Union College Mellon Proposal

Proposal Introduction and Overview
Union College respectfully requests support of $335,000 over three years from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to enable faculty to experiment with and adapt computer and multimedia technologies and tools in the Freshman Preceptorial, an interdisciplinary course required of all entering students, and in other undergraduate courses. We will also explore the uses of electronic technologies and incorporate the most suitable of them in developing new interdisciplinary team-taught courses, both to enrich course content and to extend faculty resources.

Specifically, funding is requested for the following purposes: the development, integration, and assessment of materials and modules utilizing computer-based and multimedia technologies into the Freshman Preceptorial; the development of other interdisciplinary courses utilizing similar technologies; partial support for a curricular design specialist to assist faculty in curricular development using technology applications; training workshops to support course development and delivery efforts; support for three student technical assistants; and the purchase and installation of videoconferencing equipment in one classroom, which will facilitate collaboration with other institutions and consortia.

This is a very propitious moment in the academic life of the College. Union has undertaken an ambitious building program that will greatly facilitate computer-based technology instruction and learning. Our F.W. Olin Learning Center, which will feature ten electronically enhanced classroom facilities of varying sizes and capabilities, is currently under construction and will be opened in the fall of 1998. A major renovation and expansion of Schaffer Library is also currently underway and is scheduled for completion in the winter of 1998-99. The library project will include an electronic bibliographic and multimedia instruction center, campus-wide access to all library CD-ROM materials and databases, and a multimedia distribution system that will be accessible from remote locations on campus. Support from the Mellon Foundation over three years would be especially valuable at this juncture to assist us with faculty development so that we can move forward rapidly with incorporating electronic tools and materials into the curriculum, particularly in the interdisciplinary setting, in ways that best promote effective learning both within and beyond the classroom.

Overview of the Project
One major focus of this initiative is the further development of our Freshman Preceptorial, a unique interdisciplinary course taught by faculty from across all disciplines. This course has been the core of the freshman academic experience at Union for the past two decades. One of the unusual features of the Freshman Preceptorial is that it has been created and is offered by the Union faculty as a whole, even though each section is taught by only one faculty member. Altogether, 32-36 sections of the course are offered each year. We believe that electronic technologies (interactive computer, multimedia) and their varied applications can assist substantially in enriching and strengthening this interdisciplinary learning experience while at the same time enhance the sharing of faculty expertise.

Concurrent with the Freshman Preceptorial project, Union will train faculty to expand upon experiences and successes already achieved in incorporating electronic technology applications into individual disciplinary course offerings. Building on faculty experiences in these courses and in the Preceptorial, we will invite faculty teams (through a competitive internal grant process) to create or reconfigure interdisciplinary courses. We believe computer-based technology can enrich interdisciplinary courses significantly and this will be a second major focus of this project. Team-taught interdisciplinary courses are intellectually exciting for faculty and students, but they also present challenges: the high costs associated with having both faculty present in the classroom at all times whenever the course is offered as well as the difficulty of sustaining the course if one member of the team is unavailable to teach it. Materials for these courses can be developed with the aid of such tools and applications as web sites, hypermedia, authoring tools, scanning and digitizing technology, and presentation technology which might reduce the need to have both faculty members physically present in the classroom at each class session. Potentially, then, these courses could be offered even when one member of the faculty team is on leave or otherwise unavailable, thus extending the offerings of team-taught courses with minimal added expense.

Building on these interdisciplinary experiences and what is learned from them during the three-year grant period, we plan to develop an infrastructure that will permit collaboration between Union faculty and faculty members at other colleges to design and deliver interdisciplinary courses; these courses would be offered simultaneously on each campus to mutual advantage. In this way, students at each collaborating college can benefit from faculty expertise not available on the home campus because of the limitations of faculty size at a small institution.

To assist faculty in reaching the goals outlined above, we will hire a curricular design specialist with extensive experience in the use and assessment of electronic technology tools and applications in an academic setting as well as firsthand classroom experience. This specialist will work closely with the Office of Computer Services (OCS), the Instructional Technology staff, and librarians in guiding faculty to make effective use of technology. Salary support is requested for the curricular design specialist, with the College assuming a larger proportion of the cost each year over the period of the grant and the entire cost at the end of the three years.

