delivery: Online vs. Brick and Mortar” and was moderated by Michael Spagna, CSUN’s dean of the Michael D. Eisner College of Education and professor Jerald Schutte of CSUN's Department of Sociology. The panelists were from left, Sharon Russell, systemwide director of CalState Teach program; Erin J. Smith, course mentor and performance coordinator at Western Governors University; Merle E. Price, faculty in CSUN’s Tseng College of Extended Learning and the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies; and Sydni Powell ’13 (Psychology), CSUN’s former Associated Students president and now a tablet technologist at CSUN. Photo by Nestor Garcia.

Jon Stahl, chair of CSUN’s Department of Cinema and Television Arts, leads a discussion on the question of whether MOOCs might play a role in the CSU's curriculum delivery. Photo by Nestor Garcia.

CSUN President Dianne. F. Harrison addresses attendees on the second day of the symposium. Some of the other speakers included William C. Allen, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.; Matthew Moen, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of South Dakota; and Clifford Nass, a professor at Stanford University. Photo by Lee Choo.

Debra Humphrey, vice president of policy and public engagement at the Association of American Colleges and Universities, served as the keynote speaker on Oct. 1, the second day of the two-day symposium. Her speech was titled “More for Less? The Quality Imperative in the Brave New World of Higher Education.” Photo by Lee Choo.