Dialogue & Debate: Students as Customers

Earlier this afternoon, NSU hosted the first in a series of events titled Dialogue & Debate. The title of D&D 1 was “A College Degree is a Commodity and Students are Our Customers.” It was ITVd across all three campuses. Below is an image of the event as viewed from the Broken Arrow campus.

Seated left to right – ITV facilitator James Whitmer; Debate Team – Roger Collier, Chuck Ziehr, David Scott.

Provost Martin Tadlock began the event by introducing the “gullible” individuals who agreed to serve as the debate team: Communications Professor David Scott as facilitator; Finance Professor Roger Collier in the affirmative; Geography Professor Chuck Ziehr as opposition.

Dr. Collier began his presentation by stating that he volunteered to present less out of gullibility than out of a trick he learned in elementary school: go first and get it over with.

Collier’s comments addressing the question of whether students are customers:

• It’s true that students are our customers, whether we want to believe it or not.
• We provide access to a process that may or may not lead to a degree. Whether or not students get the degree is up to them. The university should have a disclaimer that results may vary.
• In general, students agree that because they are paying, they are a customer. Students pay in tuition, energy, time, work, and the forgoing of other things. Some are even willing to pay with a loss of personal integrity via cheating.
• Faculty, in general, disagree that students are customers.
• Students can vote with their feet; if they are not happy, they can go.

His comments on whether or not a degree is a commodity:

• As with  most commodities, a college degree is generally available to anyone interested.
• A degree is standardized and widely available via loans and scholarships.

Dr. Ziehr began his presentation by stating that he prefers the term dialogue over debate, and that this event was a welcome relief to preparation for NCATE accreditation.

Ziehr began his argument by addressing the issue of degree as commodity.

• A degree is a basic product: education.
• Degrees from different universities come with varying costs and value. Another way degrees are differentiated is via transcripts and grades – an area of potential interest to employers.
• Ultimately, degrees are not commodities; they are vastly different, even when the same degree.

Ziehr’s comments on students as customers

• NSU’s Strategic Plan defines a customer as any person who requests services. Therefore, students within an instructional session are not customers.
• Universities are places of open discovery and dissent. Our students use these methods to coproduce knowledge with us, which makes them colleagues, not customers.
• Students create the value of their degree, so should be viewed as product.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The following are notes taken during the rebuttals that followed the initial presentation. I do not know which presenter to credit, so I’ll designate them coauthors.

• Students are not our only customers; all who contribute to or benefit from the education process are customers as well.
• The content of degrees is relatively the same, despite the school. Degrees are fairly standardized. What distinguishes one from another is the access students have to resources.
• A college degree gives access to a profession. It’s up to the student to determine the discipline and how much access.
• Both the student and the school have an obligation to perform.
• Customer is a passive role. Students need to be engaged in order to obtain knowledge and a degree.

Once the presentation and rebuttal sessions concluded, the floor opened to questions. Not sure about anyone else, but I really liked seeing students in the audience, such as the ones above addressing a question to the debate team.

Comments from question-answer session

• Students are our reputation as they leave.
• A student is a customer in regard to the instructor adhering to the syllabus. Students are clients in the idea that the syllabus is a binding contract that creates a mutual relationship; they can appeal if the instructor is guilty of bait and switch.
• Instructors help decide whether students are customers or not. In some classrooms students are doing a lot of coproduction. The more collaborative the process, the better. (I may have added that last part ;-)
• If the class is boring and bad, students will withdraw and tell their friends – like a customer.
• Students have input on which courses are taught and by whom. The job market also has a large influence in both areas.
• Should students be on hiring committees? Yes, students were on the search committees for three of NSU’s most recently hired teaching faculty. (One is also currently serving on the AVPTL Search Committee: Thank you, Steven ;-)

All in all, it was a nice way to spend an hour on a Friday afternoon in mid-September. I look forward to DD 2.

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An iPhone App for NSU?

A friend and colleague recently asked why NSU didn’t have an iPhone app, and whether we will ever get one. I told him the Center for Teaching & Learning Steering Committee had discussed this same topic a few weeks ago, and offered to share our evaluation with him.

The following document is a collaborative effort generated by the committee in response to a proposal from a local business offering to create an iPhone app for NSU:

CTL Steering Committee
School Insight iPhone App Evaluation
July 1, 2010

The following information is simply an evaluation of the potential purchase of the School Insight iPhone app. No conclusion was drawn, nor vote taken.

