How Stillman College Improves Online Course Consistency Through Cross-Functional Collaboration

When the project lead for an online learning capacity-building initiative at Stillman College began assembling an internal “dream team,” he focused on the faculty and administrators working directly with students in courses. However, it turned out to be the college’s volleyball coach who would unlock some of the key insights to move the project forward.

Stillman College is an HBCU in Tuscaloosa, Alabama that offers hybrid courses and fully online degree programs, including a new virtual MBA. Norman Golar, Vice President for Institutional Effectiveness and Research, says Stillman is constantly expanding options for students who want more flexible ways to earn college credit. He also works frequently with colleagues to improve those courses, so he was interested when his institution was invited to participate in Flexible Learning Environments for Improved Student Success.

This professional development service is offered by Every Learner Everywhere and the Association of Public & Land-grant Universities through collaboration with UNCF, the nation’s oldest scholarship fund for Black students and support organization for HBCUs. The service takes cross-functional teams through a series of facilitated workshops to identify and begin addressing the improvements needed to integrate high-quality digital learning technologies and evidence-based instructional methods.

In the Stillman College experience, “cross-functional” turned out to be an important characteristic of the group working through the program.

Building the team

When Stillman College signed up for Flexible Learning Environments for Improved Student Success in fall 2025, Golar began by inviting the administrators and faculty he thought would be most aligned. The academic dean, department chairs, and faculty members he recruited “were individuals I knew who had a strong footprint when it comes to online delivery of their courses,” says Golar.

But for a variety of timing reasons — including a campus construction project that disrupted the normal academic calendar — participation from Golar’s recruited group was very low. By the end of the first semester, only one faculty member had completed the first segment of what was supposed to be a year-long program.

When the training resumed in the spring term, Golar decided to reset by taking a different approach to reviving the group. Instead of hand picking people he thought were most relevant, he put out a survey to see who might be interested. He was surprised at some of the respondents, but decided to invite anyone who raised their hand.

That included faculty and administrators he hadn’t thought of originally, as well as the Assistant Director of Financial Aid, the Director of Student Development, an academic success coordinator, and a form of academic advisor that Stillman College calls a completion coach.

“This was an opportunity to work with individuals I would not be able to work with on a regular basis,” says Golar. “Knowing their insights, hearing their perspectives, and bringing together their voices in the workshop sessions was going to be really helpful.”

The word from the gym

The completion coach happened to have another role at Stillman — head coach of the women’s volleyball team — and it was that perspective that demonstrated the value of a cross-functional team that includes a range of perspectives. The volleyball coach shared conversations they frequently had with students outside of the classroom, particularly complaints about their courses that students hesitated to share with faculty.

Some of those complaints had a direct bearing on the effectiveness of online learning. One specific frustration the coach brought up was an inconsistent structure to online courses throughout the institution. For example, in one course the syllabus may be buried under three or four clicks through the LMS, while in another course the syllabus may be linked on the course’s home page. Students wanted consistency.

Golar says, “I had been trying to pitch following the institution’s template to individuals who are creating courses. Having everyone on the same page about how we deliver our online courses matters a lot.” But many professors preferred to do things their own way. Having the volleyball coach raise the issue of consistency in the context of this capacity-building program has been making a difference.

Building the learning environments of the future

While the workshops in Flexible Learning Environments for Improved Student Success primarily focus on gateway courses, the team plans to apply their lessons from the program elsewhere. For example, Stillman recently received approval from its accrediting organization to offer an online MBA and is ensuring the cohort that went through the service participates in the new program’s advisory board.

Golar recommends that other institutions consider the program. “We had to have a time to reflect on what we do in order to make sure we are providing the best service to our students,” he says. “This was one of those opportunities we did not want to pass up. We have the opportunity to change how we deliver online courses because of what we learned from the training.”

To be successful, he recommends getting a head start on the training earlier in the semester, before people’s schedules get overwhelmed by holidays in the fall and graduation prep in the spring.

Most of all, he suggests bringing in individuals who are interested, even if they don’t have direct responsibility for online learning.

“In an institution, we find ourselves wearing many hats,” he says. “The learning does not stop just within your position, just within your title, just within your department.”