Reed College

Report on the first meeting of the

Technology Advisory Council

November 18-19, 1994

            The Reed College Technology Advisory Council was formed to provide external advice and support for Reed College's efforts to enhance its educational program through the innovative use of information technology. Sixteen TAC members, representing 13 companies and including a Reed trustee, alumni/ae, and a parent of a current student, met in November, 1994, to discuss the College's technology plans for the next decade.

            The meeting was characterized as a "wellness visit" by one of the members in the wrap up session. The intent to have technology serve the College's mission (providing a rigorous, disciplined liberal education through close contact with faculty and an independent research experience) was strongly endorsed. The College was commended for the computing accomplishments of the last decade (making computing resources readily available to the community, developing a campus-wide network, establishing a campus-wide computer support infrastructure, and supporting curricular applications of computing). The potential for Reed to continue to play a leadership role in technology among liberal arts colleges was predicted to be high.

            The outcomes are organized here according to the five objectives of the meeting.

•  Familiarize Council members with the educational mission of Reed College and the ways in which technology is furthering that mission

            Council members were given a fairly comprehensive view of Reed's undergraduate instructional mission. The distinction was drawn between the liberal arts tradition and other approaches to higher education such as those found at two-year colleges, research universities, technical institutes, and elsewhere. The success of the liberal arts approach for eight centuries, and for eighty years at Reed, was used to underscore the fact that the College wants to employ technology to enhance its mission, not to re-define it.

            In addition to observations provided by the president, the dean of the faculty, the head librarian, and the director of computing, the Council members were given several views of how technology is used across the curriculum, via faculty presentations in chemistry, psychology, music, and the humanities. TAC members had an opportunity to question faculty about the future role of technology at Reed and to examine Reed's existing technology resources.

            At various times during the weekend, and especially at the closed session Saturday afternoon, the Council discussed the challenges for integrating technology into the curriculum. One of the focal questions was the "hidden costs" of using technology and how to justify them.

•  Educate Reed community about industry perspective on the issue of managing the further integration of technology into the Reed curriculum and administration

            The opening presentations by TAC representatives from Apple, Silicon Graphics, and Innovative Interfaces, followed by a lively exchange among TAC members, provided Reed faculty and staff with a view of educational technology from various industry perspectives. Some of the issues that were raised related to how one goes about choosing the right hardware and software platforms for strategic purposes. At the same time, however, several TAC members suggested that hardware decisions were among the least important to make. Deciding what we are trying to accomplish with technology needs to be our first, understanding what current (and near future) technology has to offer should be the second step, and connecting the two comes third. Hardware and software selections will then follow logically, though both may be influenced by factors such as cost, industry trends, compatibility, etc.

            TAC members provided useful comments about the importance of providing appropriate levels of staffing and organizational support for technology activities. Given the rapid rate of technical change, it's critical for Reed to avoid getting locked into specific organizational structures; we need to be flexible and responsive to changing demands. At the same time, however, we need to recognize that we can't do everything (especially given the constraints of our small size); hence we need to choose our technology objectives very carefully in order to maximize the use of our resources.

•  Solicit input from Council members on the College's technology plans for the next decade

            Some Council members encouraged us to re-examine our commitment to the Macintosh platform, based on Apple's eroding share of the desktop market. A dominant theme was to think of information technology globally rather than from the perspective of one department or another; or even from academic versus administrative computing needs. In order to make the best use of resources, we should be looking at ways in which technology can transform the way we pursue the College's mission. For example, although other institutions are using technology to provide "distance education," Reed depends heavily on individual contact between faculty and students. Some of the technology incorporated in distance education, however, can be used to promote even greater communication between faculty and students (especially in light of the fact that nearly half of Reed's student body lives of campus).

            We also need to explore more radical ways of using technology to enhance teaching, such as the development of virtual laboratories in the sciences and social sciences, and perhaps even in the arts and humanities. We need to take more advantage of resources elsewhere, via the Internet. We can no longer afford to let Reed's small size prevent our faculty and students from gaining access to vital databases and other research materials.

            We did not, however, get into a detailed examination of some of Reed's specific technology objectives. That should be the next item on the TAC agenda.

•  Build the foundation for further conversations about projects of mutual interest

            The meeting sparked sufficient interest to prompt several TAC members to prepare lengthy comments which they sent to us via e-mail. We are now scheduling a number of meetings, both in Portland and elsewhere, to continue individual conversations that began at the meeting. Several of these discussions are focused on cooperation for the 1995 Educom meeting.

•  Identify additional means to strengthen cooperation between Reed and the corporate sector

            Two ways that we can build on the foundation we've already established with Council members is to: (1) share more information with them about specific technology objectives and get more detailed feedback; (2) enlist their participation in the pursuit of various objectives, such as the creation of new software or facilities. In each case, our corporate partners can play a larger and more concrete role in helping Reed to use technology in support of the institutional mission.