Tipson helps statewide effort to advance innstructional technology

As chair of the Technology Task Force of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Ohio (AICUO), President Baird Tipson has campaigned for preparedness in providing students with developing technologies for learning.

Tipson recently took that campaign to the Ohio Legislature, where he lobbied for more state support for providing an adequate technological infrastructure for all Ohio public and private schools, colleges and universities.

He and Roderick Chu, chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents, testified for private and public colleges in support of Ohio Governor Robert Taft’s Tobacco Task Force.

Their arguments have already been successful before the Task Force, appointed by the governor to propose how the $10 billion coming to the state under the historic settlement with the U.S. tobacco industry could best serve the state during the next 25 years. Tipson and Ohio’s education leaders persuaded the task force to commit $1 billion to an Education Technology Trust Fund.

So far, both the Ohio House and the Senate have embraced the idea, although they are still debating whether to commit now to spending for the full 25 years of the disbursements under the tobacco settlement or for just half of that period.

It was also as AICUO vice chair that Tipson argued for technology enhancements for Wittenberg and its competitors. “This is not a partisan issue for politicians nor for Ohio colleges,” Tipson said.

The proposed trust fund would provide innovative “backbone” resources to benefit students of every age in Ohio’s public and private institutions.

“Connectedness will no longer be just a trendy word in our future; it will be a fact of life. It will be a factor in the capabilities and competitiveness of Ohio education, and through that to Ohio industry and commerce.”

Few if any Ohio colleges can marshal the resources to provide adequately for what is needed. In all but tax-supported institutions, the burden of technology is now falling on tuition increases.

Wittenberg and other schools have created technology fees, which are needed to jump-start improved capabilities on campus, but the fees cannot provide everything that is required.

The windfall presented by the tobacco settlement was just what Ohio needed as the educational system here has been struggling to catch up with the sudden budget demands of the technological revolution.

Higher education’s proposal to spend part of the tobacco settlement is intended to thrust Ohio forward by helping equip all of its higher education institutions with a technology infrastructure that will support student learning, workforce development, communities and the state.

“Developing a technology infrastructure to address each of these goals is one of the most critical and costly issues facing colleges and universities today,” Tipson argued.

“The presidents of Ohio’s independent colleges and universities are deeply concerned about the costs of meeting the technology needs of students and the state,” Tipson told the lawmakers.

Wittenberg is one of the 37 of AICUO’s 49 member institutions that train teachers, and “each day, we are discovering new ways to improve the education of tomorrow’s teachers in the use of technology in the classroom and to connect us with area schools.

“It is imperative that the teachers we graduate are skilled in using the technology they will encounter in the classrooms,” Tipson continued.

“Not only teachers, but all students exposed to current technology become valued employees. Beyond student learning, technology also supports student and faculty research and efficient administration.

It connects us to businesses and other colleges and universities, and provides a resource for our communities.

Such statewide programs funded by the Educational Technology Trust Fund would directly benefit Wittenberg and help the university pass on those benefits to the community, Tipson added.

It would also help Wittenberg leverage corporate and foundation grants and other sources of funding.Tipson has no illusions that a share of $1 billion in statewide infrastructure will solve Wittenberg’s technology problems.

The advantage will go to institutions that are able to commit the resources and support faculty ambitions to take full advantage of what the tobacco windfall can provide.

Of the many challenges facing Wittenberg, taking full advantage of the rapid advance in information technology is one of the greatest, Tipson said. By the most recent estimate, the college ought to be spending well more than $1 million every year to build and maintain a campus infrastructure that meets the needs of students, faculty and staff.

In the four years of Tipson’s administration, millions of dollars have been committed to Wittenberg’s technological resources, including increasing network capabilities and investing in faculty training.

Tipson said he views his advocacy as important to keep the university in front of what he views as an educational sea change.

The initial costs and the constant need for updating have created new budget demands on campuses, which is why Tipson made technology an important component of The Defining Moments Campaign.

“We must remember that technology is just a tool, but it will be a spectacular tool, which, in the hands of gifted educators, will increasingly allow students to visualize trends, processes and relationships, which would have been far more painstaking by traditional pedagogies.”

— Jim Dexter