Towson University will offer online training courses for sheriffs across the country who are limited by budgetary or travel restraints.
Towson announced its partnership with the National Sheriff Association at a reception in the Administration Building Wednesday morning.
The NSA presented the Division of Economic and Community Outreach's Extended Education and Online Learning unit with a $53,000 check to start the program.
"Building partnerships is a major component of [our] 2010 [plan,]" James Clements, acting provost and vice president of economic and community outreach, said.
Sheriff Aaron Kennard, executive director of the NSA, said homeland security starts at the local level.
"They need to have that training. How do we get them that training? Rural sheriffs, they don't have the budget. They don't have the ability to get into the big city and get the training. This is the ideal partnership," Kennard said.
Baltimore County sheriff R. Jay Fisher said he understands how difficult it can be to attend training sessions.
"A lot of [the] departments are very small and they can't afford this training," Fisher said. "I can't tell you how important it is."
Michael Schroder, director of extended education and online learning, said that the University will develop a landing page specifically for the training information.
"It's an existing face to face course that they deliver now, but the issue has been it's not reaching thousands of the sheriffs across the country. So converting it to an online environment will expand the training," he said.
Schroder said the courses will be converted over the next three months and the goal is to have it operational by early 2008. He said initially he expects about several hundred people will use the online courses and over the next five to 10 years it could have several thousand participants.
"We'll be taking their existing courses and holding some of the physical training here in the digital media classroom," he said.
Video of the physical training will be posted online and Schroder said it won't be the only supplement that Towson will host on its Blackboard site. The University has worked on this project for about nine months.
"This is one of the things [the NSA] said they had a gap in, and they were wondering if Towson could fill that gap," he said. "I think it's the first step of variety of other entities."
Also, sheriffs may one day be able to obtain a Towson University degree online, Schroder said.
He said the NSA is contracting the University and the development of the courses comes at no cost to Towson.
Towson will supplement the program with a variety of entities, personnel time and facilities.
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