ACUHO-I News Blog

Show of hands…when was the last time you sent a text message?

We all know that our students are now coming to campus better able to use technology to communicate. Everything from blogs to Twitter, texting, and smart phones.The feature in the recent Talking Stick by Richard Holeton The Net Generation on Campus & Online is a must read!

Students are coming to school owning cell phones at a 99 percent clip, and more and more of them are using smart phones…the Blackberry or iPhone. A higher percent of college students own and use a smart phone than working adults. Employers are at risk of falling behind the Net Generation in using and adapting to communications tools. A recent survey by Big Blue shows that from even these technologically advanced students, more than half feel they need to improve their technology skills before they graduate, and 80 percent expect to encounter new technology once they enter the workforce. As these students graduate and become professional employees, our institutions will need to consider getting our current employees, and ourselves, trained and armed with the current technology devices.As we tentatively dip our toes into the social networking world of Facebook and MySpace, the kids will be racing off to a brand-new, yet undiscovered technology (Twitter), leaving us looking and feeling both inadequate and confused. How will our employees view us if we don’t know the rudimentary basics of today’s communication technology? In order to compete with the private sector, we cannot rely on technology, software and communication tools from the 1980s.

(more…)

A selection of college housing and student affairs headlines from InsideHigherEd.com. Look for these on a weekly basis in the ACUHO-I news blog.

BUILDING CAPACITY, SLOWLY: New federal data show small increase in number of Americans enrolled in college in 2007 — with fastest growth in for-profit sector.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/03/11/enroll

SUSTAINING STUDY ABROAD: Campuses are going green and going international. With air travel as the elephant in the room, how to reconcile the two?:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/03/12/studyabroad

IS THE LAPTOP LOVE-IN OVER? Colleges that helped provide students with computers were once celebrated. But as budgets tighten and more students come with their own machines, institutions are rethinking the value of laptop requirements:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/03/12/laptops

Some institutions, frustrated with the RIAA’s demands on their time and resources, are taking their student records and going home. So says a Chronicle of Higher Education article that reports some institutions are “fighting back” –passively–by not forwarding the RIAA’s prelitigation settlement letters (without an institution’s records, the RIAA doesn’t know which student is guilty of sharing) and automatically deleting network access logs regularly, as the institution can’t provide what it doesn’t have. A few have taken a more aggressive approach, by going to the courts.

The dissenting schools, and those who continue to cooperate with the RIAA’s demands, cite the money and human resources it takes to work with the RIAA, and the recording industry’s lack of reciprocity. The new College Opportunity and Affordability Act (Higher Education Reauthorization Act 2007) includes provisions that require schools “to the extent practicable” offer legal downloading alternatives;  explore anti-sharing technology; educate students about file-sharing and report on their efforts to the government. The recording industry’s lobbyists seem to have had something to do with this. Institutions, of course, feel this has become a rather one-sided friendship.

The RIAA, apparently not satisfied with a potiential law that may obligate institutions to buy its products, counters that the institutions’ previous compliance, and the continued cooperation of others, shows their requests don’t present an undue burden. After all, once you’ve run a gauntlet once, you’re happy to do it again and again!

How will your institution comply, if HERA 2007 is signed into law (it almost certainly will be)? How do you deal with piracy, downloading and RIAA requests now?