"10 Ways Colleges Can Work With Their Communities"

Today, I finally had a chance to sort through my pile of articles from Chronicle of Higher Education. One article I saved is titled, "10 Ways Colleges Can Work With Their Communities" (Sarkisian & Taylor, 2009, p. A28). This article focuses on how higher education institutions can build a relationship with their surrounding communities through service learning initiatives. Here is the list from the article:

1. Form partnerships with local non-profit organizations that share its institutional mission and vision.
2. Offer campus spaces for community use.
3. Adopt a public-school district.
4. Adopt a local nonprofit or citizen-action organization.
5. Offer scholarships to local students.
6. Establish a faculty-speakers bureau.
7. Encourage professors to make mutual beneficial service-learning assignments.
8. Work with local officials to create a "Day of Service".
9. Become a certifying organization for the President's Volunteer Service Award.
10. Document community-service activities conducted by members of your campus community.

Every faculty and staff member should consider adopting these relationship-building initiatives with their surrounding communities. EVERYONE can do something! Form a partnership with a colleague or start something on your own, but MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

J. Edwards (Millennial Professor)

References

Sarkisian, G. V. & Taylor, S. (2009, September 11). 10 ways colleges can work with their communities. The Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A28.

The After the Degree, Now What?" Conference - Our Fall 2009 Service-Learning Event

I am so proud of my students! Recently, my wonderful students sponsored a service learning event titled, The "After the Degree, Now What?" Conference. The idea for this conference was conceived last summer when I read a wealth of articles pertaining to the amount of Texans with four-year degrees that were facing layoffs. In addition, since I teach undergraduate students, I was very concerned with our students gaining employment (that they are passionate about) after graduating from our university in next few months. Then, I contacted another professor in the Communication Department and the Career Services Department and the idea became an actual event. 

We wanted our COMS 101 students to present the sessions, because the students would provide a service for the community and learn more about public speaking at the same time. My Interpersonal Communication class and her Small Group Communication class planned the ENTIRE CONFERENCE!

These wonderful students developed the title, added items to the backwards plan, and worked the entire conference. In addition, our beginning public speaking class (COMS 101) presented most of the sessions. The only session that they did not present was the "Panel Discussion of Professionals", which featured panelists from the graduate school, career services department, small business development center, financial management division, and the Texas Workforce Commission.

Here is a list of our sessions - http://www.tinyurl.com/ATDNWsessions/.
 

We used Google Docs to collaborate amongst ourselves and this proved to be a wonderful resource! As a result of our hard work, over 90 students attended the sessions and over 95 students presented the sessions. These students represented each of the five colleges on campus and over 20 different majors.

This was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I had the pleasure of working with the students who I teach in class every week. The students had the chance to know me outside of the classroom and I had the chance to see their true personalities. The students took ownership over the conference and made it their own. More importantly, I am very excited to offer a class project that will help the students develop their resume with service learning and job-related experiences.

I cannot wait until next year!

Dr. J. Edwards

Welcome Back! Millennial Professor is Back for the FA 09 Semester!

Hello Everyone!

I admit, I have been hiding under a rock for the past couple of months. This past spring, I received a faculty research grant that funded my research during the Summer II semester. Thankfully, I was VERY productive this summer. Not only did I gather research from African American college students, but I also co-authored two publications with a colleague at Southern University at New Orleans. I hope and pray that our publications will be chosen for publication in the next few months.

Aside from publishing, we had some wonderful travel plans this summer. During our adventures, I sent tweets from my twitter account. Twitter has been a wonderful application for my classroom and personal/professional life. Every tweet that I send is automatically published on facebook. Therefore, I don't have to post two posts related to what I am doing at a particular moment. I am THANKFUL for twitter!

Have a wonderful week! I am back from a small summer hiatus. Look forward to some more meaningful posts! Also, find me on twitter - drjtedwards!

Sincerely,

Millennial Professor

PowerPoint + Classroom = Student Boredom?

This morning, a colleague sent me an article titled, "When Computers Leave the Classroom, So Does Boredom". This article made me think about my own approach to teaching the content to students in the classroom. I use PowerPoint, but I also make the lecture interactive by using the following:


a. Discussion Prompts on the PowerPoint
b. Interactive Surveys (students select an answer by raising their hands)
c. Using Youtube videos


I am married to a high school teacher and we commonly have discussions about students' learning styles (kinestic, auditory, visual, reading/writing). The article listed above begs me to question, "What happens when most of the students in the classroom do not have an auditory learning style (which the article primarily advocates)?"


What do you think?