The proposed project will be supervised by a Steering Committee composed of the curricular design specialist and representatives from the faculty subcommittee on academic computing, OCS, and the library. The Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education will serve as liaison between the committee and the Dean of Faculty. Professor J. Douglass Klein, chair of the faculty subcouncil on academic computing, who is experienced with utilizing electronic technologies in the curriculum and who has taught interdisciplinary courses, has agreed to serve as project director and will chair the committee. (See Appendix A) The committee will review and select funding proposals for utilizing electronic technologies in the further development of the Freshman Preceptorial and for other interdisciplinary courses through an internal competitive grants process.

Union’s Support for Electronic Technology Resources
This proposal builds upon a College priority to make electronic technology resources available to faculty and students for the improvement of teaching and learning. Over the past several years, the College has made substantial investments in the electronic infrastructure and computing facilities across the campus. All academic buildings, dormitories, and other college-owned student residences are now linked through the campus network to each other and to the Internet. We have just added a second T1 line to facilitate increased Internet access. Last year the College devoted scarce resources to create two electronic presentation classrooms in our Humanities Building in order to facilitate faculty use of multimedia and computers in their courses. In fall, 1997, a third such classroom, available to all faculty, was created in Steinmetz Hall, our engineering building. The new F.W. Olin Learning Center and the renovated and expanded Schaffer Library are also the result of sustained, successful fundraising efforts to respond to this priority. Included in the funding for each building is an endowment for technology maintenance and enhancement. These facilities, when completed, will provide a rich reservoir of electronically enhanced academic resources for faculty as they work to further develop and enrich their individual courses, the Freshman Preceptorial, and other interdisciplinary courses.

Building on Faculty Experiences and Concrete Plans in
Utilizing Electronic Technologies in Course Development
Several of Union’s Modern Languages faculty had the opportunity during the summers of 1996 and 1997 to participate in the Mellon Foundation-supported Foreign Language and Technology Project at Middlebury College. Faculty returned from Middlebury greatly enthused by what electronic technologies and their applications can offer to assist in language instruction and learning, broadly defined, and the potential for reorganizing and coordinating the use of classroom and out-of-classroom time for learning through technology applications. They are eager to develop and incorporate appropriate materials and applications into their courses to achieve these results. We expect that they will also play an important role in incorporating technology applications in the further development of the Freshman Preceptorial and in other interdisciplinary course development activities.

Modern Languages faculty are also enthusiastic about utilizing electronic technology to better prepare students for study abroad. Approximately 56 percent of Union students currently spend at least one term studying abroad. The College currently sponsors study programs in more than twenty countries; some of these were developed with the support of a Mellon Foundation presidential discretionary challenge grant received in 1993. Union has also established a number of exchange programs, which permit students to spend up to a year abroad. Student participation rates in study abroad programs have increased steadily in recent years, as this is an important College priority, and we expect the increase to continue. Projects relevant to study abroad include plans by faculty in French to create an electronic syllabus for French 130, Modern France, which is required for students who have chosen to spend a term abroad in Rennes. The syllabus will include links to realia (e.g., newspapers, journals, political party web pages, various cultural and historical sites) as well as interactive assignments to engage students in Internet research and learning on a variety of topics outside of class. Faculty in German are planning to create a multimedia multi-component electronic syllabus with accompanying study and presentation assignments that will help prepare students opting to study in Vienna. One faculty member will develop a module on Vienna (using templates with which she worked at Middlebury) that will include separate sections on art, architecture, literature, music, and theater, all directly relevant to the Vienna study program.

In addition to study abroad course development, another faculty member in German will create multimedia computer modules for use in her film courses, Once created and available, they will permit students to consider a variety of elements relevant to film study (including photography, movement, sound, acting styles, narrative, montage, and theory) both during and outside of class. Freeing up class time for other activities figures prominently in the plans of a faculty member in Japanese to create some language instruction materials using the QuickTime format. He currently is developing an interactive program that features segments from Japanese-language news programs, which will integrate listening comprehension exercises, phonetic activities, practice with Japanese characters, and a glossary.

Faculty in other disciplines have explored and incorporated technology applications as well. For example, a faculty member in History created a web page with links for the entire syllabus of his Prehistory course. He also scanned numerous color images of relevant materials that permitted students to master information and acquire understanding of materials that could not have been expected of them without these electronic applications. Several Political Science faculty have also developed course web pages and have experimented with various Internet and software applications, including PowerPoint for required oral presentations by students. One faculty member has identified Internet materials and data resources that assist students significantly in preparing for simulation and role-playing exercises in his course on the U.S. Congress. Another faculty member has located, evaluated, and selected web sites that provide useful hard data relevant for his Latin American politics course. During class, he is able to go directly to these sites and project detailed information onto the screen to augment and clarify discussions.

