Janet Poley

Presenation: Internet by Satellite and Distance Education

Janet Poley became CEO and President of the American Distance Education Consortium (ADEC) in 1994. She develops collaborative distance education initiatives with 58 land grant university members working nationally and internationally. In 2000 she received the Charles Wedemeyer Award for Outstanding Practitioner in Distance Education. She currently serves as principal investigator on a National Science Foundation Grant for Advanced Networking, the USDA Agricultural Telecommunications Program, and several U.S. Department of Commerce grants. She is a member of the Academic Policy Council for the new eArmyU, the Academic Advisory Council for Norman Bourlaug University (NBU), and the Editorial Board for the American Journal of Distance Education. She serves as ADEC liaison to the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges (NASULGC) Commission on Information Technology, is a member of the Penn State Advisory Board to the World Campus Initiative, and teaches in their annual Distance Education Leadership Institute. She is a member of the Great Plains Network Advisory Committee. She served former Governor of Nebraska and now Senator Ben Nelson on his advisory committee on the Western Governors University.

Dr. Poley is the author of a number of journal articles, book chapters and presentations on Information Technology and Distance Learning.

She has been involved in training, technical assistance, program design and evaluation in more than 25 countries in Asia, Africa and Europe. In 1994, she was recognized as one of the 100 outstanding information technology leaders in government, business and academia by Federal Computer Week. From 1988 to 1994, she was Director/Deputy Administrator for Communication, Information and Technology (CIT) of the Extension Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Prior to 1988, she held a number of positions in international development and training within USDA. She served as Program Manager for the USAID funded Training for Rural Development projects, living in Tanzania from 1980 to 1986. In recognition of her international contributions, Poley received the U.S. Congress' Excalibur Award and USDA's International Honor Award. She received the USDA Administrator's Award of Excellence in 1991 and the Secretary of Agriculture's Award for Workplace Diversity in 1992.

From 1966 to 1975, she was a faculty and member at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She currently holds full professor rank at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the School of Journalism and also in the Departments of Family and Consumer Science and Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication. She holds three degrees from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln: a Ph.D. in Education, M.S. in Nutrition and B.S. in Journalism and Home Economics.

She is married to Jeffrey M. Poley, an architect who also works at ADEC. She has a daughter, Lisa, a natural resource economist on staff at Virginia Tech, and a foster daughter, Sehen Berehanu, a medical technologist.