WOMAN RECOGNIZED
BOUNCE BACK
The women studies department honored founder Camille Compo during Monday’s lecture in The Doudna Fine Arts Center Lecture Hall. PAGE 3
Women’s volleyball team looks to new members to step up after key player’s injury during Friday’s Austin Peay match up. PAGE 8
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D aily E astern N ews
Tuesday, October 11, 2016 “TELL THE TRUTH AND DON’T BE AFRAID” C E L E BRATI NG A CE NTUR Y OF COV E RA GE E S T . 1 915
VOL. 101 | NO. 37 W W W . D A I L YE A S TE R N N E W S . C O M
Bust-a-move
Academic Visioning lays groundwork for future meetings
MOLLY DOTSON | THE DAILY EASTERN NE WS
Kadmon Squair, a sophomore business management major, dances to “Money Longer” by Lil Uzi Vert with his friend Patrick Coleman, a sophomore psychology major, Monday in front of Thomas Hall.
Technology workgroup identifies redundancies, plan to use surveys By Cassie Buchman News Editor | @cjbuchman Getting data on what software and technological programs could be improved, made more efficient, consolidated, or outsourced was discussed at Workgroup no. 2’s meeting on Monday. Workgroup no. 2 is the subcommittee in the vitalization project that focuses on university technology. Biology professor Billy Hung said the group is planning on talking to specific groups that use technology on campus, such as housing and dining, ITS, CATS, Health Service, the Booth Library and Student Disability Service. The group is also planning on sending out a campus-wide survey. “Right now, we are thinking of possible topics we will address after we get the data,” Hung said. This data includes what people think could be improved, what would help with marketing, what could be made more efficient, and what sort of things could be consolidated or outsourced when it comes to technology. They will then take into account everyone’s feedback when making their recommendations. “Things people like and what to see more of, things people want and think that we should have, things that people think we should eliminate and replace,” Hung said. “We’re looking for all those three things.”
During the meeting, Hung suggested training for online programs such as Desire 2 Learn. “If we’re going to pay so much for D2L, it will be a shame to use it as an online grade book when it could be so much more,” Hung said. Hung asked whether software called Banner was one of the programs that suck up a lot of resources.
As of now, however, Awalt said there are not really any products that fit the Eastern’s needs better than Banner, as it is widespread among a lot of universities. One of the issues brought up was the fact that there is not a lot of standardization across the board.
"If we’re going to pay so much for D2L, it will be a shame to use it as an online grade book when it could be so much more." Billy Hung, workgroup member
Josh Awalt, interim assistant director for information security, said Banner is good if used in its “vanilla” form, but the university has taken different fields and manipulated them to mean different things, which adds a lot of additional work. “When we do an upgrade to a system, there’s a long, long process to get all the custom stuff that we’ve done up to par with whatever the update changed,” Awalt said. “We have to rechange our code to match whatever changed in Banner.” Banner has helped Eastern meet some needs across campus, but because of these new additions, it is taken so much time, he said. Awalt said with the reduction in staff, no new development is going on right now, so they are trying to maintain everything that has been customized.
Awalt said this lack of standardization could cause problems. One of the things the group discussed standardizing was how long people kept their panthermail address after graduating or retiring. Hung said many of these problems came down to needing a centralized structure that coordinates these things. The Workgroup discussed software and programs that are redundant and could be consolidated. These included video capture, document imaging, Electronic Medical Records, reporting software and E-textbooks. Awalt said they collaborated as a group to come up with a list of programs or software that provided the same function as others that were being used. Technology, page 6
By Analicia Haynes Managing Editor | @Haynes1943 Workgroup no. 8, focused on academic visioning, drafted their goals for the first week and defined what their mission is at their preliminary meeting Monday. Jeff Stowell, the chairman for the committee, reiterated the charge or purpose of the workgroup, and said members should be thinking about new or modified programs, completion programs, signature programs and micro degree programs. “Today my goal is to discuss the process, what our charge is and begin thinking about what our questions are for sources of data,” Stowell said. “If you have questions, please ask.” Amy Rosenstein, a Workgroup member, brought a list of suggestions to the table she found would be useful for the group to look into based on the Workgroups’ charge. Rosenstein said the Workgroup should look at the majors and minors offered on campus and then look at some of the other regional institutions and community colleges to see what they might offer that Eastern does not. Rosenstein said this idea is not a matter of just stealing students from other locations but to think about some other options being offered at different institutions that are exciting for students. Rosenstein used the art department as an example, saying that though it is an amazing department with many options offered, there is not a graphic arts program as of right now. However, though there are the graphic arts major and minor that will be offered next spring, which was brought up during the discussion by member Nora Pat Small, Rosenstein said it then would make sense to think about what is already in the works. “Then how do we think about (the new major) in terms of major programing and how it relates to what is offered at other places so that we can hone in on some of that,” Rosenstein said. She also recommended the workgroup not only look at undergraduate students but non-traditional students and graduate students as well when considering different programs. “We need to consider making our programing something that is enticing to all age ranges and all students,” Rosenstein said. Renee Kidd Marshall said after looking at a report from the Illinois Board of Higher Education it said 61 percent of the workforce in Illinois has a professional degree in collaboration between the state universities and the community colleges. Kidd Marshall said looking at reports and identifying the trends is also important. Britto Nathan, a workgroup member, agreed with Rosenstein and said it is important to create programs that will follow those trends across the country. Small also recommended that since members will be looking at several trends that will eventually tie into new or existing programs, then they should look at Eastern’s signature programs and how those fit in the equation. Academics, page 6