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Brandon Taylor, Interim Dean, Center for Distance Learning at the City Colleges of Chicago

BRANDON TAYLOR
Distance Ed Student Becomes Distance Ed College Dean

Brandon Taylor's life operates as a sort of distance education loop: He uses distance education to advance his career in distance education. But Taylor's not going in circles. Having earned a master's degree in instructional technology and telecommunications, he's going all the way for a doctoral degree in the field.

On his way to becoming the interim dean for the Center for Distance Learning at the City Colleges of Chicago, Taylor has worked in every corner of the distance education map. As a student, teacher, course designer, and academic administrator, he views distance education from a 360-degree perspective.

His childhood, however, offered him a much narrower educational perspective. Adopted when he was a baby, Taylor grew up in the modest town of Zion, Illinois, with his adoptive family. With few financial advantages, he mastered a lifelong knack of exploiting his prospects and finding a niche.

"I've been blessed with opportunity," Taylor says, "and I am taking that opportunity and making the most of it."

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Seizing Opportunities

In high school, Taylor spent much of his time on soccer, wrestling, track, and student leadership. But those interests didn't push academics out of his life: He won a full scholarship to Prairie View A&M University and takes pride in having attended a Historically Black College/University (HBCU).

Prairie View opened wide gates to far more opportunities. "As a student, I had interned with GE Medical Systems," he says. "After I graduated with a bachelor's degree in computer science, GE officials called the school and said they wanted me."

Still, with opportunities come opportunity costs, the paths not taken. After graduation in 1993, Taylor found himself having to weigh the GE job — along with other corporate job offers — against a full fellowship to graduate school.

"Both my mother and my grandmother were terminally ill, so I waived grad school and went to work at GE Medical Systems in their Global IT Management program," he says. Because of their health, neither woman could attend his graduation.

Steering Toward Distance Education

After five years at GE, Taylor's interest in teaching and consulting — not to mention his "entrepreneurial spirit" — led him elsewhere. "I made my way into academia starting with K-12 schools, helping teachers and staff integrate technology into teaching and learning," he says.

The same year he left GE, 1997, Taylor finally found his birth family, learning that he had 11 brothers and sisters. He also discovered the source of his own passion for dancing: Both his birth parents danced avidly.

Staying focused on his career, he soon began graduate school while living in the Chicago suburbs, and at times he battled two hours of traffic just to get to class downtown. Then he learned that a nearby medical school offered classes via instructional TV, where he could view the professors live and ask questions directly over the phone. Because his grandmother was on oxygen, Taylor wanted to stay close to her.

"It was only 15 minutes away from my home," he says. "If something happened with my grandmother, I could be there in five minutes." To Taylor, distance education meant more than convenience.

Snatching a Master's Degree

Taylor left the K-12 arena in 1999 to work full-time at the College of Lake County. Along the way, he learned of a master's degree program at Western Illinois University.

"I carved out an online program by picking out the right classes with weekend academies," he says. "I attended from the summer 2000 to the spring of 2001 — three semesters. I only went on campus 11 times, including a road trip to visit a friend."

With his new degree and skills, Taylor began expanding his distance education work for his college clients. DePaul University hired him as an instructional technology consultant. "I worked in all aspects of instructional technology," he says.

At DePaul, he was the instructional designer for a Master of Business Administration (MBA) program that combined weekend face-to-face classes with online learning. Taylor notes that for the last 10 years U.S. News & World Report has rated DePaul's part-time MBA program as one of the top 10 of its kind in the country.

Then the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) recruited Taylor to fill the new position of director of distance learning. "They already had some distance learning, but my role was to take it to another level," he says. Among other accomplishments, he created CPS' first online course, Art History, in a joint project between CPS and The Art Institute of Chicago. He also significantly raised the distance learning enrollment, retention, and pass rates at CPS.

The City Colleges of Chicago (CCC) recruited Taylor next, hiring him as an instructional designer. Shortly thereafter CCC administrators asked him to become the interim dean.

Going to the Next Level

Not quite content with just being an interim dean, Taylor still consults. He has, however, slowed his consulting to make room for his current pursuit: a doctoral degree in instructional technology at Northern Illinois University.

Despite Taylor's professional and academic juggling act, he makes time for his wife, Cassandra, and their two preschool children, Caitlyn and Brandon. Education is big in the Taylor family: Cassandra, who is a K-12 educator, recently opened a school-aged childcare center in Chicago.

When he looks at his goal of obtaining a doctoral degree, Taylor knows exactly why he's putting in the effort. "Post-doctorate, I plan to raise my consulting fees," he says. "And it may affect the perception of some folks. My kids are young, so when I interact with their schools and teachers, it will have a different effect, being 'Dr. Taylor's' children."


Article written by Greg Rosenthal

 

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