UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Wayne Smutz, executive director of Penn State World Campus and associate vice president for Academic Outreach, has been elected to the Sloan Consortium board of directors for a three-year term beginning Jan. 1, 2012.
The Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) is an institutional and professional leadership organization dedicated to integrating online education into the mainstream of higher education, helping institutions and individual educators improve the quality, scale and breadth of online education.
"Wayne Smutz is a national leader in online education and is providing visionary leadership for the World Campus," said Penn State Outreach Vice President Craig Weidemann. "He has been instrumental in the growth of one of the nation's leading online distance education programs, which over the past few years has experienced double-digit growth in student enrollments."
In November, Smutz was honored with the 2011 Sloan-C Outstanding Achievement in Online Education by an Individual Award, which recognizes an individual who has demonstrated extraordinary achievements in the field of online education. The World Campus received the 2011 Sloan-C Excellence in Institution-Wide Online Education Award.
During his nearly 30 years at Penn State, Smutz has been involved in continuing education and distance education leadership roles. Currently, he is responsible for overseeing the delivery of credit-based programs for adult learners online through the World Campus and through continuing education units at Penn State campuses.
Penn State World Campus specializes in adult online education, delivering more than 70 of Penn State's most highly regarded graduate, undergraduate and professional education programs through convenient online formats. Founded in 1998, Penn State World Campus is the University's 25th campus serving more than 10,300 students in all 50 states and around the world. World Campus is part of Penn State Outreach, the largest unified outreach organization in American higher education. Penn State Outreach serves more than 5 million people each year, delivering more than 2,000 programs to people in all 67 Pennsylvania counties, all 50 states and 114 countries worldwide.