Elizabeth Marsch leaves her position as the Director of the Office of Distance Education after five years. Online and hybrid learning has become pivotal and successful because of Marsch and her team. Credit: Daniel Bush | Lantern File Photo
The leader of the Director of the Office of Distance Education, who also helped create it, will be leaving the role on August 15th.
Elizabeth Marsch and her team had a pivotal role in advancing online and digital learning, especially delivering high-quality online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic after starting the role in 2021 at Ohio State, according to an email obtained by the Lantern.
“Elizabeth’s leadership has helped shape numerous initiatives that have strengthened teaching and learning across the college, including advancing AI fluency, expanding the use of innovative instructional technologies and promoting accessible course design to better serve all students,” the email stated.
Online education is advancing rapidly at Ohio State, with the Arts and Sciences program preserving $100 million in tuition revenue, with 30% of online-format course offerings being within the ASC curriculum for the 2025-26 fiscal year, according to their recent 2025-2026 annual report.
Arts and Sciences has become the first fully online Bachelor’s Degree in Integrated Arts and Sciences, with 719 online and hybrid courses that were available during the fiscal year at the university, the report states.
“At the Office of Distance Education (ODE), we recognize that rapid technological change can feel like a force of disruption,” Marsch stated in the report. “And it is, for good and ill. I have come to believe that this era offers us unique opportunities to establish and rebuild trust through intentionality, transparency, and a steadfast commitment to our core academic values.”
Any online-format course offerings are considered DL, DH, or HY, which determines how much online participation a course offers. DL, or distance learning, means that the class is 100% online with zero in-person contact, DH is 75%-99% online with minimal in-person requirements and a HY, or hybrid course, is a balanced mix of in-person and online requirements, according to a university website.
ASC recorded 259,519 credit hours and 85,727 student enrollments of DL, DH and HY courses from the fiscal year.?
The CVC program had a 346% increase in student participation this fiscal year, as well. The CVC –or Cross-Campus Virtual Collaborative– at the university allows students from any Ohio State campus, main or branch, to take any specific online courses even if it is not taught at their specific location, according to the ODE website.
The ODE achieved their wanted AI-related goals, the report states. In 2025, the university made the shift from reactive adjustment to proactive with the exploration and emerging of AI technologies, according to the report.?
“By facilitating departmental workshops and conversations in our Teaching with Technology Learning Community, we helped faculty protect rigor and integrity while grappling with the practical ethical implications of the pervasiveness of AI,” the report states.
The report says that ODE continues to collaborate with various degrees, instructors and centers to support the development and delivery of online courses.?
