Facing a $2 million budget cut, the usual nine Telecommunication Community Resources Centers operated by the University of Missouri Extension are forced to close or shrink their scale.

Rhonda Gibler, associate vice provost for MU Extension, said MU Extension announced its plan to step away from the partnerships in November 2010, giving partners a one-year notice.

Because the budget decreased by more than $2 million, MU Extension had to cut something, and Gibler said the university faced tough choices.

“When the centers were established, it gave students who could not physically get to a particular campus a way to continue their education by using ITV, ” Gibler said. “Although the technology is still available and some people still use it, many people more often (choose) to use Skype, Adobe Connect, other Internet technologies and cellphones instead.”

The university does not have enough resources to provide for everything it has done in the past, so support to these centers was cut.

“The centers need to either find new resources to continue their programs or explore other different options,” Gibler said.

One of the nine centers, The Mineral Area Telecenter at Park Hills officially closed June 30.

“At the time, we offered a variety of non-credit and credit programs to a rural area, i.e., Bachelor and Master in Social Work, Master in Nursing along with non-credit computer courses,” administrative associate Tami Davenport said.

Davenport said the budget at Mineral Area TCRC was not the problem because it actually had a carryforward balance every year, but the state budget cuts forced MU Extension to make a decision to withdraw from the TCRC partnerships.
 
The Mineral Area Telecenter originally employed three people.

“Two of them are still unemployed,” Davenport said.

After the center’s closing, Davenport will go to the University of Missouri-Saint Louis, which offered her a position as site coordinator for its programs. As the partner of the center, the university will help to maintain some services the center usually had.

“In that way, the university could continue to offer the programs we have provided at the center to the rural areas,” Davenport said.

Another telecenter located at Reeds Spring closed Aug. 12.

Jay Chism, Interim Regional Director of the Southwest Region, said the budget cut has crossed the whole university system, and the university needs to make decisions that do the least damage to the general public.

“The technology the telecenter used is important and the center was originally established because it had the access to the ITV courses,” Chism said. “However, because of the technology change, people now have online Internet and they will do the same thing through online more than going to the telecenter.”

The telecenter used to employ two people: a full-time coordinator and a part-time audiovisual assistant. Chism said one of them has applied to another position in MU Extension, but the other one will work outside the system.

In a news release from Three Rivers College in Poplar Bluff, Vice President for Learning Wesley Payne said the closing of the Telecommunications Resource Center has no impact on operations in Poplar Bluff since Three Rivers College has taken over operations from the MU.

“This is a benefit to Three Rivers: It allows us to expand our capacity to serve area K-12 schools as well as smaller sites where we offer post-secondary classes via ITV,” the release stated.