Millennial Professor

The Economy and Our Undergraduate Students

As an undergraduate, my sorority sisters and I spent most of our meager salaries on restaurant meals, shopping, road trips, movies, and weekend "entertainment". I know that this is the budget for most active undergraduates. However, I know that current undergraduates might not be able to live such a "lavish, fun-filled" lifestyle in this economy.

Some of the undergraduates in my classes went on road trips to South Padre Island for Spring Break. However, most of the undergraduates went to their hometown to make money at their old part-time jobs. When I was in college, it was an anomaly to hear that one of our classmates went home during spring break to work.

In addition to working during spring break, my undergraduates' persuasive speech topics have changed as well. I give them a choice of the following topics: (a) to persuade my audience to perform an act of service, (b) to persuade my audience to purchase a particular product, (c) to persuade my audience to adopt a money saving strategy. Consistently, the undergraduates usually choose option "a" or "c". Through topic "c", they advocate using coupons, living off campus, cooking meals at home, etc.

This frugal lifestyle for undergraduates also expands to include new graduates. An article in USA Today, "Recession generation? Young adults brace for simpler lifestyle" focuses on how recent graduates are coping with the new economy.

What are your opinions of our newly frugal undergraduates?

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Academic Travel on a Frugal Budget: Know Your Surroundings BEFORE You Leave Home!

Last December, I discovered that Google Maps provided EVERYONE on the internet with a picture of my house (thank God the leaves were raked)! This was something that I had to adjust to, but I see Google Maps as a definite blessing now. For instance, if I have an upcoming conference, I log on to Google Maps to see the area outside of the hotels and the adjacent eating establishments.

This helps me create a travel budget and to make a list of potential locations I would like to visit on my trip. When I visited Norfolk, VA for the Southern States Communication Conference, I discovered that there was a Schlotzsky's restaurant across the street. This restaurant provided me with a very cost effective option for lunch and dinner.

In addition to the street view feature of Google Maps, this website is also adding a college campus "sidewalk view" feature. This is exciting for my husband and I, because we visit the college campus library of each city we visit in Texas and Louisiana. Google gathers this "sidewalk view" information from cameras on bicycles powered by Google representatives.


Has Google visited the sidewalks of your campus?

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Academic Travel on a Frugal Budget: Finding the Cheapest Airline Ticket

Searching for the cheapest airline ticket for academic conferences can be a daunting task sometimes, but I strive to pay the least amount for my air travel. Here is a personal guide that I follow when purchasing an airline ticket.

a) Find the HUB - Try to find the hub for the major airlines in your area. For example, when I lived in the Houston area, I flew Continental Airlines. Houston International Airport is one of the many hubs for Continental Airlines. Therefore, their airline tickets will usually be less expensive than other airlines that fly from that hub. Since I live in the DFW area, the Southwest Airlines and American Airlines tickets are usually cheaper than the tickets from other airlines. However, this has not been the case for the past few months.

b) Arrive or Depart on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday - Usually, these days are the cheapest arrival or departure dates for airline tickets.

c) Make Monday - Wednesday Your Purchase Dates - It seems the airline rates tend to increase after Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I will usually check a particular route that I am interested in after I receive the weekly special from Continental Airlines and American Airlines on Monday afternoons. Monday is usually their "reset" date for airfares.

d) Compare Your Rates With Other Airlines - I will usually submit my route to http://www.bing.com/travel (formerly http://www.farecast.com). This website compares the rates from This website will usually tell you the rates from AirTran, American Airlines, etc. For example, I used this website to search for a fare from DFW to IAH (Thu, Jul 23 - Thu, Jul 30|1 adult) and here are the results:

AirTran - $547

American - $118
Continental - $116

Delta - $547

Frontier - $487
US Airways - $497
United - $497

In addition, this website enables you to see if the rates are projected to increase or decrease in the future. However, I used this feature last summer to find the cheapest rates to San Diego and the website told me the rates were projected to decrease. The rates were already inexpensive ($250 or less), but I wondered if the rate would decrease. The next day, the rate increased to $325. Since that point, I decided to use the website for comparison purposes only.

e) Continue to Monitor the Airfare Rates - Most websites suggest that people purchase their airline tickets around 90 days before the travel date. However, continue to monitor the websites for sharp decreases before the 90 day period. For example, I purchased a ticket for the National Communication Association Conference in Chicago, IL for slightly less than $200.00 (I monitored this rate since April 2009).

I hope to offer more tips as I purchase additional tickets for the fall/spring semester. If you have any additional tips, please let me know! Contribute a comment!

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