These are but a few of the many areas in which Union’s humanities and social sciences faculty are eagerly taking advantage of the available technology resources to them to enhance teaching and learning. Building on these and related experiences, the curricular design specialist, working closely with OCS, instructional technology, and the library, will provide continued support to faculty at all levels of technological expertise as they work to become more knowledgeable about and adept in utilizing technology enhancements and applications successfully in their courses. We plan much more faculty development in this rapidly evolving arena, particularly to provide assistance with the development and delivery of interdisciplinary courses, focusing initially on the Freshman Preceptorial.

The Freshman Preceptorial
The interdisciplinary Freshman Preceptorial (entitled Diversity and Dialogue) is the one intellectual experience that is shared by all students at Union. (See Appendix B) The course is taught by faculty from all disciplines, although the majority of faculty teaching it are drawn from the humanities and social sciences. The course asks students to address important ethical and intellectual issues that cut across geographical, cultural, and historical boundaries through carefully selected readings organized into modules. Conceptually related modules are organized into a series of five packets. Students not only consider each text in depth, but they are also guided in drawing connections between and among the issues raised and discussed in each of the modules and packets and, often, across packets. Students must write and revise an extensive series of papers and prepare frequent brief oral presentations to practice and hone their written and oral communication skills. Faculty teaching the course (called preceptors) are encouraged to utilize collaborative learning techniques, which have been found to work particularly well in this setting. In all of these activities, the constant development of students’ critical thinking, reading, and analytical skills is an essential element. Each precept section is limited to 16 students to permit close and continuous interaction with faculty.

Because of the unusually broad scope of the Freshman Preceptorial, virtually all preceptors find some readings and topics beyond their particular or even related disciplinary expertise. Inevitably, individual faculty members bring to each section more strength in some of the modules than in others. To help remedy this situation, a number of weekly preceptor seminars are organized each year that feature a faculty expert making a presentation on a particular text to provide insights into the text as well as into the context in which it was produced. Time permitting, faculty discuss possible "best teaching strategies" for introducing, considering, and relating the text to others in the syllabus. While these sessions are helpful, time is at a premium and the guidance provided is not always sufficient for preceptors. Moreover, a number of new preceptors teach the course each year, so many of the presentations need to be replicated annually. Electronically capturing, preserving, and making available in interactive form the best and most useful segments of these presentations and discussions will eliminate the need for frequent replication. Making expert faculty presentations on particular texts available to students, which thus far has not been possible, will also serve to enhance the quality of their learning experiences. Another major advantage of capturing these presentations in multimedia format is that analysis and interpretation of the text materials can be a cumulative (or iterative) process for faculty and students working collaboratively. Future precept sections can build on the materials already developed and in this way maintain the vibrancy of the Preceptorial experience. A small portion of the funding allocated for Freshman Preceptorial enhancement activities will be used for capturing and making these materials available.

The Freshman Preceptorial component of this project will invite faculty through a competitive internal grant process, either individually or in collaboration with colleagues, to develop computer-based and multimedia materials that will assist both preceptors and students in enhancing and deepening their understanding of assigned texts, the particular contexts within which these texts were written, and the larger contexts in which they need to be considered. For example, selections from The Koran, one of the required readings, would lend themselves well to multimedia treatment. The College has had irregularly an Islamic specialist on campus, but The Koran is taught in all 32-36 Preceptorial sections each year. To assist students in understanding the text as it was revealed and later circulated, the identification, evaluation, and creation of links to existing Internet sites that explain key concepts, offer scholarly insights and interpretations, and provide related useful information will be very helpful. The development and availability of relevant multimedia materials (such as graphics, QuickTime movie clips, hypertext, audio clips, etc.) on the historical circumstances of the period, interpretations of the text in different historical periods including the present, and larger issues of Islamic faith and how these relate to other (perhaps more familiar) faiths also included in the packet will assist students in better understanding the topics under consideration. These nonlinear learning materials permit students to forge their own stream of learning, tailored to their specific needs. Faculty will create these materials with the assistance of the curricular design specialist and the technical support of OCS, library, and Instructional Technology staff. Once all of the materials are class-tested, assessed, and modified as needed, they will be made available to all preceptors each term. Individual preceptors can modify them to suit the particular purposes of their precept section. The materials will also serve to reinforce independent student learning and the continuous learning process.

