In a recent broadcast on NPR, Don Tapscott shared his ideas on Rethinking How We Teach the ‘Net Generation’. Education models in higher education to meet the needs of today’s learner. A chapter in his latest book, Macrowikinomics, is dedicated to how higher education institutions need to change, specifically with regards to learning pedagogy and content creation. 

Flickr photo c/o kjiersten

In thinking about how the future of higher education will evolve beyond the classroom, I was wondering how Student Affairs and other Higher Education professionals can best support today’s learner. Higher education has been recently challenged with economic crisis, accountability questions and increased demands the employment market. It is important that higher education professionals consider the new dimensions and requirements to support our students, distribute information and organize services on campus. In a recent BreakDrink Snackable Session, @suebecks presented an idea on collaborating on a global level to swap ideas, share resources, answer questions and engage in a broad conversation that needs to occur in #HigherEd:

After this mini presentation, there was a thoughtful online dialogue with participants who shared their thoughts and perspectives on the issue. Many agreed that higher education could be better supported and improve through a global network for collaboration. There are many easy and accessible tools to drive this momentum and manage knowledge. After this session BreakDrink created a wiki to continue the conversation and collaboration of ideas:

HE Wiki 

“With such a networked approach to work and leisure time, traditional university classroom is starting to feel less appropriate.” ~Don Tapscott

• What does this mean for #StudentAffairs & #HigherEd professionals who support student development?
• How can SA & HE consider a collaborative approach for student development & student services?
• Is it the evolution of the #StudentAffairs or #HigherEd professional or the student that needs to change for effective campus engagement?
• Are there any examples of institutions and campus environments who best support students online or digitally?

Join us on Monday (7/18) at 7 pm CT as the BreakDrink Campus Tech Connection (#CTCX) talks LIVE about collaboration in higher education & how tech tools can support this evolution. We will also welcome @KMcCarthy8185 onto the show to discuss her #52in52 project for our NEW show segment called, The 15 Minute #SAtech Share.

Join the #CTCX gang with your thoughts, questions & ideas:

• Listen to the show LIVE 
• Tweet your thoughts using the hashtag #CTCX 
• Call or Skype during the show: (646) 652-2342 or breakdrink

Thank you to Jeff Lail for contributing to this post.

Fellow BreakDrinker @jefflail posted this tweet on Tuesday morning:

Another tweet posted by Jeff linked to this article, which alleges that Notre Dame edited the videos seen by OSHA investigators following the tragic death of student videographer Declan Sullivan on October 27th, 2010. The article states that when viewing video footage in December of 2010, OSHA investigators made notes that footage was missing and that “videos had been doctored”. Notre Dame lawyers said they could not turn over the footage because “it contained highly proprietary, trade secret information related to the business of college sports”.

After reading this article, this was my reply to Jeff:

I do not doubt that the Notre Dame football team, led by coach Brian Kelly, was hit hard by the sudden loss of a member from their football family. However, what cannot be ignored is that this loss was completely preventable. Notre Dame’s own lawyers say it best — in “the business of college sports”, it seems that institutions are continually putting the welfare of students in a second place position behind the maximization of profits. Our college athletic systems are taking the skills and talents of our students and exploiting these individuals for money. Take a second and read that sentence again — it’s a hard truth that is considered taboo to discuss.

The video from October 27th shows pant legs of coaches vigorously blowing in the wind. Declan Sullivan was also tweeting and texting about how scared he was of the high winds that were rocking the tower from which he was filming.  Bryan Kelly, by extension Notre Dame athletics and Notre Dame University, were charged with the responsibility of protecting this young man from injury, just like any of the athletes and the students.  While we cannot completely protect the students on our campuses from all dangers, taking reasonable precautions with regard to safety is a no-brainer. As student affairs practitioners, safety is an ever-present thought with our programs, activities, and residential communities.

When I asked for Jeff’s thoughts he said, “The disgusting part of this entire case to me is that while Notre Dame has settled with the family, Bryan Kelly has retained his job at Notre Dame; near as I can tell, the only person in the media that has called for Kelly’s removal was Jason Whitlock of Fox Sports. As Julie alluded to above, it seems this is yet another incident in the athletic-economic complex of college sports (think football) where money and winning precludes logic, good sense and justice for the most vulnerable populations involved, the students and student athletes. Generally, players and students don’t die due to coach negligence.  Generally, coaches just get fired for blatant NCAA violations and negligence.  The system moves on and just like The Wire teaches us, the system perpetuates itself where the coaches get new jobs and a new gangster and a cheater takes over a program with the knowledge that they just need to win and all will be forgiven.  But where does it stop? Brian Kelly took a sorry Notre Dame team to an 8-5 record and a Sun Bowl victory, with promise of more victories to come based on his past success; apparently this means that you aren’t responsible for causing STUDENT DEATHS.  Give me a break.  It’s time to let Kelly go, and stop selling our souls to win a few freakin games.”

