TLT VISION FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING WITH TECHNOLOGY

AT HOWARD UNIVERSITY

March 30, 2009

In a letter dated February 2, 2009, the Teaching, Learning, and Technology (TLT) Committee responded to President Ribeau’s call for “a campus-wide dialogue on the future of our university.” On December 22, 2008, President Ribeau had asked Howard students, faculty, and staff, “Where do you want Howard to be five years from now, ten years from now, and beyond?” As we promised, the TLT Committee has crafted a vision of what teaching and learning with technology should look like at Howard in the next five years.

The TLT undertook this task since our committee represents both the IT providers (e.g., ISAS, WHUT, University Libraries, HUB) and the users of instructional technology (faculty from all twelve schools and colleges along with the student government). Guided by thePresident and Vice President of the national Teaching, Learning, and Technology Group, we embarked upon a process—online and on site—that has produced the following vision of teaching and learning with technology:

Howard University is a comprehensive research university committed to educating African Americans and other people of color for leadership and service to our nation and to the global community. Our vision is that the University will continue to elevate its contribution to the nation and its standing among America’s top research universities by providing our students and faculty with world-class technological tools and resources for discovering, evaluating, and synthesizing the information needed to excel in their disciplines.

As you can see, our vision statement echoes not only the University’s Strategic Framework for Action (SFA), but also the aspirations President Ribeau expressed during his 2008 Convocation speech. As with the SFA vision, our vision will require “a sustainable University-wide focus and disciplined allocation of resources.” Although faculty and students will increasingly exploit resources in cyberspace, the University should ensure that they can do so by providing a reliable foundational infrastructure, including classroom technology, a learning management system, and access to computing for everyone. To fulfill this objective, we recommend that the University set the following set of benchmarks as the minimum level of performance it must attain within the next five years:

  1. There will be wireless Internet access throughout the campus.
  2. In addition to Internet connectivity, all classrooms will have a reliable projection system.
  3. Existing smart rooms and carts will be regularly upgraded and maintained.
  4. All faculty will have FacNet laptops to facilitate classroom instruction as well as office computing; new faculty will receive laptops as soon as they arrive on campus. (Note: Existing FacNet desktops will be adequately maintained until they can be replaced with laptops.)
  5. The University will provide a Single Point of Contact (SPOC) for administrative services to support distance-learning.
  6. The University will fund the software licenses that multiple schools and colleges require for research, teaching, learning, and assessment.
  7. The University will annually renew the license and hosting services for the Blackboard learning management system.
  8. The University will provide adequate technical support not only for academic computing but also for Banner and PeopleSoft so that departments can acquire the personnel, materials, and services they need for research, teaching, learning, and assessment in a timely manner.

We believe that meeting these benchmarks will equip faculty and students with the technologies they need to propel Howard University into the top tier of this country’s research universities.