Another useful way to facilitate learning is through an interactive videoconferencing system, such as those manufactured by PictureTel. We plan to utilize this system both for the Preceptorial and for other interdisciplinary courses that will be developed. Such a system would permit easy presentation, exchange, and collaboration between two or more sections of the Freshman Preceptorial (or of any other course in which more than one section is offered simultaneously) and would allow a greater number of students to benefit directly from an expert presentation in real time than would otherwise be possible. If the system works satisfactorily for the Preceptorial and other interdisciplinary courses, it should prove particularly useful for interdisciplinary courses that are developed and offered by a team composed of two or more faculty members at separate institutions.

Funding to equip one classroom with a videoconferencing system is requested, which will make possible a full range of collaboration with faculty at other institutions anywhere around the world that have a similar capability. Such a system is also essential to further facilitate Union’s participation in the Remote Collaboration Consortium (RCC), in which six liberal arts colleges currently are exploring ways to collaborate and share limited resources. All of the other RCC campuses that have the technological capabilities have acquired the PictureTel system. A videoconferencing system will permit access for our students to major speakers on other campuses and to presentations by experts around the world that would otherwise not be possible due to the costs of bringing such speakers to campus. Additionally, several universities with which Union conducts a Term Abroad program have videoconferencing capabilities which, if we had a similar system, would facilitate better communication between our institutions. Finally, to permit faculty to utilize this system for classes and special lectures offered at Union, the College will provide resources to explore and expand videoconferencing capabilities, which will permit the interactive sharing of expert presentations and discussions in different locations on campus.

Several preceptors have already experimented with CommonSpace software (a collaborative writing program that permits synchronous writing and discussion) and listservs as other ways of linking and broadening class discussions and found them useful. Several others have begun to explore and test additional software packages designed to assist students in strengthening both written and oral communications skills, and have identified this as a fruitful area for further development and implementation.

We are currently experimenting with the creation of model web sites for precept assigned texts, an effort spearheaded by Schaffer Library electronic media and reference librarians. One such site was created for Sigmund Freud’s The Future of an Illusion. The site links Freud-relevant materials housed in the Library to materials available on the Internet. Site designers spent considerable time determining criteria for inclusion of Internet materials, based on what might be directly useful to precept faculty and students in considering the text as well as the historical, cultural, literary, and philosophical contexts in which it was written and published. The site will be tested in precept sections during the fall 1997 term. Web sites for other assigned readings need to be created, incorporating faculty and student assessments of the utility of the Freud site. Support from the Mellon Foundation will permit us to expand these initial efforts.

In addition to web sites, faculty will develop and pilot multimedia materials that include sound (ceremonies, prayers, speeches, music) and visual images (film footage, photographs, paintings, sculpture) relevant to the text, the topic, and the particular context for each. As faculty work to create these materials, too, they will be assisted by the curricular design and technical specialists. We expect that these materials will be essential to further broadening and deepening students’ understanding of the many ideas, ideals, and issues raised within the Preceptorial setting. They will also serve to help students acquire some experience with multimedia formats early in their college careers.

We plan to create and administer a student-based assessment instrument to evaluate the impact of technology applications in the Freshman Preceptorial on the way students approach, think and learn about materials, as well as on the development of communication skills. This instrument will build on an earlier student-based assessment project of Union’s general education program, which was designed to enable students to measure the impact of this cumulative experience on student learning and skills development, and was supported in part by a Pew Charitable Trusts grant awarded to strengthen teaching and learning during the first two years of the undergraduate experience. We have found that student-based assessments not only serve to enhance learning itself, but also provide useful data on achievement and for continuous course modification. Individual precept sections are likely to utilize some different technology applications, which will offer the possibility of making valuable comparisons about the impact and efficacy of particular applications on student learning. Less formal feedback from students and faculty on technology applications will also be gathered in a continuous evaluation process. Some modest funding is requested to support the development of the assessment instrument. Those faculty working on individual and collaborative development projects for the Preceptorial will be expected to share their experiences with and assessments of various electronic hardware and software, Internet resources, multimedia platforms and tools used to develop the materials, as well as the impact of these applications and materials on student learning. These faculty-based assessments will be shared both with other preceptors and with the faculty as a whole through workshop presentations. Faculty will also be expected to evaluate the results of subsequent student assessments and to consider how this information can be applied when modifying the materials for future use.