Jeff and I do not want to give the impression that we do not support college athletics. I believe that being an collegiate athlete can greatly enhance the student experience. I was a student athlete myself — swimming and playing water polo for four years at Knox College. But, at a Division III school the experience is very different, we were encouraged to be student athletes. Our coaches understood if we needed to miss practice to study for an important test, and our faculty was also flexible when meets and tournaments conflicted with class. And while gifted athletes need the opportunity to compete at a high level that can be provided by Division I athletics, that experience should not occur at the detriment to themselves or other students.

Does your campus offer support systems for your student athletes? What about student trainers and support staff?

UPDATE March 19: Wallace apologizes and decides to leave UCLA.

If Alexandra Wallace was on your campus how would you handle it? I actually found out about the story Monday night when the Chancellor published his response about Wallace’s video.

Since then:

Wallace has issued an apology  to the Daily Bruin

Clearly the original video posted by me was inappropriate. I cannot explain what possessed me to approach the subject as I did, and if I could undo it, I would. I’d like to offer my apology to the entire UCLA campus. For those who cannot find it within them to accept my apology, I understand.

Wallace has received death threats

The Chancellors facebook page has been a location of ranting, trolling, and debate.

So if you were on the UCLA campus what would you do, how would you handle it, and what would you tell her?

The Former Majority Association for Equality (FMAE) is a San Marcos, TX based non-profit that has recently garnered attention for their White Male only scholarship initiative. Their goal is to “financially assist young Americans seeking higher education who lack opportunities in similar organizations that are based upon race or gender” by offering five $500 awards, exclusively to applicants who are 25% white and have a 3.0 GPA. The group’s President Colby Bohannan says he felt excluded when trying to find scholarship funds for his college career, and was not able to find scholarship resources based on (his White) race/ethnicity.

When I first read about this group and the scholarship, I was angry. I believe my initial reaction lies in the name of the group itself — Former Majority Association for Equality. Any group that is focused on maintaining a majority status, or chooses to identify itself as fighting only to retain the rights of former majority peoples is not focused on equality. Equality is not found by fighting to maintain a majority, or looking to give an advantage to those who still maintain privileges far greater than students of color. And, while I understand and respect that our current financial aid system can be difficult for students, I don’t believe that creating a scholarship for White male students does anything to level the playing field or address issues of equality because Whites still are the majority in our country.

According to the US Department of Education, during the 2007-08 academic year, White students earned 71.8% of the Bachelor’s degrees awarded to graduating students. African American students earned 9.8%, Hispanic students earned 7.9%, Asian Pacific Islander earned 7%, American Indian/Alaska Native earned 0.7%, and Non-Residents earned 2.8%. While at first glance it may seem that these statistics roughly mirror the census data, it is important to note that the census also reports that in the year 2009 only 30% of people over the age of 25 had a Bachelor’s degree. When you do the math, this means that only 8.5% of over 25 graduates are people of color. I want to emphasize that 8.5% includes African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, American Indian and Native Alaskans, and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander. Again, that means roughly 35% of the population is earning 8.5% of the awarded degrees.

If we as educators and student affairs professionals want to work towards equality in financial assistance for our students, we need to focus on connecting current and potential students to educational resources that improve access to all marginalized populations. An important fact that is not getting reported by every source is that Mr. Bohannan is a returning Veteran. I do think that Veteran students have barriers to access that our traditional students do not face which could have added to his struggle to find scholarships and financial aid. I do not doubt that Mr. Bohannan’s family found the cost of college to be somewhat prohibitive to him pursuing his degree. But the rising cost of college is an issue that all of our students face, and segregating and reserving resources for students who are already the majority benefactors of our educational system will not lead us to equality.

By now I am guessing you have heard about the nursing student from Johnson County Community College (JCCC) who was suspended for posting a photo on Facebook. In the photo, the student was posing with an unidentified placenta. You can find the particulars of the story, including a copy of the photo in this article. When I first heard about the photograph, I raised my eyebrows, chuckled a bit, and went about my day. When I then heard that the student (and three others) were suspended for posting the photo, I became angry and rather frustrated.

