Jane Addams Institute

Jane Addams Institute of Higher Education (Jane Addams Institute) was founded as an interdisciplinary higher education institute to serve the needs of a growing worldwide distance learning and online student community. Its initiatives address: 1) access to under-served international students and 2) the development of new income streams to participating universities and their instructional staffs. Online and distance learning takes place in partnership with resident UK universities. Jane Addams is integrating emerging opportunities and technological trends in online and distance higher education to serve targeted markets worldwide through partnership with UK universities.

Jane Addams is integrating the best of innovative technologies and evidence-based pedagogies in online and distance learning with the strengths of the long-standing traditions of UK academic and research excellence. Outside of distance learning, the tools and technologies of a participating university’s course management system allows Jane Addams and their university partners to offer access to online delivery of courses towards fully online graduate degrees. The course management systems provide the platforms for online courses as well as tools for curriculum development, teaching and learning, communication, assessment, analytics and both instructor and student support.

Online distance learning has several distinct advantages over both resident instruction and conventional distance education including lower initial and ongoing operating costs. Course management technologies also allow administrators to govern and evaluate the academic activities of both students and the partnership. It offers instructors, instructional designers, and academic staff access to building, assessing, and modifying course materials from wherever they reside geographically.

The co-founder and Director of Jane Addams Institute has broad expertise in higher education, online teaching and learning, instructional design, and innovative solutions to issues of funding and access. Peter A. Bruce, Ph.D., the Director, holds graduate degrees from both US and UK universities. Dr. Bruce has a distinguished record of accomplishments in higher education over 30 years, including 20 years at the University of Utah. Dr. Bruce has been involved in various online and e-learning initiatives in the United States, England, Scotland, and Canada. Dr. Bruce has also designed over 50 nationally recognized online undergraduate and graduate courses as well as helping to develop a new Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program, two new online master’s degree programs, and a 3 + 2 program. His curriculum contributions also received national recognition for two courses funded by $1.5 million from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and accepted for use by 64 universities.

Kenneth R. Young, a co-founder and Director of Global Operations for Addams Institute, is a native Glaswegian from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. He has worked for Ernst and Young in both the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. Mr. Young served as Finance Director for the American Red Cross of Utah and as the Controller and Director of Operations for Bonneville Satellite Communications. As Accounting Manager for the Utah Higher Education Assistance Authority (UHEAA), Mr. Young managed a $2 billion Loan Guarantee Program (LGP) for the State of Utah and the U.S. Department of Education (ED). Most recently, he served as the Accounting Manager, with a specialty in grant and project financial management, with Peak Reliability, a regulatory organization overseeing the bulk electric system of the Western Interconnection of the United States. Mr. Young was responsible for fiscal management and reporting to U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for three high-risk grants totaling $128 million.

“What after all, has maintained the human race on this old globe despite all the calamities of nature and all the tragic failings of mankind, if not faith in new possibilities, and the courage to advocate for them? “

–Jane Addams, The first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize