NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Middle Tennessee State University graduate student Ella Cobb and Trey Martindale, associate vice provost for online learning, know how beneficial online classes can be whether working on a bachelor’s or master’s degree.
After a record-breaking year in 2024, the two visited WKRN News 2 for the university’s “MTSU on 2” segment to discuss how students can be successful in online classes and how to build a community and relationships with professors and classmates.
You can watch the segment, part of the station’s Local on 2 programming, with program co-host and producer Laura Schweizer and co-host Stephanie Langston below.
Having received a Bachelor of Business Administration in marketing from MTSU in December, Cobb is no stranger to the university or online classes. Around half of the courses she took as an undergraduate were all online. Now, as a first-semester graduate student working on her MBA, most of the classes she is taking are online.
“In both online and in-person courses, I have made incredible relationships and connections here at MTSU with professors and students. While in-person courses can be a very impactful and meaningful learning experience, online courses can do the same,” Cobb said.
Since arriving at MTSU, Cobb has taken advantage of student opportunities even while taking classes online ranging from serving on the Blue Elite student team that gives campus tours to potential students to working with the university’s Marketing and Communications Division, where she works as a social media student worker.
“Through taking classes online and in-person at MTSU, I have met incredible professors and students. I have also had the opportunity to work on campus more with the flexibility online classes provide,” Cobb said. “It gives me a chance to do my homework and assignments on my own time, which has let me work MTSU events at any time through my MTSU social media job and tour guide job.”
MTSU’s online program saw record growth last fall, with 54% of students taking at least one MTSU Online course. Since 2016, the number of fully online programs offered has more than tripled to 74 in 2024.
Last fall, 545 unique online courses were introduced, with more expected soon.
“MTSU Online is not a separate institution from MTSU, and all our programs are the programs of MTSU’s departments, and all our faculty that are teaching are not separate online faculty,” Martindale said. “They are the regular faculty of MTSU. That’s a strategic decision on the part of our leadership — our president and provost.
“Our goal is not for the online programs to be as good as the face-to-face programs — our goal is for them to be better,” Martindale continued. “MTSU Online is a facilitator, so we really rely on their cooperation, and MTSU has been a great environment for collaboration.”
MTSU Online offers key student services for online students, such as counseling services, 24/7 live subject tutoring, library services and writing center tutors. It also offers many faculty services, including faculty development and training workshops and peer mentoring.
To learn more about MTSU Online and its programs, visit https://www.mtsu.edu/online/.
— DeAnn Hays (deann.hays@mtsu.edu)
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