Pros:

• Several optometry students own smartphones, as there are some specialized apps they are encouraged to use in clinical rotations and later in their own practices.
• Optometry applicants judge our college and university by our integration of technology in our clinical instruments, electronic health records and the websites against other colleges and universities.
• Use of new technologies, if not prohibitively difficult or expensive, enhances the progressive image of our university to potential students.
• It could be handy for announcing special events (the push function on the iPhone sends automatic messages when something new is added) and important information such as upcoming deadlines, or financial aid info, or sporting events.
• I do not have a smart phone, but I know a lot of people do and they love apps.  The cost is very low and affordable.  I do not see the harm in having it, I think it is a good idea.
• iPhone apps are very cool, and easier to access away from a computer than a webpage for answering quick needs like schedules or special events on campus.
• It might be good for weather warnings about closings and events.

Cons:

• Not enough students with smartphones?
• It’s not practical on the Tahlequah campus at this point.  iPhones are expensive. A few of our students … in Tahlequah have smartphones, most don’t.
• In a poll of my classes this last spring I found only 2 students who had iPhones, less than 1/4 had smartphones, of those less than 1/2 had text service. The remainder of the students had fairly typical phones with a few of those users having text service. This was not encouraging for a group of about 42 students.

______________________________________________________________________________

Possibilities:

• Has the potential to give students another option for accessing course content.
• I’ve been looking at the podcasts and vodcasts available on iTunes as potential resources for my online classes (or even live courses).  There are several OK universities and colleges that have both available.  ie; Rose State University has a couple on women’s history.   As we progress in our knowledge of using technology in the classroom, I think having a school app would make it easier for students to access these right (though I know it wouldn’t be necessary, it could provide a central location for students to search from).
• If a department uses podcasts through iTunes, it’s easier to access them from an app.

Concerns:

• Will the app work on the Blackberry, Blackjack, and other smartphones, or just on the iPhone?
• Until a larger percentage of our students have smartphones, spending the money to develop apps is not advisable.
• I don’t see us being able to deliver course content in this way in the immediate future.
• One issue under consideration is using these apps as notification for events and warnings. Unless the student has the app set to accept these messages and it is active they will only get them once they do turn it on. Thus this makes it less than useful for warning students about say an intruder on campus.
• I just wonder what students in Tahlequah would say if they were told that course content would be delivered in part by iPhone and that they not only had to buy the phone but sign up for a two-year contract at maybe $100 a month.  I have a young lady in our program right now that I am going to hire to help me with some painting jobs at home because she’s living in the dorms during summer school and she doesn’t have enough money to eat.
• I am all for incorporating all sorts of technology into teaching, but I am concerned about the growing gap between what some of us would like to do (and what needs to be done) and the reality of what our students and faculty are able to do or want to do.
• At the very least, when we adopt a new technology, the students should have access to it on campus or to be able to purchase it with financial aid dollars.

General Comments:

• The $200 a month fee seems reasonable, it is less than the cost of 1 billboard per month, and it looks like we control the content.
• If the administration is looking at an app that would provide schedule information or something else applicable to all or most students or perhaps also alums, that might be worthwhile, but I think most of the usage will be at NSUBA.
• OU and University of Arkansas each have a school iPhone app.
• I would like to explore it further.
• Some university employees are not even using the more basic communication tools now at our disposal.  In our department, after adopting new and more stringent requirements for voting, some issues up for email votes have failed simply because many of my colleagues don’t, won’t, or can’t read their email, and hence they don’t vote.  I think that deans and department chairs will need to deal with issues like that before we can be very successful at expanding the forms of communication that we use.
• I drag students kicking and screaming through using various Web 2.0 applications every semester, and they have quite a few problems, some of which are related to their own computer abilities and some of which are related to a lack of up-to-date computer equipment and consistent Internet access at home, as most of them are not resident students.  What I ask them to do is free of charge to them–I could not ask them to get a smartphone to view course materials as it would be too much of a burden for some of them.  I tell them that in my courses I have a secondary objective of improving their computer/Internet skills.  Other people talk about educating digital natives and how do we do that when we ourselves are not digital natives — well, in my classes, there are no digital natives.  I would imagine that the situation in BA is different, but in Tahlequah our traditional students are coming out of small high schools with almost nonexistent technology, and our nontraditional students are generally not people with much computer experience.
• My colleagues have their own issues with technology — the number of people who use Blackboard as a supplement or even just as a way to disseminate information in a traditional format class is pretty low, and the use of other applications is very limited.  When I made the comment in my previous email about people not using their email, I was not kidding. There is a person in my department who comes to me for help when she has to send an email because she does not know how.  Other colleagues, including some former department chairs, are famous for rarely or never reading their email.  The email voting issue I described may become a serious problem.
  • So, I think creating iPhone apps for NSU is great, and I would certainly use them, but I am concerned about the cost and the technology gap.
  • There is a digital divide among the students at NSU, which is reflective of American society as a whole. If we are to invest wisely, we need to consider all factors of adoption and application of new technology.

