A New School Year Begins
There is a renewed energy on campus as students and faculty arrive and a new school year begins. Classes start on Monday, but the prep work has been going on all summer. Throughout this week several of us participated in new faculty orientation programs and we have posted a checklist to help new faculty familiarize themselves with our services. Students are arriving on campus and are eager to establish their network connections. We have simplified the process for them by automating the Hallnet Service.
There’s lots new on the horizon this fall. We have reopened Sperry Learning Center with nine new state-of-the-art classrooms and two interactive video rooms. We have information about the hardware and software in each classroom available on the web. We also have a listing of hardware and software in each of the computer labs. We have upgraded all of our PC labs and classrooms to Office 2007, and are working to get advance notice out to everyone teaching in those spaces. Since many faculty desktop computers still have Office 2003 the challenge will be upgrading software for those requesting newer versions.
In Memorial Library the Learning Commons is fully functional. The camera loan program is more popular than ever and this year we are loaning out a variety of mobile technologies including iPods. Partnering with the New Communications Media Program, we will be offering students full support in media production. As part of a Millennial grant sponsored by the President’s Office, we now have a SUNY Cortland island on Second Life where classes will be taught. Mobile technologies and social computing are certainly influencing pedagogies on our campus.
Welcome to the 07-08 academic year. The adventure begins anew!