Tools we bring
Especially as we lean more on technology
One thing I’ve been thinking about, as I’ve been working from my home office and doing my class lectures via YouTube and my discussions via Zoom, is how much leverage colleges and universities get from technology.
We’re currently looking for a new provost at Bemidji State, and the candidates are doing their “open forum” talks and Q&A sessions on Zoom. I had the chance to watch one yesterday and the candidate who’s currently doing the job of acting provost said something interesting about focusing on our distinctiveness as an institution. He suggested that a lot of that comes from the place we’re located, and I agree, but it hasn’t really been my focus during my time at BSU so far. For example, I’ve been happy that our setting tends to attract students interested in environmental issues and that the environment is an element of our strategic thinking. But I haven’t altered my environmental history to focus specifically on the local environment. Maybe I will in the future, if I design a topics class based on my research on the Great Northern Pine Forest. However, the thing I’ve been most interested in has been extending our reach beyond our local audience, which seems to be a second priority in a very place-based approach. The provost candidate pointed out that if we don’t make a differentiated pitch, then we’re just competing on a level playing field with other institutions that may have more resources than us. This is true, but as we become more “virtual” or “remote” or “online”, I think we’ll be better off if we get good at it faster than our competitors.
Which brings me to the technology point. I also recently received a Faculty/Staff email from our IT Department, reminding everyone they were only supposed to do BSU work on BSU-supplied computers. I understand the security concern that prompted the email. But let’s be real!
BSU supplies faculty with 13-inch MacBook Air machines or similar-cost, slightly bigger Windows notebooks. The MacBook Air I got from IT is useful for administrative tasks like email and accessing our learning management system. But I don’t use it for tasks like designing PowerPoint lecture decks, editing lecture videos, or running Zoom discussions (where I like to have a Zoom window open as well as a window with the text we’re discussing). The university-provided computer is underpowered and too small. It works great for plugging into classroom projection systems and serving up lectures. This is what they were originally for – but this isn’t what we’re doing any more and it was only part of what we were doing before the shift.
I imagine everybody knows faculty do more with their computers than they can do on the machines provided. This has amounted to a small-scale subsidy to the university, as people like me buy our own computers that are better suited to the tasks we’re doing. To be completely honest, the app I use to record lectures, Camtasia, actually works on the MacBook Air. The maker of the app considers this an underpowered machine and doesn’t certify the app will work reliably; it occasionally locks up on me and fails. But although I often record my lectures on the Air, I transfer the file to the desktop to edit, so I can see what I’m doing. You could rightly say I’m indulging myself by buying the bigger more expensive machine. But, really?
I’m not complaining. I know elementary school teachers in America who buy their own paper and supplies for their classrooms. And scholars have typically taken advantage of (and given their students and institutions the benefit of) large personal libraries they accumulate themselves. My photo of my office above has more books and more computers than I absolutely need (although it’s helpful to have a Windows machine to make sure your content looks like it should across platforms). I’m perfectly happy to share the insights I get from those books and the work I do on those computers. But I’m not that comfortable pretending the resources the university is supplying are actually adequate for the work I’m doing. I’m certainly not going to pretend I’m doing all my university work on my university-supplied notebook.
(image: my home office, with the computers and books I’ve accumulated on my own. The MacBook Air in the photo is my own, not BSU’s)