Building the Midwest Instructional Technology Center

EDUCAUSE Midwest Regional Conference 2003

Nancy Millichap and Alex Wirth-Cauchon, MITC

March 26, 2003

Copyright Nancy Millichap and Alex Wirth-Cauchon 2003. This work is the intellectual property of the authors. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the authors. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the authors.

What Is MITC?

an initiative of two consortia of small selective residential liberal arts colleges•The Associated Colleges of the Midwest (14 colleges in Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin)

and

•The Great Lakes Colleges Association (12 colleges in Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio)

Why Does MITC Exist?

to foster innovative, effective, sustainable, multi-campus collaborations that improve teaching and learning through the use of instructional technology.

How Does MITC Do This?

We draw on the

ideas,

staff,

space, and

technology

of our 26 member institutions.

Why?

Liberal arts colleges’ unique strengths bring corresponding challenges – Personality of the sector

(focus on undergraduate education, residential, face-to-face, academically rigorous)

– Scale (think “no economy of … “)– Staffing (think “lean”)

How Does This Work?

Enables and supports collaboration between colleges to– develop economies of scale – avoid duplication of effort– draw upon strengths of individual campuses

What Resources Does MITC Have?

• Four years’ initial funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

• Advisory group representing 13 of our 26 colleges and various roles

• Staff of four• Offices in Ann Arbor

Who Gets the Word Out?

• Communication through system of campus liaisons

• Single point of contact to and from campuses • Liaison role:

– act as a bridge between interests/needs of individual faculty/staff and MITC programming

– ensure the specific long-term interests of liaison’s own institution

Who Participates?

Collaborations cross professional and disciplinary boundaries

– Faculty members– Librarians– Technologists (generally instructional,

but information technology is also important in most projects in our colleges)

– Students

Why Does This Work?

• Draws on pre-existing consortial structures • Permits use of known lines of communication,

trusted relationships • Builds on a history of fostering collaboration

between member campuses • Avoids compromising unique individual

campus identities

Is There a Big Picture?

• MITC one of three regional centers

• Others in VT (CET); TX (ACSTC)

• National coordination: National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE)

• Overall: strategic development and promotion of programming nationally

What Have We Done?

• Planning Meetings

• Symposia

• Park and Go

• Workshops to Go

• Construction Zones

• Consultations

• CET and ACSTC Workshops

Planning Meetings

• Teams from our member campuses conceive of and plan MITC events and projects

• 16 planning meetings have produced 10 funded proposals and events or projects reaching 432 participants

Major Symposia • February 2002, DePauw University:

– Over 90 faculty, librarians, technologists, and administrators– Focus on internal and external collaboration

• April 2002, Carleton College: – Over 100 language faculty/academic support staff – Technology innovations in language teaching

• February 2003, Ann Arbor: – 73 instructional technologists– Shared projects, professional development workshops, joint

planning sessions, and opportunities to meet University of Michigan counterparts

• Park and Go

• June 2002, Grinnell College:• Ten teams from ten campuses• Week-long event for the Social Sciences• Began with a one-day symposium• Followed by a workshop at which teams

completed project ideas of their own

•Workshops to Go• Program to bring available workshops to MITC

campuses• Open to the host institution and to those within easy

driving distance• Offered 6 at

• Antioch College(2)• Cornell College• Knox College• Coe College• Wabash College

Construction Zone

• Exquisite Corpse– Multi-Campus, Interdisciplinary, Web-Based Unit– Developed by faculty in Art and English with instructional

technologists – At Lake Forest College, Monmouth College, and Colorado

College – Collaboratively producing multimedia works of art by

students responding to each others’ works

Consultations• Found experts to address specific needs and

concerns of member campuses– September 2002, Antioch College

• Center for Cooperative Education program

• Received advice on transition to an electronic matching system

– 2002/2003, Hope College• Supported visits by faculty member to 5 campuses

• Studying methods of teaching statistics

•CET and ACSTC Workshops

• Through NITLE, workshops available in other regions

• Topics include:• Digital Video Editing• GIS• Macromedia Flash• Project Management• Weblogs for Education

What Is On The Schedule?

• Sciences Park and Go, DePauw University, May 31 - June 6

• E-Portfolios symposium, Monmouth College, June 11-13

• Humanities Park and Go, Lawrence University, June 24 - 29

• Digital Imaging Symposium, DePauw University, August 4 - 6

What Is In The Pipeline?• Expanded Workshop to Go offerings• Assessing methods of teaching video literacy, Grinnell College,

Summer• IT/Faculty summit on Course Management Systems, St Olaf

College (?), October• Assistive and adaptive technologies symposium, Wabash

College, November• Ethical uses of information, Knox College, Fall• A shared, on-line, information literacy assessment tool, Spring

2004• GIS Park and Go, Colorado College, Summer 2004• Social Sciences Park and Go, Earlham College, Summer 2004• GIS Community-Campus Collaborations symposium• Complex Systems Studies

What Have We Learned?• Collaboration should be built upon existing

consortial relationships• Campus Liaisons are essential to facilitate

communication• Interdisciplinary and multi-professional

collaborations improve the quality and long-term sustainability of programming

• Unique individual campus identities enrich program development

Questions?

• Nancy Millichap– Millichap@midwest-itc.org

• Alex Wirth-Cauchon– Wirth-Cauchon@midwest-itc.org

http://www.midwest-itc.org

Associated Colleges of the MidwestGreat Lakes Colleges Association

Thanks to The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation