UB Buzz

Water Bottles Keep Academic Scholarships Alive

State cutbacks have led many colleges and universities to find innovative ways to keep funds rolling in. The University of Texas at Austin’s new fundraising campaign—“H2Orange: Drink Water. Bleed Orange. Fund Scholarships”—is a good example. Led by designers Tim McClure, (founder and chairman of H2Orange LLC and self-proclaimed “chief water boy”) and Steve Gurasich, founder, president and “chief bottle washer” at the company), the effort features recyclable water bottles in the shape of the iconic UT Austin Tower.

The initiative is projected to bring in $1 million a year in net profits, which UT officials will use to offset Texas legislature’s decision to cut 5 percent of state funding. Profits from these bottles will go directly to funding academic scholarships, fellowships, and internships through the president’s office.

Not everyone was as thrilled about the new campaign as university officials. UT’s student environmental group initially protested the disposable bottles, saying they undermine the university’s sustainability policy. McClure and Gurasich explained in an open letter to the campus community that plans are already in place to create a stainless steel water bottle of the same shape. They are also looking to produce bottles made of biodegradable plastic, “but given recent legislative budget cuts, we need to fund scholarships now,” the letter states.

Despite the initial pushback, McClure believes the product will become a collectable and be turned into flower vases, holiday gift candy containers, or piggy banks. Bottles that are recollected will be recycled into backpacks, benches, and other green products.  

Campus officials are promoting H2Orange, which is licensed for production for the next 10 years, via Facebook, Twitter, billboards, and word of mouth. “Hundreds of millions of water bottles are sold each year, but this is the only one that I know of that funds scholarships,” McClure says.  —KeriLee Horan

Shaping the Future with Online Learning

New ideas and discussions about the challenges of today and in the future for online education were the focus of last week’s conference on "Shaping the Future: New Possibilities for Online Learning." The one-day event, presented by Post University (Conn.) and sponsored by Blackboard and Pearson Learning Solutions, took place at The Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, Conn.

In a session on closing the cyber gap in eLearning to increase motivation, Post’s director of instructional design, Mark P. Fazioli, discussed how instructors could use elements of immediacy and social presence to increase motivation for those taking online courses. People work harder to understand material when they feel they’re in a conversation rather than simply receivers of information, argued.

Fazioli suggested using avatars or photos (for both the instructor and students), discussion threads, video, and audio. With video lectures and clips, instructors can also create immediacy by using words such as “we” and “you” to keep it conversational. And, he stressed, instructors should be conscious of hitting both visual and verbal modalities, such as by having a picture of the instructor nearby when there’s a page of text of including audio notes.

He described the ARCS model of motivating students: Attention (something that students can do or see immediately upon logging on), Relevance (to explain why students need to learn a particular concept, Confidence (building it), and Satisfaction (such as through testing their knowledge).

In another session on the explosion of mobile learning, presenters from Blackboard and Post shared data from Educause that shows how colleges and universities are still in the beginning stages of determining how mobile devices can be used for learning. When asked about having a strategic plan in place related to mobile devices in learning, only 30 percent said they had one. Nearly half do not have one started, and 30 percent are just preparing one now. Yet large numbers of students in online courses are likely using mobile devices to access course material. Add the fact that many of them could well be doing so while at work, and this question is left: Are they actually learning anything?

The presenters left the audience with one more stat to ponder: within one year (also according to Educause research), 45 percent of U.S. higher ed students will own and access the internet from a handheld device. Schools such as Medical College of Georgia have learned that if you promote an iPhone app related to their courses, lots of non-students access it as well as students.

In the session “What Can Higher Education Learn from Hollywood?”, presenter Frank Mulgrew, president of Post University Online, argued that higher education course design has traditionally been focused on the what and the who, not on the how. He suggested that the audience ponder how well Hollywood knows how to grab someone’s attention. To make his point, he asked a few people to name their favorite professor from college. Then he would ask them to explain what they learned in week four of the course. Yet, ask someone to talk about his or her favorite movie, and details come pouring out about specific scenes.

Mulgrew’s concern: “We are failing huge numbers of students at the best institutions in the country,” This is in part because there’s a disconnect between things educators love about what they do compared to what they should be teaching students. At non-research institutions, the primary purpose is the betterment of the student, and individual faculty may or may not be focused on that. “It’s about them, not the student,” he said.

He asked the attendees to think about what Hollywood is good at -- from grabbing attention to creating narratives -- and consider what ideas can be applied to online teaching. Then, he suggested this: “If you have one objective [in a course] and you doggedly engage students in that objective, we will have a better student coming out.”

Ed Klonoski, president of Charter Oak State College (Conn.) and introduced as “the father of distance education in Connecticut,” gave the closing talk on current trends in online education. He referred to the 70 percent growth rate in online education as second only to the growth rate in student debt.

With for-profit growth rates of 25 percent while the rest of higher ed is trying to hang on, particularly with declining numbers of 18 to 24 year old cohorts, he stressed the importance of reaching underserved adult students.

He also noted some examples of administrators being lax about adopting new technologies. After making a household technology purchase online with the help of a Dell representative who began chatting with him to help along the order, Klonoski asked his admissions department if they were doing online chats. They were. When? he asked. “Whenever someone is free” was the reply.

“Not good enough!” he said to the audience.

No, it’s not. But as the attendance at this conference showed, there are lots of engaged instructors and administrators looking for new ways to innovate -- both for the sake of the students and the institutions themselves.

 

September Stories

Four web exclusives accompany the September issue of University Business magazine.

Colleges Reducing Food Waste and Greening the Earth

Campus dining services have been cutting food waste through measures such as instituting trayless dining or being smarter about purchasing. At the end of the day, though, food waste could still happen. Schools are finding creative solutions to handle it such as composting or donating leftovers to nearby charities. Penn State University student Allison Lilly reported on these different initiatives during her summer internship with Dick Jones Communications. 

Opportunity Knocks

More Americans are-and will be-heading back to school, thus putting administrators in a position to weigh how they should best take advantage of this significant enrollment increase. Where, exactly, should they position themselves? In her piece, Carol Aslanian points out four distinct markets she thinks are mostly like to provide the most growth potential. She is EducationDynamics' senior VP of market research and advisory services.

What University IT Can Learn From the Enterprise

IT departments constantly try to provide a strong balance between an open yet secure network. They also face complications when enforcing departmental policies as their respective institution tries to remain on the cutting edge of tech innovation. In some cases, this issue has led to staggering data breaches. H. Peter Felgentreff, president and CEO of NCP engineering, gives his recommendations on how to implement best practices to strengthen security.

Working in the Clouds

Cloud computing has been getting its share of attention in higher ed as institutions are finding it as a viable solution for many technology needs such as web development. Nathan Gerber, Utah Valley University's director of web development services, describes the lengthy process undertaken by UVU's Web Development Services group in eventually adopting the cloud to save costs and improve operations.