Using Electronic Technologies to Develop Interdisciplinary Courses
Building on the experiences of utilizing electronic resources in the continuing development of the Freshman Preceptorial, faculty teams will be invited through an internal competitive grant process to create new or reconfigure existing interdisciplinary courses. In their course development activities, these faculty will also build on the accumulated and shared experiences in the preparation and use of materials and processes in modifying course curricula. They will utilize the information and experience gleaned from assessments that have been conducted of these applications and their particular merits for advancing effective teaching and enriching student learning. We believe that interdisciplinary courses provide important, often unique, learning experiences. Such courses permit students to gather, consider, process, and integrate knowledge more broadly and in different ways than they would from the vantage point of a single discipline. These courses also provide faculty with important development and learning experiences, and enhance collaboration between and among academic departments. We expect that, as faculty utilize electronic technologies creatively in developing these courses, they will also find useful ways to enhance the interdisciplinary nature of their other courses as well.

During their development activities for interdisciplinary courses, faculty teams will also consider ways in which available technology applications and materials might be used to make it possible to offer the course even though both members of the faculty team are not able to be present at all class sessions. For example, an anthropologist and a classicist might work together to create a course on classical mythology and its relationship to current rituals, symbols, and themes in Mediterranean European culture. An integral part of the course development would be the creation of such electronic enhancements as web sites pointing to various aspects of contemporary Mediterranean culture, video clips of the staging of Greek tragedies with annotation by the classicist, digitized images of classical artifacts (especially vase painting) taken from museums around the world, pointers to and images of archaeological sites, and assistance with the translation and etymology of Greek and Latin terms that persist today in ritual and religious language. As another example, an historian and a Latin American literature specialist might work together to create a course on twentieth century Latin American culture. Web sites and multimedia modules focusing on Latin American literature, films, and important events directly relevant to cultural change would be included in the curriculum developed for this course. The literature specialist would also develop interactive programs with segments of newspapers and magazines both current and historical that would facilitate students’ further language learning within a cultural context. With such materials in both examples developed and class-tested, either member of the faculty team might feel comfortable in continuing to offer the course even if the other is not available. This kind of capability for sustaining an interdisciplinary course typically has not been possible in the past.

Further, we believe that the experience gained from the development of computer-based and electronically enhanced team-taught interdisciplinary courses should make it possible for a Union faculty member and a faculty member at another college to collaboratively design and offer an interdisciplinary course, using faculty expertise available on one or the other but not on both campuses. For example, Union has considerable strength in East Asian history, economics, and political science, but little strength in East Asian literature and art. Electronic technology tools and applications could assist us in working collaboratively with another college whose strengths complement but do not duplicate ours in these areas in creating and delivering on both campuses an interdisciplinary introductory course on East Asia, which would be mutually advantageous.

Faculty will be selected to undertake work on interdisciplinary courses during the second and third summers of this project; new or reconfigured courses will be piloted initially during the academic year following the internal grant award for course development, and then assessed and adjusted appropriately. We expect to award nine such grants.

Training Needs in Utilizing Electronic Technologies in Course Development and Delivery
We will hire a full-time curricular design specialist to provide needed assistance to faculty engaged in development projects for the Freshman precept, those working on the inclusion of computer and multimedia materials and techniques in individual disciplinary courses, and those who plan to focus their energies on utilizing electronic technologies and applications in the interdisciplinary setting beyond the Preceptorial. This individual will play a central role in moving the faculty forward in incorporating technology tools and applications into teaching and learning, both within and beyond the classroom. Ideally, the curricular design specialist will have disciplinary expertise (including the Ph. D.) in the humanities or social sciences, firsthand college classroom teaching experience, and a ready and broad knowledge of both hardware and software applications and capabilities. (See Appendix C) The specialist will work closely with OCS, librarians, and Instructional Technology personnel to provide curricular guidance and support to faculty by designing and coordinating faculty training workshops, through small group and one-on-one guidance that is more discipline-specific, and in arranging presentations by faculty experienced with particular technology applications and how these have worked in course instruction.