I have several concerns about the decision the JCCC administration made, and believe that it is an excessive reaction to what actually occurred. (For a good take on violation of due process and student conduct read Eric Stoller’s post at Inside Higher Ed.) While working in residence life, I was part of the student conduct process at two very different institutions. At each place, we had in depth discussions about how Facebook should factor in to our conduct processes. Both institutions held that, while supporting evidence for cases may be found on Facebook, to consistently monitor the site for infractions to the conduct code would be both exhausting and overly invasive. I believe attempts to control what our students share on Facebook (and other social networking sites) is futile, and outside of our duty as student affairs administrators. (Note: I do believe contractual stipulations around social media are valid for those students holding leadership positions.) What about the teachable moment you say? Simple, teaching a student does not equal controlling their content.

So, I say it is not the placenta that makes you uncomfortable, but rather a generational dissonance around what qualifies as appropriate content to publish online. The majority of our traditional aged students have grown up with reality tv shows, social networking sites, and an internet culture which provides access to almost unimaginable resources. They have an (implicit?) expectation to gain information about others, and that others will want to gather information about them, which means the type of content they share via social networks may seem strange to us, or make us uncomfortable. For us to be successful as educators, I believe we need to first work on further educating ourselves around the social media culture. Then, we share tips, show our students how the content they share may impact their “future”, and continue to have an open dialogue with students around social media. Pro tip 1: You will never know the “right” way to utilize social media, you must keep learning and experimenting. Pro tip 2: It is okay to not use social media for the same purposes as our students.

I ask the administration at JCCC to reconsider their decision. I wonder if students who had posted pictures like this would have also been suspended without due process. New things are scary, but the best way to work through fear and uncertainty is to learn and grow together.

BreakDrinkers: Does your school conduct code address content shared via social networking sites? Do you think the JCCC students should have been suspended?

My physics teacher in high school would sometimes share the ideas or situations he had been mulling over in recent days. He would always end the story with, “these are the things that keep me up at night.” Sometimes he would be talking about complex physics problems, other times world events, and once the fact that green peppers are always less expensive than the other colors. (A musing I did not appreciate until many years later, and found myself doing my own grocery shopping.) As the number of years I spend in higher education increase, I find myself being “kept up” a lot when thinking about student issues.

I am fortunate to be teaching a FYE course this semester. On our campus, we try to place students in sections based on their major, and then these major specific sections are taught by an academic advisor. I have found it very helpful for class discussions to be able to place an EMAC lens on questions and comments, and more importantly, I have a first hand account of the challenges our new students are facing in their courses. Given the nature of our program, our two introductory classes require students to blog, maintain a twitter account, and bookmark class related links via Delicious. In a discussion about the courses, several students expressed that they were finding it an adjustment to have so many of their assignments based on the internet. Many of them felt, while they may have used online resources frequently while in high school, to have class participation include blogging and tweets is a new ballgame.

Some discussed how it is difficult to come up with blog topics when you are “forced” to write. Others said it takes a lot of effort to find meaningful articles and links to tweet/bookmark, not just say things like, “I just ate a ham sandwich.” What struck me, was the student who said, while pointing to his laptop, “this is the first computer I have ever owned. It’s been hard for me just figuring out how to use all these things, and then I have to figure out what to write.” The other students didn’t address the first part of his comment, instead empathized with having to come up with blog topics. This student has self-disclosed at being first generation, low SES, and working close to full time to help pay for school. He went through high school using campus computer labs, and the public library computers. One of the main reasons he chose his major, was the prospect of high paying career opportunities post graduation.

I know this student is not alone in his situation. I know we have many students that struggle to make ends meet, and keep up with the costs of their education. But what kept me up that night, was the idea that as we move forward with a more technology infused college experience, how easy it is for us to leave students behind. It is easy to say that this first year class is tech savvy based on their use of smart phones and social media. It is easy to believe that they will know how to navigate the technology placed in front of them, and be able to understand the useful applications of social media because it is a part of their everyday lives. Yet, it is in these assumptions I that fear we will increase the divide between the students who have, and the students who have not.

I do not think this makes the case to use less technology in classrooms, or in higher education. Instead, I think it serves as yet another reminder that as professionals we need to be mindful and informed about the technologies we use. We need to remember that students using our online registration systems, course blogs, and online academic catalogs may speak English as their second language, may not have access to a computer at home, may have visual impairments, or may not have been allowed on Facebook because their parents thought it was inappropriate (as was the experience of one of my FYE students). I believe we need to continue to educate ourselves so that we use these technologies meaningfully, and are able to be a resource for those students who may not be familiar. In my time as a student affairs professional, I have found we are often the ones who connect the dots. We are able to see the larger picture of the student experience a little more clearly than our campus counterparts. This is a gift, that only really matters, when we work to make the campus experience better for our students.

