News & Events

by Chirag Rajpuria

Rachel Wong is a DrPH student who is earning her degree from Honolulu

The success of distance education degree programs in public health can be measured by their growth.  The Gillings School of Global Public Health (SPH) now offers five degrees and five certificate programs online.  This is an increase of four programs in the past five years.

One of the School's earliest online degree programs is also one of the largest in the country.  SPH initiated the Public Health Leadership Program (PHLP) in 1997 as an interdisciplinary program with residential and distance education programs.  By 2006, nearly 61% of the students enrolled in the PHLP were distance education students.  Dr. Bill Sollecito, clinical professor and director of the PHLP, draws attention to the fact that in a comparison of online MPH programs across the US, the SPH was ranked sixth in the nation in 2005 in the number of students receiving degrees.

"The primary purpose for developing the PHLP," Sollecito explains, "is to provide high quality education to the public health workforce, with special attention to practitioners who are employed and may have other obligations that do not allow them to enroll full-time in Chapel Hill."  One way to do this was to provide academic training online, so that these student practitioners could keep their jobs.

The online MPH program in the PHLP (in its twelfth year) has consistently improved the quality of instruction by using student feedback to make improvements.  Additionally, SPH provides a 24-hour help-line for software and student services support.  The program also aims to keep distance students in touch with the services provided to all students in SPH.

Similar to PHLP students in the online MPH program, Rachel enrolled in the online DrPH program to gain additional formal knowledge and skills that would help her make an impact on her community's health.  Through a simple search on Google, she stumbled upon the SPH website.  She read through the website and made a phone call to the program and found that this was exactly what she was seeking.  She is currently halfway through the three-year program and expects that the next 18 months will be as equally rewarding and rich as the first.  "[This program] has surpassed my expectations academically, professionally, and socially."

For more information on distance students and programs, check out the website: Distance Education.

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Got ideas for stories about students?  Involved in interesting events coming up?  Email Alice or Chirag, student assistants in the SPH Office of Student Affairs.