Southwestern University receives grant for high-tech center

February 5, 1999

BY PAMELA LEBLANC
Austin American-Statesman Staff

GEORGETOWN-Southwestern University has landed a $1.25 million grant to create a training center where teachers will learn how to pump up their use of technology in the classroom.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded the money to the Associated Colleges of the South, a group of 15 small liberal arts campuses including Southwestern in Georgetown and Trinity University in San Antonio. Eight of the colleges applied for the grant and the association chose Southwestern as the site of the new center.

Southwestern will set aside space in its library, hire two full-time employees and purchase about 30 IBM-compatible and Macintosh computers for the multimedia development center.

"The focus is to make technology really usable in the classroom," said Bob Paver, associate vice president for information technology at Southwestern.

"We're trying to move away from the model of a talking head in front of a classroom that goes on and on and on and students are passive receptors."

"We want to use technology to offer opportunities to our faculty and students at small liberal arts colleges that are usually available only at large research universities," said Suzanne Bonefas, director of technical programs for the Associated Colleges of the South in Atlanta.

Southwestern was chosen for the center because of its excellent facilities and long record of leadership and innovation in the use of instructional technology, she said.

Dell Computer Corp. will provide a discount on computer equipment and offer internships for up to 15 students each summer during the three-year grant period.

Through the program, dubbed "Preparing Faculty for the Next Millennium," faculty members from all 15 schools will converge at Southwestern for training and semester-long fellowships. The 15 colleges are in 12 states, and include Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., Morehouse College in Atlanta and the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn.

Trainees will learn how to develop Internet-based instructional programs and CD-ROM educational materials, he said. They also could set up video conferencing so students at one campus could take a class offered at a school across the country.

"It essentially places Southwestern at the forefront of small colleges and universities for advancing the use of technology in our education," said Rick Eason, vice president for development at Southwestern.

The Southwestern grant also will fund a new "virtual" department of classical studies, with faculty members from all 15 schools working together over the Internet. As part of that program, students will be able to watch professors from Trinity University on an archeological dig in Turkey, live via the Internet. Some of those students may choose to travel to Turkey themselves to take an advanced archeology class offered by the department.

"It takes the concept of distance learning to a new level," Eason said. "The people who have expertise in the field work together to design the most effective and substantive curriculum programs."

Southwestern also plans to make the information and research completed at the training center available over the Internet. The first workshop will likely begin in June, with the center eventually sponsoring half a dozen or more per year.

Southwestern plans to raise additional funds to sustain the tech center after the grant runs out, Eason said.

"We're looking at the possibility of developing a new building to house information services and technology-related programs," he said. "We're planning to be out front of the advancing use of technologies in undergraduate education, not just this year or next year, but well into the next century."

Established by children of American industrialist Andrew Mellon, who died in 1937, the Mellon Foundation makes grants to institutions for the study of higher education, population, environment and cultural and public affairs.

Damon Waitt, an assistant professor of biology who will serve as faculty liaison for the program, knows the power of technology in the classroom. He already posts his class syllabus online with links to lecture outlines. "Students love that," he said.

He also helped develop an interactive CD-ROM called "Woody Plants of Central Texas," which will be used in middle and high school science classes next year.

"It allows educators to have an effect outside the boundaries of their institution," he said.

Copyright 1999. Reprinted with permission from the Austin American-Statesman.

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