As I continue to think about these issues around technology and access, I ask you BreakDrinkers, what higher education issue keeps you up at night?

When University of Arizona Associate Professor Sandra Soto gave a graduation speech last week, she was heavily criticized for sharing her “political beliefs” regarding SB1070. Critics said that a graduation speech is no place to espouse your political views. And while I agree with that idea, no a student should not have to listen to campaigning or political rhetoric on their graduation day, I also believe that putting Soto’s speech in this category is a disservice to us all.

One of the benefits of working in higher education is the room for discourse. I find myself consistently challenged and enlightened by my colleagues, both on my campus and through social networking. I have always viewed it as part of my job to extend this challenge to students — to ask them to explain their thoughts, their feelings, to see what their understanding is of a given situation. It is through this discourse that we aid our students in becoming more thoughtful citizens who are able to clearly express their thoughts and feelings, who are able to make persuasive arguments, and become individuals who can objectively look at both sides of the coin.

If you listen to her remarks, you will find that the moments when she discusses SB1070 are actually a small part of her speech. And I have to ask myself, if she was a white man would the reaction have been different? Would people have rallied behind her remarks, or lauded her for being a necessary critical voice if she was a professor in the sciences? What would her colleagues have said if she chose to not address this legislation which will greatly impact higher education? So, when Associate Professor Soto expressed her concerns about the potential effects of SB1070 on her area of expertise, Chicana cultural studies, she was not politicizing. She was not speaking from a self-serving place. Instead, she was fulfilling her role as an educator by showing students another side of the issue, and reminding the rest of us that, agree or disagree, our responsibility is to continue the conversation.

Yesterday on the BreakDrink 19 podcast we briefly discussed the recent measure signed by Gov. Jan Brewer that prohibits Ethnic Studies Courses.  This law is geared at eliminating Mexican American Studies, Native American Studies, and African American Studies courses from classrooms in the state of Arizona.  The law specifically prohibits courses that: 1) are designed for a particular ethnic group; 2) advocate ethnic solidarity; 3) promote resentment towards a race or class of people; or 4) advocate for the overthrow of the government.  The citizens of Arizona may have seen this one coming as this has been debated for a couple of years but now the law is now a reality.

Last night if you tuned into Anderson Cooper you could have watched Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Horne, discuss why he pushed for the ban on ethnic studies.  It seems that he thinks they are a “downer” and he may be fearful of young Latino students wearing khaki.  He is joined in the debate by Sociologist Dr. Michale Eric Dyson who believes that an all encompassing approach to American History is needed.

Do you feel that a students educational experience can be enhanced by Ethnic Studies courses?  Is it important that students learn about oppression and the impact on minority communities?  Is the Arizona law just another law in the long line of unjust, xenophobic, homophobic laws passed by an out of control state legislators?  What do you think BreakDrinkers?

You can watch the debate by clicking on the image below (will redirect):

I love ceremonies, and each spring try to attend as many graduations as possible. There is something about the uplifting spirit in the air as our students move on to the next phase of their lives, and the joy you get when a student with whom you really connected takes those steps across the stage. (And the greater joy that comes with watching that four time student conduct code offender shake hands and receive his degree.)

I believe one of the most important parts of the graduation ceremony is the speaker. Graduation speakers can bring a sense of pride to the institution and the graduates, or give the opportunity for one last round of protest. (James Franco, anyone?) As a side note, Inside Higher Ed does a great recap of graduation speakers recently announced every few days.

My own graduation speaker was Dr. Larry Brilliant. He is a great philanthropist who played a large part in the WHO smallpox eradication program, and toured with the Grateful Dead. I graduated in 2004, and faced a “real world” in which our country was still new to the Iraq war, and political conflict felt like electricity in the air.  In his speech, Dr. Brilliant said something that I still carry with me today, and find especially relevant to student affairs — “you will survive, and you will thrive.” I have told students this — both in jest as their world “ends”, and with utmost sincerity in times of personal crisis. Personally, I have noticed that when I am at those times of crossroads, and have fear about the impact of my next decision, these words echo in my head and refocus me back to a moment when I felt powerful, supported, and confident.

So, BreakDrinkers, who was your graduation speaker? Did anything they stay stick with you?

The Chancellor closed the school after 19 security guards were injured in a clash with students.

The AP Reports:

One of the largest universities in the Caribbean closed Wednesday as hundreds of students clashed with security guards during a 48-hour strike to protest budget cuts and changes to the academic program at the University of Puerto Rico.

You can read the entire story here.