Related Information:

• Here’s a link to OU’s website promo of their app – created internally by students. Looks like, at least for now, it’s only for the iPhone: http://www.ou.edu/web/landing/Articles/2009/august/iphone.html
• Here’s a link to the University of Arkansas app info. Looks like it, too, is only for Apple devices: http://www.arkansasrazorbacks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=6100&ATCLID=204791024

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Notes Taken at CTL Steering Committee Meeting

______________________________________________________________________________

Center for Teaching & Learning Steering Committee
Chair Notes
September 3, 2010

______________________________________________________________________________

Attendance

• Kip Finnegan
• Danny Fuller
• Cari Keller
• Martha Parrott
• Earlena McKee
• Linda Summers
• Zac Thorp
• Vanessa Whitley

Wimba Collaboration Suite for Higher Education

Those who were able to attend the Wimba presentation on September 2^nd were both impressed and inspired as to how the software could enhance the classroom environment, whether fully online or blended. The general consensus is that purchasing Wimba would be a wise investment. The following is a synopsis of committee member comments.

Teaching –

• Can teach virtually when out of town, rather than cancelling class when away for professional development.
• Highly interactive. Allows for more synchronous opportunities, e.g., instant messaging, smart board, voice discussion board. Great for creating a more engaging e-classroom environment.
• Encourages 100% participation.
• Point-to-point network system allows for extending the geographic distance between students and instructor, particularly important for deployed soldiers and those who would otherwise have to commute long distances. Also has potential to increase the diversity of the class.
• Allows for archiving lessons via simple lecture-capture process

Technology –

• Integrated into Blackboard, so no special software needed (Some concern that demo was on Bb 9.1, which will not be implemented until Fall 2011. NSU currently running Bb 9.0)
• Has cloud storage, so can store work virtually and access same from any computer that has internet access; won’t slow down university network or personal computer
• Has screening process to test compatibility of system with all participants’ computers
• Does everything Camtasia does – and more
• No ITV needed to e-teach in synchronous environment.

Training –

• Training materials can be revised according to individual preference
• Wouldn’t take a long time to learn

AVPTL Search Update – Martha Parrott

The search for  Assistant Vice President for Teaching and Learning is down to a single candidate, as one of the final two withdrew. The committee will now reassess the original pool of applicants in the attempt to raise the number of candidates back to three.

The remaining candidate, Dr. Scott Newman, will be on campus September 22-23, and will participate in an open forum on Sept. 22 from 3-3:45 p.m. The forum will be broadcast to Room 225 of Building B in Broken Arrow and Room 141 of the Synar Building at Muskogee. All are encouraged to participate and offer input to the selection committee.

Marketing CTL Services

Current Methods

• CTL website
• Dean Jenlink’s weekly e-bulletin, an email listing of calendared events that is sent to BA faculty and staff

Methods to Consider

• Targeted email. For example, the upcoming workshop for online instruction could be sent to all faculty currently teaching online courses. Make the title of said email relevant and specific, in order that it will be read rather than deleted.
• Create targeted flyer of workshops, print on bright-colored paper and post to office doors of targeted faculty.
• Create small handout of workshops, similar to NSU mission, vision, core values card, and give to faculty at semester meetings and orientations – maybe personally deliver 2 weeks into semester, or send via campus mail.
• List events in Riverhawks Daily.
• Send workshop information to deans, so they can forward to faculty.
• Send information to committee members, so they can forward to colleagues.

