Ball State president meets with head of new online school

MUNCIE -- Ball State University President Jo Ann Gora met for an hour with the chancellor of the state's newest university on Friday to hear about its model and discuss ways to collaborate.

Allison Barber is chancellor of Western Governors University Indiana, an online university that opened last June and which caters to rural working adults who have some college education but never finished.

"There is a lot of curiosity about our university," Barber said in an interview after the meeting. "We are not in competition with other universities. We are value added. We take no state money. We are reaching students who otherwise lack the opportunity to go back to college."