A few days ago over at TheByteBaker there was a post (Is WordPress professional enough?) that sparked some discussion.  The post was specifically about whether or not WordPress was professional enough to use as university webpages.

My answer is yes.

Web 1.0

A University is a place where the brightest minds come together and build a progressive community.  So why are so many universities behind on technology.  My university only allows for students, faculty, and student organizations to use standard HTML to build their website.  While professors in the computer science departments may easily be able to update their websites, what about the English and history professors?  In today’s Web 2.0 world, it is important for a faculty member to be able to update a website, to be able to share their knowledge with the world.

WordPress or Joomla!

It’s a no-brainer that a university should choose a free open source program to make the websites.  The question is which one.  I believe WordPress MultiUser would be the easiest to use and set up.  However, perhaps a better CMS(content management system) such as Joomla! would be better as an e-portfolio.  But I’m not sure how easy it would be to setup Joomla for multiple users and webpages (If anyone has knowledge on this let me know).

Just Use Facebook?

Some would argue that there is no need for professors and students to have websites because they can just use Facebook.  I agree that that Facebook is useful and has it’s place in networking, but it can’t do everything a website can do.  One reason is that Facebook is not Google.  Someone may go to Facebook to search for a specific person, but they won’t go to Facebook for “researchers in machine vision and machine learning.”

Getting Things Started

This topic is extremely interesting to me as I intend to start my own student organization that works to improve the use of technology on campus.  One of my first goals is to do this very thing, improve the websites.  It is my expectations that a better online environment would improve campus involvement and grow the community.  Student organizations would have websites that would allow them to communicate better with their members and advertise their events.

If you are looking for a good project to work on at school, perhaps you can do the same thing.  Because a university should not lag behind when it comes to culture and technology.

1. There is not a student organization that deals with your topic or issue. At big universities there are a lot of student organizations. The MIT website showed over 400 student organizations. Chances are if a university has that many student organizations, one of them deals with your topic.
2. You have the time. If you are struggling to keep your grades up with the time you have, then it is probably not a good idea to become a leader of a student organization.
3. Your not alone. Starting a student organization from scratch can be a very difficult thing to due, and doing it on your own will be even harder. If you having people backing, go for it.
4. The university will benefit from the organization. While a cookie baking club may be fun to some people, there really isn’t any reason to have it associated with the university. An organization like that should be left as an unofficial organization.
5. Long term development. Sometimes it’s not necessary to make a student organization to work on things. Just because you have an idea for a project, doesn’t mean you must start a student organization. Going through the paperwork for starting a student org can be a waste of time for a project that will only last 3 months.
6. You need the university’s resources. Sometimes you need to organize a massive amount of people, and you really need a large conference room to do it. Many universities won’t let you request rooms unless you are an accepted student organization.

Join with Another Student Organization

As #1 says, check to see if there is a student organization to work with. If you have an idea for a project, go to them and say, “Hey I have this idea, can I work with your student organization.” Why would they say no? You are offering to be in charge of a project (meaning they don’t have to do anything), and the student org gets the credit. Seems like a win win situation to me.

Not part of a student organization yet?

If you have not joined a student organization yet, you need to start looking for one to join. Note that I said one, not 6 or even 2. I said one.  Look around campus, and find a organization you would like to join. Join it and get involved. If after a semester or two you realize your not interested in the organization anymore, it’s ok to leave it and find a new one.

Being part of a student organization helps you feel like you belong, provides resources for you to develop, and it can just be a lot of fun.

One thing students do not take advantage of is the class/professor evaluation forms. And this is very unfortunate. In a class the other day I heard a student say “If I think I’m getting an A in the class, I just go down the line and mark strongly agree for everything.”

I have a question. Does getting an A in a class indicate that you learned something in the class? Some professors curve the grade so drastically that your final grade does not accurately express your understanding of the course.

The way I see it is you, as a student, are the customer and your courses are part of the service you receive. You have every right to complain. Even if you do not take another class with the professor you are still helping future students.

So you probably don’t want to go and get your professor fired, but give the professor a really good critique. When answering questions about the difficulty of the class, do not complain because it was difficult, ask if you really benefited from the tests. Did tests accurately test your knowledge, even if your knowledge was very limited? What about the assignments? Did they help you learn the material? If the assignments did not help, don’t mark down that the assignments were awful unless you actually attempted to take full advantage of the given assignments.