Realities to Consider

• Faculty have a heavy load of responsibilities: teaching five classes, which are often of increased size due to too few instructors; serving on multiple committees, with varying degrees of responsibility; and maintaining a heavy advising load. They perform these duties gladly out of service to NSU and the community it serves, but the reality is the heavy load leaves little time for professional development opportunities. What can we do to help faculty have time to go and do these things?
• Faculty want to know what teaching and learning will look like in a few years, but need to find more balance in terms of responsibilities in order to have time and intellectual energy for professional development.

Solutions

• Create webpage with links to tutorials of most frequently requested assistance items – currently Blackboard. May be NSU-CTL produced, or videos vetted for quality by same.
• Tutorials should be brief and clearly labeled as to content.
• Lecture-capture and archive F2F workshops for 24/7 access.
• Grad students in relevant programs could assist in creation of tutorial library – receiving real-world experience and course credit simultaneously.

Quality Matters Update – Kip Finnegan

CTL now has all the instructors required to implement the program. All have access to instructional guides, but still need training. Kip and Rick are administrators, but they, too, still need training. Kip will share a list of instructors and courses soon.

General Comments

• Faculty want Camtasia workshop and/or tutorial.
• CTL should organize a Vendor Day, during which vendors of teaching tools come to NSU and give demonstrations. Offer giveaways and other incentives.
• It would be great to have a general e-course template for newly hired faculty, especially for those hired at beginning of semester who have little time to prepare.

Next Meeting

The next meeting is scheduled for Friday, September 17^th from 3:30pm-4:30pm.
Locations: BA – E105 & TQ – NET621



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Faculty Development and Evaluation

Yesterday afternoon I traveled from NSU’s satellite campus in Broken Arrow to its main campus in Tahlequah in order to attend a webinar over faculty development and evaluation.As you can see from the map, the 61.1 mile journey (122.2 round trip) runs very near several of Northeastern Oklahoma’s beautiful lakes. Something you can not see from looking at the map are the magnificent rolling hills that surround this scenic drive, which, in combination with the lakes, offers breathtaking views such as the one below:

*Image accessed via River Dreamer’s Flickr account

The webinar was hosted by NSU’s Center for Teaching & Learning and held on the sixth floor of the W. Roger Webb Education Technology Center.

*Image author Caleb Long

Though the focus of the webinar was directed at university administration, the session offered important insight for anyone who oversees the professional development and assessment of others.

One important point the speaker addressed is that it is part of an administrator’s job to help faculty build upon the skills necessary to become and/or remain an effective member of the faculty. One of the primary ways this development can occur is through the process of “encouraging and mentoring faculty.” By openly sharing the knowledge gained through previous experience, mentors can help new faculty more quickly establish a foundation upon which to build professional skills. Mentoring also helps new faculty better understand expectations, so they are more likely to develop the skills that will help them to meet those expectations (i.e., they can’t read minds or adhere to the unclear). Various ways mentioned on how an established member of faculty can help mentor new faculty included such things as helping them to better understand their new environment through an orientation process, assisting with the setting of goals, helping them stay on track in obtaining these goals, and acting as an advocate as new faculty form relationships with those who are more seasoned. The best mentoring process, according to the speaker, is that which includes both an internal mentor, one from within the new environment, and an external mentor, one who has an expertise in the field but does not work for the same institution. Though the reasoning behind such a process was not thoroughly discussed, it was my guess that including both an insider and an outsider as mentors will help faculty to become both participant and observer of the new environment. Another method of mentoring the speaker did not discuss (until I relayed the question at the end of the presentation) was the importance of reverse mentoring.

To be continued…

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Learning about Tulsa through Literature

A friend, who just moved to Tulsa, recently heard rumor that the 1964 Civil Rights Act was the catalyst that caused the exponential growth of Tulsa’s suburbs. Being that my friend is a scholar who prefers to learn multiple views prior to promoting a particular conclusion, he asked if I could recommend a “great book or two . . . that tell the honest truths about this very interesting city.”

©Dirksen Congressional Center

________________________________

The following is a slightly revised version of my response:

Here are two I have in my personal collection, and recommend highly. Both are available for checkout from Tulsa City County Library. If the links work (direct links from catalogs don’t always), you should be able to click on each of the two titles below and be directed to TCCL’s library record, which includes the location information for each book. If all is as the online record suggests, you should be able to drive to the library branch nearest your home and check them out. If you’re unsure how to find them on the shelves, I recommend highly asking those at the front desk to help you locate them.

