How does an adult, distance education institution that has been defining itself as progressive and learner-centered for more than twenty years embrace online teaching and learning without “selling its soul?” While many of our online, for-profit competitors move rapidly to capture the adult higher education market, the aging faculty members who participated in creating the “experiment” in individualized degrees for adults at Union Institute & University in the early 1960s are only now beginning to reconsider their Luddite stance.

This paper will share preliminary case study observations and interviews with individuals from several academic and service departments working collaboratively to create an online option for the Adult Degree Program. This first online residency is slated to take place in February, 2005 with the expectation that it will have all of the quality and uniqueness of the face-to-face residencies that take place on our historic campus in Montpelier, Vermont.

The primary purpose of the case study is to determine which key elements in the Adult Degree Program planning experience made it possible for this academic program to produce an online option so that these results may be applied to the other nine undergraduate, masters and doctoral programs at Union Institute & University or at other progressive adult education institutions.