08255
April 4, 2008
Wired for success
Stillman College infuses technology into fabric of campus structure
Editor’s note: The following story is part of a package of stories and photos focusing on Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)-supported racial-ethnic schools and colleges.
TUSCALOOSA, AL – Tuscaloosa, AL, is a far cry from California’s Silicon Valley, a recognized technology hub in the United States.
But that’s just geography, if you listen to the folks in charge at Stillman College, located in the cradle of the south.
The petite liberal arts college, founded by Presbyterians in the late 1800s, has positioned itself as “the leader in wireless computing,” as the school’s tag line heralds.
The positioning was a task Stillman President Ernest McNealey began working on fairly soon after his arrival at the college in 1997, and one he believes speaks to the debate of whether technology elevates the masses or further stratifies those who have and those who have not.
“I decided that the kids who came to Stillman would not only get beyond the digital divide, but that we would build an eight-lane expressway,” he said. “We started almost immediately to wire the campus.”
McNealey said, “Even the contractors that we brought in were saying, ‘Why do you want to put down fiber optics? That is more expensive and you do not have the user base to make the investment.’”
He assured contractors the school had the necessary users, and “so we had the entire campus done with fiber optics.”
Now virtually anywhere you go on campus you can pull out a laptop or walk into a computer lab and get on the Internet quickly and easily.
Students carry laptops to classes and plug in, and for several years McNealey said Stillman actually provided a free laptop to every student who enrolled.
Faculty and students also use a computer-accessed platform for communicating with each called the Blackboard Learning System, through which assignments can be given out and turned in and classroom information and other materials shared.
 Stillman student Jonathan Adams, 19, spends a significant amount of time using technology in order to complete his school assignments. Photo by Joseph D. Williams. “I do most of my work online,” Jonathan Adams, 19, said while perched in front of a computer screen in an on-campus computer lab. The freshman from Choctaw County, AL, works 30 to 40 hours a week in Birmingham about an hour away in addition to going to school full time.
Majoring in business and education, Adams said he retrieves many of his classroom assignment via Blackboard, and that many of his professors also will email work directly to him.
Technology has changed “the instructional dynamic on the campus,” said McNealey. “All of our courses have at least some component of it online. About 95 percent of final examinations are given online, and in our educational area is probably where we saw the most significant impact.”
The president, who himself is tech savvy and equipped with the latest hardware, said Stillman’s faculty was especially geared up to handle teaching in the high-tech age.
“We started with the faculty, providing workshops and training, incentive grants,” he said. “We had the promotion and tenure rules changed so that now a professor cannot get promoted or gain tenure here unless they are using technology.”
The overall effort clearly has paid off. Stillman is ranked 25th on U.S. News & World Report’s 2008 list of America’s best baccalaureate colleges in the south.
Technology “is an advantage that our students have when they leave because from the time that they arrive until they walk across the stage, much of their academic life will have been involved in computer technology,” McNealey said. |