With respect to training, faculty have expressed particular interest in and need for intensive short workshops that focus on different forms of interactive communications using technology and the pedagogical implications for each; collection and display of web-based resource materials to enhance classroom and out-of-classroom activities and learning; and utilization and modification of relevant software packages. Outside experts on particular media, techniques, and processes will be brought in as needed to conduct workshops. Faculty members will visit other campuses where particular technologies have been successfully implemented and will report back to specially organized workshops on what they have learned. Faculty will be assisted in small groups or individually in such activities as determining how particular Internet materials can be utilized advantageously, creating hypermedia materials, and developing multimedia materials. For the past two summers, OCS has offered a well-subscribed intensive workshop on web page creation; the curricular specialist will provide follow-up support as needed. While OCS has provided some excellent training as well as essential technical support to faculty, it does not have the staff or the curricular design and teaching expertise that are needed to help faculty modify existing courses and develop new ones, utilizing electronic technology applications.

Union is working to create a cadre of student technical assistants, whose responsibilities would include assistance to faculty with technology applications and equipment troubleshooting in the classroom, specific software applications, web page development and maintenance, and electronic presentation materials for curricular development. Currently, these students are available to work a maximum of ten hours per week for the program and, because of varying demands on their time, the composition of this developing cadre changes frequently. We request modest funding for several students each year over the three-year period. In fact, a much larger number of student assistants will be involved with the overall activities of this project, and Union will provide the support for them. Student assistants will need continual training in hardware, network and instructional technology troubleshooting as well as in curricular development support if they are to help faculty satisfactorily in the development and delivery of computer-assisted and multimedia courses. We envision two groups of students: those trained as troubleshooters and those trained to assist in specific curricular development activities. OCS and instructional technology staff need continual training to keep abreast of rapidly changing technology and applications as well and will also attend training workshops, for which modest funding is requested. We anticipate that more experienced students who have participated in training sessions will be prepared to assist in the training of new student assistants.

Expected Results of the Project
At the end of the three-year Mellon grant period, we expect the following results to have been achieved:

1. The Freshman Preceptorial program will have undergone significant modification, including the capture and utilization of expert presentations and discussions for out-of class preparation and classroom usage by faculty and students as appropriate, the development and incorporation of various technology applications, and formal and informal assessments of those applications.

2. Savings in cost and time spent will have been realized in the Freshman Preceptorial program through the elimination of the need to offer similar text-based expert-led presentations for preceptors each year.

3. Technology applications will have been introduced into the Freshman Preceptorial to assist in the development of critical thinking and in the improvement of written and oral communications skills, all essential and integral to the Preceptorial experience. Each year approximately 525 freshmen enter Union. By the end of the second year of the grant period, at least one-half of the freshmen will have acquired some familiarity with using these applications effectively in skills development. By the end of the third year, all of the freshmen will have done so.

4. By the end of the third year, computer-based enhancements will have been incorporated into some modules within each packet of the Freshman Preceptorial. All faculty teaching the Preceptorial will have been trained to use these materials. The curricular design specialist will have put a mechanism in place to train new preceptors to utilize these materials.

5. By the end of the third year, the Freshman Preceptorial will have become more truly interdisciplinary, with more faculty in various disciplines involved in developing computer-based applications for one or another module and in teaching the course than has been the case thus far. 6. During the first year, student-based assessment instruments designed to measure the impact of technology applications on students’ learning, critical thinking, and communications skills will be developed and administered to Preceptorial sections offered in the spring term. During the second and third years, these instruments will be refined and administered at the end of each term. Concurrently, faculty will develop an assessment instrument to further assist them in evaluating the impact of various technology applications on students’ learning, critical thinking, and communications skills.

7. By the end of the third year, nine faculty teams will have undertaken the development, delivery, and initial assessment/modification of new or reconfigured interdisciplinary courses, utilizing computer-based technologies. These faculty will be poised to develop team-taught courses with faculty at other colleges to the mutual advantage of each campus.

8. Through intensive workshops, faculty presentations, other targeted training activities, and direct one-on-one assistance of the curricular design specialist, at least one-half of the faculty, including those who are already experimenting with computer-based technological applications, will have become more knowledgeable about computer and multimedia applications and how to utilize them effectively in classroom and extra-classroom learning activities. At least one-third of the faculty will be actively using computer-based technology applications in their courses, including development of their own materials. Office of Computer Services and instructional technology staff, as well as student technical assistants, will have received specific training to better assist faculty in these efforts.

Union has identified these targets as the main indices by which it will monitor and measure the progress and ultimate success of this project.

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