Collaboration

VUKUNET web platform by NEC Display Solutions of America can turn a digital signage display into a source for vendor advertising—and revenue for an institution—in public spaces with much foot traffic. Campus officials can register their institution's network and include demographics about the location and how much ad time is available, and then use the web platform for approving offers from agencies for ad placements. The web platform enables ad content to be uploaded and displayed as needed on the network.

At Abilene Christian University in West Texas, technology managers were struggling with an outdated email system. While providing basic service, it lacked advanced functionality and was time-consuming and expensive to maintain. in addition, the full-time email administrator’s position had recently become vacant.

Kevin Roberts, chief information officer at ACU, knew it was time for a change. “We were disenchanted with our current email system,” he says, adding that the system servers were outdated, expensive to maintain, and were running out of space.

The 53-campus system includes seven state universities and 25 community and technical colleges offering more than 3,500 programs to 374,000 students and 140,000 continuing career education enrollees. With campuses five to six hours apart, Karen Bergmeier, ITS project lead- er and Cisco WebExTM solution liaison, found herself traveling four to five hours two to three times each week to conduct training on the system’s proprietary software.

At SMU's Cox School of Business, tomorrow’s business leaders are re-envisioning how the world does business.

THE FIRST WORD THAT SPRINGS to mind in conjunction with the phrase “liberal arts education” is not “technology.” In the 21st century, however, it should.

Historically, liberal arts colleges have not placed a heavy emphasis on technology, either in the curriculum or as a teaching tool. But we hit a tipping point earlier this decade on liberal arts campuses. Not a single young person on our campus can remember life before the internet. If we don’t teach even our most traditional courses—humanities, history, literature—using today’s technology, we are probably failing as educators.

JULY 1 WILL MARK THE START of the new budget year in most institutions across the country. Nothing new, as that’s the regular budget cycle of higher education. But new this year are the deep cuts some budgets have undergone due to the economic situation.

THE CALL CAME IN AT 9:22 P.M. ON THURSDAY, APRIL 2, FROM THE Radford University (Va.) EMS team, an all-student, volunteer rescue squad, that there had been a fatal shooting just one block from campus. Dennie Templeton, who directs the school’s Office of Emergency Preparedness, remembers the time exactly, because within 15 minutes he had set up an emergency operations center (EOC) to interact with the outside responders who were fast arriving at the 9,500-student school.

NEARLY 100 YEARS AGO, when North Carolina was still a largely agricultural state, North Carolina State University President Daniel Hill described its mission as developing students who can “skillfully and unhesitatingly lead the industrial progress of our people.” His comment speaks to NC State’s historical commitment to driving the state’s economic growth.

Today, with a bow to our school colors, we express that spirit in slightly different terms: “Red means go!”

HIGHER EDUCATION IS JUMPING ON THE social media bandwagon. A 2008 UMass-Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research study states that colleges and universities are adopting social media tactics faster than Fortune 500 companies.

SINCE WORLD WAR I, FORT ORD IN SALINAS, CALIF., HAD BEEN AN ARMY training facility and artillery target range. Today, 15 years after the army left, the property’s main feature is a growing regional university—California State University, Monterey Bay.