Experts at Empire State College

Meg Benke
Dean, Center for Distance Learning
Saratoga Springs, NY

Expertise

• Distance and online education
• Quality and outcomes of online education

Profile

Meg Benke has been an expert in distance learning for 25 years. She has been at Empire State College for 17 years overseeing the Center for Distance Learning, which is the largest provider of online education in New York state, and one of the largest programs in the country.

Benke has worked with the college to build partnerships with unions, corporations and the military to promote college degrees for employees. She has been instrumental in programs such as E-Army U, the AARP employee program, and several other programs to increase access to college educations for technical employees.

The Center for Distance Learning enrolls 4,000 students across the state, nation and around the world, and has grown in enrollments by 10 percent a year in the last three years.

She began her career at Ohio University and Antioch College. Benke’s early work was dedicated to increasing access to higher education for adult learners through distance education. Benke was particularly interested in increasing employability of graduates, and worked to ensure that the outcomes of an online education matched or exceeded those of campus-based programs from a quality perspective. She also consults nationally on how universities provide student services in online education programs.

Benke holds Master of Science and Ph.D. in student personnel from Ohio University, and a Bachelor of Science in business from Youngstown State University.