Staying the Course: Putting Students at the Center

Back before the pandemic, I embarked on a western U.S. camping trip I lovingly referred to as my “midlife crisis trip.” One of the few national parks I got to visit before the pandemic forced me back home was Zion National Park in southwestern Utah. If you’ve spent any time at Zion, you are likely familiar with The Narrows, a spectacular hike into a slot canyon via hiking down the middle of the Virgin River. It’s not a steep hike or even that long of a hike, but the fact that you are actually hiking in the river and contending with currents, ice melt in the spring, and the inability to see where your feet are going can make it challenging.

That particular March day, I was doing a good job of being present and paying attention until I let my mind briefly wander. And that’s when it happened; I stepped in a hole and had ice-cold water swamp my waders, drenching me in snow melt from the chest down.

It was a long, miserable hike back to my car and dry clothes, all because I lost my focus for a brief moment. I’m not sure I have ever been more miserable during a hike than I was that day. The moral of the story for me: don’t lose sight of what you really need to focus on.

Why do I share this anecdote? I think we are on our own metaphorical hike in a cold river rife with unseen and seen obstacles right now. It seems like we are faced with daily challenges to the work that we are doing, buffeted about by a public that questions the value of higher education and expresses skepticism about the importance of our work. And just like my lapse in attention resulted in a cold, miserable hike back, losing sight of our purpose, to provide our learners with access to high-quality educational opportunities and a better life, can make for difficult days.

This month, June 2025, we will be focusing on the importance of placing students at the center of the work that we do. It’s all too easy sometimes to lose sight of the impact of our work, especially if we are no longer teaching and not regularly in contact with students. But the reality is that the majority of our learners, 53.2% in 2023, are enrolled in at least one distance education course.

That translates into more than ten million learners. And many of those learners are post-traditional students. EDUCAUSE’s 2025 Students and Technology report found that adult learners between 25 and 64 tended to prefer online learning over face-to-face. Why are these folks attracted to online learning? Risepoint’s 2024 Voice of the Online Learner found that:

• 67% of the online learners surveyed chose online in order to better balance taking classes with work and/or personal obligations,
• 67% wanted the flexibility of taking classes from wherever they wanted, and
• 60% wanted the flexibility of taking classes whenever they wanted.

In short, online learning provides these learners with flexibility and opportunity that they might otherwise not have.

What all of that means is that you are making a profound difference in the lives of students and their families, providing educational opportunities that can impact families for generations. We know that it’s easy to be overwhelmed right now, to feel isolated in the work that you are doing. But the work that you are doing to expand opportunity matters. You matter. And now more than ever, we need to lean into community.

At WCET, we care deeply about community. Whether it’s our monthly webinars, Closer Conversations, our MIX community, or our annual meeting, we prioritize creating community and a place where online learning professionals can come together, learn from each other, and support one another. WCET is a place where you can tap into the knowledge and support of thousands of colleagues at hundreds of institutions.

So, we hope that you can join us this month as we focus on centering students in our collective work and remind ourselves why we are engaged in this work. And from WCET, thank you for what you do. Thank you for the lives you are changing. You may not always get to hear that directly from our learners, but what you are doing matters. And if there is ever anything I or the WCET staff can do to help, please let us know.

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This post was written by Van Davis, WCET