Tulsa!: Biography of the American City

This book was written by a local historian whose family helped *settle* Indian Territory (Oklahoma). It’s an easy, but informative, read. The author’s voice is engaging and has a strong, but reasonably scholarly, Oklahoma *flavor.* Though the book contains a large number of exceptional photographs throughout, they serve to enhance, rather than to dominate, the text (which is my way of saying its not a *coffee table book* ;-)

Tulsa Times: A Pictorial History

• [v. 1] The early years, [1882 to 1912]
• [v. 2] The boom years, [1912 to 1942]
• [v. 3] Coming of age, [1942 to 1988]

This is a three-volume series created over a period of three years (if memory serves ;-). As the title suggests, the set contains numerous images of Tulsa taken over several decades. Though the text is minimal, I do not classify this set in the *coffee table* category. Each chapter contains an informative introduction, and each image contains an informative caption. The set has personal significance to me, because the photographer responsible for the images, Beryl Ford, was a friend of mine (he died just last year), and I remember well how passionately he discussed the project during its creation.

Yet another passion of Beryl was sharing the images he captured or collected with others. If you’re interested, you can view all via this link to the Beryl Ford Collection which is “the largest and most significant collection of photographs and artifacts relevant to the history of the City of Tulsa and surrounding area.”

Lastly, if you’d like a more extensive bibliography of potential reads about Tulsa (like if you’re considering a dissertation on the topic ;-) – here’s a link to a bibliography of Tulsa-related material TCCL has published on its website: Books about Tulsa
Many of the materials listed contain a direct link to their online catalog, from which you can determine how to locate each item, or perhaps even check them out (very likely, some are for in-house use only).

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Around T-town: Gypsy Coffee House and Cyber Café, Part II

[Didn't read Part I? Here's a link: Around T-Town: Gypsy Coffee House]

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Accepting the invitation to enjoy a new experience, I grabbed my camera and headed downtown to see Apollo at Gypsy.

The drive to the cyber cafe wasn’t too bad - if you discount the fact that I took I-244, arguably the most dangerously designed and structurally neglected highway in Tulsa.

My condition upon arrival wasn’t too bad - if you discount the fact that I had neglected to wear sunscreen during 4 hours spent outdoors on what appeared to be a cloudy day.

And the Gypsy?

Three stories.
Red brick.
Quiet neighborhood.
Tulsa skyline.
Police cars trolling.

Parking lot?
Not out front.

Exiting one-way Cincinnati onto what I hoped was two-way Cameron, I went in search of a parking space. Happily, I found an unpaved lot within a reasonable walking distance from the back of the building (a rare treat in downtown Tulsa). So I parked by a pole, exited my auto, and strode westward.

While walking and attempting to untangle my scarf from my camera strap, I met a couple of musicians unpacking instruments from an auto; the guitarist I knew offered an impromptu introduction to the guitarist I did not.

Impromptu introductions completed, I circled round to the front of Gypsy, accessed the entrance, and found a foyer with stairs leading up to a second-floor salon. Though a massage sounded like an attractive idea so near the end of semester, I considered the heat emanating from my shoulders and steadfastly strode on. . . through the door and over the threshold into the alleged “something[s] illegal,” crappy coffee, and “extremely creepy old men.”

Once inside, I found both the furnishings and the humans who gathered upon and around it to be quite interesting and eclectic. The furniture nearest the serving counter included several high, round, wooden tables predominantly occupied by persons some might perceive as dubious. However, upon closer observation I assessed these “oldsters” to be primarily 30- & 40-something websurfers lost in the World of Warcraft -seemingly oblivious to their physical surroundings.

The furniture scattered throughout the remainder of the coffee house consisted of several low, rectangular, slightly stained, cushioned chairs and couches, arranged in a variety of geometric shapes, predominantly occupied by persons in their late teens and early twenties seemingly enjoying the company of “friends, lovers, and others.”  Not a “mallcore kid” in sight.

And the “something illegal”?

One guy had an unlit cigarette hanging beneath his pierced nose.
Neither of which is illicit in Oklahoma, as far as I’m aware:

Another patron displayed a tilted hat and tattooed arm.
Yet again, neither illegal – or even atypical – for a young Tulsan:

And the only thing I got from behind the counter when I asked for “tea” was a cup of chai and the cheerful offer to enhance the experience with a bit of espresso.

