Student Affairs Technology: To Boldly Go

“They should have explained the basic concepts at the beginning (e.g.: podcasts, blogs, wikis, etc.).”

“Helping me to boldly go where I’ve never been before.”

One of these statements is not like the other two. I’m sure you can guess which one gives me hope as a student affairs techie that we as a profession have not lost our willingness to learn, to explore and to stay positive about new technologies. This article represents a call to action for student affairs practitioners. The microblogging site, Twitter, has a feature that lets you “nudge” someone that you are following. This is me providing a gentle nudge to my fellow higher education administrators. I hope that you nudge me back. Let’s push the envelope. Let’s shift our professional paradigms. Let’s make technology (and learning about new technologies) a part of our daily practices.

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The following videos were not created specifically for student affairs practitioners. However, due to their extreme awesomeness, I feel that they are must-watch for anyone who is interested in technology and student affairs.

What is a podcast?

What is social media?

What is Twitter?

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The NASPA National Conference is finally coming back to the west coast! Woohoo! Washington DC was nice, Orlando was saved by Al Gore’s keynote, and I didn’t make it to Boston due to a lack of funds.

The 2009 NASPA National Conference is going to be held in Seattle, Washington. This is fantastic news for west coast student affairs practitioners who may have wanted to travel east but were unable to afford the costs of traveling across the country. I’ve actually never been to Seattle. Methinks that a trip prior to 2009 is in order.

Note: NASPA is the acronym for the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. Most of the higher education association acronyms sound like a sneeze. NASPA, ACUHO-I, NACADA, ACPA, ASJA et. al. Their names make me want to say “gesundheit“.

I was recently at a higher education conference for academic advisors where every time the campus tech support office personnel were referenced, they were called “tech guys.”

For example: “Our tech guys are going to be configuring our database.”

I was asked to be on a technology panel on academic advising and Web 2.0 technologies. During what was probably a long-winded answer to an audience question, I decided to point out that our campuses have “tech people” or “tech folks” on staff in our IT offices. I said something about the fact that tech guys is such a sexist phrase as it makes women invisible and centralizes men as being technology experts.

On a related note, Jason Kottke has been keeping track of the gender diversity at some of the most well known and attended web conferences… WebVisions, a web conference in Portland, Oregon seems to contain a bit more gender variation than some of the conferences that Kottke references, but not by a lot. Of 38 total speakers, only 8 are women.

Two Penn State students dressed for Halloween as Virginia Tech shooting victims. The following is a letter to the editor of the Daily Collegian by a friend and student affairs colleague.

Waking up the morning of Friday, December 07, 2007 - the anniversary of bombings at Pearl Harbor - I read the Collegian cover story “Va. Tech Mockery Incites Anger.” As someone who studies ethics, which is deep consideration of how we human beings treat one another, I wondered “is this kind of mockery pathological?” and yet wonder if it’s too convenient to dismiss the choices involved as the acts of those with mental illness.

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One of the themes that I keep seeing as I peruse the rather lengthy list of racist incidents at college and university campuses is the idea of “real racism.” Comment after comment are posted on how nooses and blackface are not “real racism” and that dialogues about these events should not take place as they might dilute conversations about “real racism.” It should be noted that the majority of “real racism” commenters are usually anonymous white folks who have decided to say when “real racism” has occurred and when it is just “crying wolf.”

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DB on the idea that silence is approval.

[W]here in all of these voices is the official voice of OSU? I respect Ed Ray and believe that his commitment to diversity and social justice issues is authentic. But the silence from the President’s office is deafening. And the resultant vacuum ends up sounding like a tacit approval of those who would wear blackface, which, since it cannot be scrubbed of its racist roots, is wrong. How difficult would it be for one who is committed to social justice to say just that?

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A new bill introduced in the U.S. Congress this week would reduce the cost of birth control for college students and low-income women nationwide. Because of an error in a previous bill approved by Congress, the prices for birth control this fall quadrupled for female college students who purchase it from college clinics.

For decades drug companies made it possible for college health clinics to purchase birth control at low prices in order to pass along the savings to college students and low-income women who rely on them.

In 2005, however, Congress inadvertently passed a provision under the Deficit Reduction Act, preventing all college clinics, hundreds of safety-net health care providers, Medicaid beneficiaries and Planned Parenthood offices from purchasing birth control from drug companies at a discounted rate.

via Diverse Issues in Higher Education

Several Oregon media outlets have posted stories on the recent black out at Reser Stadium and the noose at the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity.

Update:
Oregon State University Office of the President - Campus climate on race

Corvallis Gazette-Times - Pre-Kwanzaa event interrupts tension

The Oregonian - Racial Dialogue

Statesman Journal - Racist symbols, lame-brained students in Corvallis

The Oregonian - The color of isolation: Blacks battle insensitivity at OSU

The Oregonian - Stunts at OSU strike a nerve of bigotry

Willamette Week - Anti-Racism Protest Tomorrow at OSU

KGW - Race controversies at OSU after noose in tree

KVAL - OSU School spirit called into question

Video from KGW after the cut…

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The Corvallis Tourism website has a page on media praise of Corvallis:

• “Corvallis is ranked as one of America’s Top 25 family friendly enclaves.”
• “the 8th best place in the nation to live”
• “Corvallis is a country place with a collegiate feel that’s also a high tech center and a hippie haven.”
• “Corvallis ranked 10th of all cities of all sizes in the nation.”

Renee Roman Nose’s editorial on blackface and its subsequent banning by the Daily Barometer staff was recently featured in a news story in Corvallis’ newspaper, the Gazette Times. The commentary by Corvallis residents has been appalling. The article, “Black Out Reser’ raises racial spectre,” has brought out white racist sentiment in droves. A follow-up article by Zel Brook of Corvallis-Albany NAACP, “as I see it: Blackface painting at rally was ignorant,” has been overrun with even more white racists. When I moved to Corvallis, I was told that it was a bastion of liberalism. It turns out that Corvallis is a bastion of white liberal racists who have no problem hiding behind anonymous comments that are filled with racism and sexism. By the way, I do not self-identify as a liberal, and this is exactly why I do not.

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