Attempt to give your professor the best critique possible. You may think that a professor will never change, but this isn’t true of all professors. Believe it or not some professors are actually teaching because they want to help. As you should be open to critique by your professors, so should your professors be open to critique by you.

By giving excellent critiques of your professors you will slow change the environment of your university. The class evaluation forms may seem unimportant, but if everyone in the university takes advantage of them a simple form can be a changing force at your college.

Hundreds of years ago the apprentice blacksmith rigorously worked, attempting to please his master that one day he may become a master himself. We had thought the days of master and apprentice were long gone, or only in a galaxy far far away. But Kalamazoo College is introducing guilds with the hopes that the guilds will revolutionize liberal studies. Below is a summary of the guilds taken from the Kalamazoo Guilds website:

The Kalamazoo College Guilds will bring together the college community, especially alumni and current students, around interdisciplinary issues that affect today’s world. These voluntary membership organizations will integrate experiences and classroom learning and provide professional development and networking opportunities in order to bridge students’ liberal arts education with the world they will encounter upon graduation. Guilds will connect students to mentors and professional opportunities, foster leadership among students, and allow participants to realize their potential to positively impact the world through their work.

“This is a brilliant idea that no other school has done,” Joan Hawxhurst, guild coordinator, said. “They looked and looked to find other models. The closest they could find was a Princeton Class of 1955 alumni in public service.”(mlive.com)

There will be four guilds at Kalamazoo: Business, Health, Justice and Peace, and Sustainability.

I find the idea of guilds very intriguing (maybe because I am a fan of fantasy novels and games). I believe the essential part of this program is getting the community involved. The more the community is involved the more support that goes to education. The idea of guilds is probably at the beginning stage, but if more and more universities begin the program we could see guilds evolve to become something very of great significance.

What do you think about guilds?

Yesterday, Indiana University Southeast was privileged to have Chelsea Clinton come and speak about her mother’s policies. I will say that Chelsea Clinton is a good speaker, she responded well to question, and she was informative. But now I have a long list of complaints about Hillary Clinton…

Just Joking! My political viewpoints are not necessary, but I would like to tell you that having a politician visit your university is very beneficial, even if you are not a supporter.

Indiana University Southeast is a fairly small university. Without a large sports team to rally around. It is sometimes difficult to get everyone together. Chelsea Clinton was able to get the largest turn out than any other campus event I have been to.

Student Organizations

If you are a part of a student organization, you should attempt to get external influential people to your campus. Not only should you attempt to get interesting people to your campus, you should also go to events that were put together by other student organizations, because promoting all campus organizations promotes your university and in return promotes your organization.

There are Many Interesting People

There are many interesting and famous people that you can get to visit your university; however, not everyone on campus is going to know them. If you get a physics professor from another university to come speak, you need to properly promote the event.

Sending out fliers is a great way to get the information out. On the flier the persons name may be the least important thing to put on the page. Putting the persons credentials may be more important. Having a mystery speaker may be an excellent way to create suspense and get a large crowd to show up.

How to Find People

How do you find people to speak? There are two places where you can easily find someone that can speak on the desired topic: the internet and your professors. If you begin your search on the internet you will probably find someone that can speak on the given topic. However, they probably live on the other side of the country or the other side of the ocean.

If you are going to search the internet and actually find someone that is willing to come and speak you must use the right search terms. The most important search term will be a city location. Use the largest city nearby, which may or may not be the city of your school.

Also realize that you may have to lower your standards. Doing a Google search and clicking on the first link on the list will probably get you a high quality speaker that has high expectations of money. You may need to go to the second and third pages of the search results. It’s ok if you don’t get the so called “best.”

Another good source to find a speaker is your professors. Your professors did go to grad school, and they probably have resources. Just ask. Professors aren’t as scary as you may think.

Using Your Professors

If all fails, then ask one of your professors to speak. Having a professor from your university speak may not be the best way to create hype, but they are qualified and it will still be an interesting presentation.

I know you probably clicked on this to read about Chelsea Clinton, but my political viewpoints are not as important as campus growth and involvement.