*Image accessed from spiritual-happiness.com

——————————————————————————

While the members of Apollo completed their preparations to play, I sipped my chai and watched a young college-aged woman use a ball-point pen to draw an elaborate design upon the hand of her male companion.
Once the project was complete:

“May I see?”

[Hand extends. Intricate tree of life appears.]

“Very artistic. You should try henna.”
“You think so?”
“Absolutely!”
“I wanted to once, when I was visiting Louisiana, but didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“No one I was with wanted to try it, or to wait while I did.”

“What’s henna?”

Before either of us had a chance to enlighten the ill-informed, the music started with Basler’s fun and energetic percussion followed by Healey’s expert, tempo-setting bass.

Almost immediately, the casual banter ceased and all eyes turned toward the duet on the makeshift stage.

Once the initial instrumentations had the audience totally entranced, in walked Osborn and Lawless providing Apollo’s vocals and lead (and wearing kilts, no less), thereby transforming the duet into a quartet and solidifying the spellbound state.

Disappointingly – to me at least, despite the fun pageantry and fabulous performance, no one got up to dance.

Not sure why.

Could’ve been that the space occupied by the audience and the furniture upon which they sat left little room to stand and shimmy. Could’ve been that the patrons were far more considerate of the photographer than they need’ve been. Perhaps it was that those in attendance were simply too shy to shake it as the glass eye of an SLR roamed the room.

Whatever the reason, happily the lack of theatrics and undulations didn’t extend to the boys in the band:  Healey and Basler not only provided flawless rhythm, they also offered charisma and comic relief – interacting with each other and making fun side glances at members of the audience. Frontmen Osborn and Lawless both contrasted and complemented their bandmates, providing an exceptional harmonic framework, and offering both gravity and passion as they played – interacting with each other and being a bit more forward in their seduction of the audience:

Ultimately, I found both the music and those who had gathered to partake of it a very pleasant experience indeed.

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Around T-Town: Gypsy Coffee House and Cyber Café

Received an invitation from a friend to see his band Apollo Movement  perform at Gypsy Coffee House. Being that I’d no idea where Gypsy is located, I went online and did a little research.

Here’s a map I found on Google:

And an image I found on flickr:
© Caribe Fotos

And some reviews I found on Yelp:

• “It scares me. . .I feel like there is. . . something illegal” going on.
• “The coffee is aweful, . . .[the] patrons are. . .high school mallcore kids and extremely creepy old men.”
• “I met. . . many. . .friends, lovers, and others.”
• “Great coffee. . .setting and atmosphere. . .Nice folks.”
• “I definitely felt a little old and out of place, and I’m only 33!”
• “Cool laid back coffee house. . .Age isn’t too big a factor, mostly college age to unobtrusive elders.”

Intrigued by the bipolar reviews, I determined to attend and assess.

To be continued. . .

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Best and Worst Library-related Events of 2007

The following is a synopsis of 2007’s best and worst library-related events in my microcosm:

Books I read:

• Best: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
  • One man’s honest, often philosophical, reflection of a life all too humanly lived.
• Worst: Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
  • Franzen is a highly skilled wordsmith; however, this novel of static, stereotypical characters with fetishes for fellatio and feces makes one wonder at the selection process for the National Book Award.

Imposedblog events:

• Best:
  • Having one of the photos I uploaded to flickr published in issue 361 of Architecture Week.
• Worst:
  • Having something as minor as updating my blogroll turn into a public pratfall (though this “worst” quickly evolved into something that could be considered one of the best: the positive attention of an analytics expert).

SLIS events:

• Best:
  • Walking outside after an abbreviated lunch at this year’s OK-ACRL conference – with the goal of setting up my presentation – and being accosted by two of my knowledge management classmates, whose goal it was to assist and support (a very humbling experience I won’t soon forget).
• Worst:
  • Spending nearly a month of my “free time” trying to get the frames on my Dreamweaver-composed website to upload properly.

Work events:

• Best:
  • Being a part of moving the NSU-BA Library from borrowed space on the second floor of the administration building into the architectural beauty that now constitutes its new home (not to mention gaining an office with a view).
• Worst:
  • Having such sparse coverage that the concept of wearing adult diapers comes up in casual conversation.

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