When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Tufts University was better positioned than many universities to transition to virtual education in large part because of the Online Graduate Certificate program (OGC) at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, which is celebrating its tenth year.
Former dean Eileen Kennedy created the program with funding from the PR firm Food Minds in 2011, long before remote learning came into vogue. Taking advantage of the in-house educational technology team she hired to develop the Friedman MNSP hybrid/distance master’s degree program, which had launched just prior, the OGC started out with a cluster of nutrition communications and global nutrition programming courses.
“Online learning seemed like a great way to expand our horizons, fulfill the mission of the Friedman School, and reach a broader audience,” said Diane McKay, who became director of the program in 2012 and teaches the course, Principles of Nutrition Science.
It was a bold experiment at a time when many people questioned whether online education was on par with in-person learning, recalled Rachel Cheatham, N08, who was invited to teach in the program in its second year. But Cheatham, who had moved away from Boston upon completing her PhD, couldn’t pass up the opportunity. “This online situation afforded me the opportunity to be on the faculty, stay tied in with Tufts, and teach content I was qualified and interested in teaching, even though I resided in Chicago,” she said.
And with the help of a team of instructional designers and educational technologists, McKay, Cheatham, and fellow Friedman School faculty proved online learning skeptics wrong. Today the OGC program has grown to include nearly 20 courses, which fall into six possible tracks, or areas of focus: developing healthy communities, sustainable agriculture and food systems, nutrition science for health professionals, nutrition science for communications professionals, global nutrition programming, and nutrition for industry professionals and entrepreneurs.
Students can earn a certificate in a given track by taking two courses from that track, and a third course from the same or any other category. Students also have the option to build their own certificate by completing any three courses, or they can just take one or two courses without getting a certificate. Overall, they are welcome to take as many or few courses as they want in order to meet their own individual needs and interests.
“Students come from very different backgrounds and have different perspectives, which makes it a particularly enriching experience because everyone learns not just from the instructor and the course materials, but from each other.”
Classes have no required in-person component and take place fully asynchronously, which means students can listen to faculty’s pre-recorded lectures, participate in online discussions, and complete readings and assignments on their own schedule within each week. Most quizzes and exams are open for multiple days.
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This flexibility means that students aren’t limited to who happens to be in Boston, or who might be able to take on a regular class schedule. “Every time I teach, I’m amazed by who’s in the class,” McKay said. “Students come from very different backgrounds and have different perspectives, which makes it a particularly enriching experience because everyone learns not just from the instructor and the course materials, but from each other.”
There are 30 to 70 students in the program in any given semester, and they hail from all over the world. They include professionals in government, health care, and food manufacturing looking to bring an understanding of nutrition to their work; retirees continuing their learning; nutrition enthusiasts looking to learn without the commitment of a graduate degree program; and people looking to pursue a passion or adopt healthier habits, a number of whom end up applying to Friedman degree programs.