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Panel: Technology is threat, opportunity to TCU

At the 140th University Convocation, Chancellor Boschini asks students, faculty and staff members to discuss university’s greatest strengths and challenges.

Panel: Technology is threat, opportunity to TCU

Chancellor Victor J. Boschini, Jr. brought to the stage at the 140th Convocation new faces to talk about TCU's accomplishments and future. (Photography by Glen E. Ellman)

Panel: Technology is threat, opportunity to TCU

At the 140th University Convocation, Chancellor Boschini asks students, faculty and staff members to discuss university’s greatest strengths and challenges.

The rise of online-only access to higher education and the isolating effects of technology are threats to TCU’s standing and future growth, a panel of students, faculty and staff said yesterday at the 140th University Convocation.

Instead of delivering his traditional state-of-the-university address that officially opens the academic year, Chancellor Victor J. Boschini, Jr. invited two students, four faculty members and three staff members to share comments on topics such as TCU’s strengths and challenges, greatest threats to the school’s future and how best to strike a cultural balance between academics, co-curricular activities and athletics.

Later, Boschini issued written observations on the university’s website as TCU opens its 140th academic year.

“When you look at technology and access to high education, individuals are trying to find ways to excelerate or expedite to getting to a degree and getting a jump start. Many of them are choosing distance learning education,” said Mike Marshall, associate director of Admission, on the panel in Ed Landreth Auditorium. “So trying to convince people of the importance of an on-campus experience or the value of ‘The TCU Experience’ is definitely going to be threatened. It’s going to be imporant that we continue to be innovative and creative, ahead of the curve, so we can create an experience here at TCU that cannot be replicated through technology.”

After years of record application numbers in Admission and acceptance into the Big 12 Conference in athletics, TCU must guard against enjoying its successes too much, said Roseangela Boyd, (pictured below) director of Community Involvement and Service-Learning.

“We need to avoid the temptation of relaxing and developing a sense of complacency,” she said. “Otherwise, we might miss opportunities for improvement and growth.”

Boyd also said that TCU should continue to model inclusiveness and prepare students for a lifetime of engaged citizenship.

“If we don’t, we risk not keeping the university’s mission in sight,” she said.

Faculty members Linda Hughes of English and Greg Stephens of management had other ideas of what the TCU community will confront  in coming days.

Photo “The visit of [Frost Foundation Lectureship speaker] Nicholas Carr and his book The Shallows. How are we going to develop the right kind of teaching and the right kind of curriculum in order to maintain and sustain that deep level thought, analysis and critical thinking that seems so vital if we’re going to have the creativity and reflectiveness and persistence to solve our problems both internally and externally,” said Hughes, Addie Levy Professor of Literature. “And at the same time, the relevance, adaptation to changing conditions, to new technologies. I keep thinking about the mission statement: educating individuals to think and act. Getting that dual purpose right, how to think creatively, in depth and at the same time, to act, that embodied, active leadership. I think it will be an ongoing challenge to all universities.”

Stephens’ concern was more personal.

“When I walk around campus, there isn’t the human contact that there used to be. I see people who are on their phones or with ear buds in their ears or involved in things that separate us rather than unite us,” said Stephens, associate professor of Management and Leadership. “It’s not that those things are bad. It’s simply that they are a manifestation of literally hundreds of things that are taking us away from thought and care for the more important things of life. The danger is … we find ourselves moving into a future without the kind of relationships that will drive change in the world.”

In summary, Stephens referred to the famous Pogo comic strip quotation, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

In more upbeat moments, panelists described the most positive about their experience at the university.

“I think it’s the teacher-scholar model,” said Phil Hartman, professor of biology and chair of the Health Professions Advisory Committee. “A lot of institutions pay verbage to that, but very few walk the walk the way TCU does, recognizing that those are complementary — not competiting — activities.”

Senior biology major Vanessa Norris bragged on the university’s international Frog Camp program.

“It was amazing to go to London as a freshman, not even setting foot on TCU’s campus before meeting other students, meeting faculty and staff partners and also exploring the history and culture of another country,” she said. “This past summer, I was blessed enough to be able to direct the Frog Camp in Spain. I spent a week with you and other staff members and that was an amazing experience. I was able to study abroad when I hadn’t able to up until that point. … I’ve grown so much from both of those things.”

Sue McClellan of Student Affairs said TCU’s family atmosphere affords students, faculty and staff members a wealth of opportunities and resources.

“I work in an office in Sadler Hall, but I am encouaged to step out of that office to see what else is on campus and be a part of it,” she said. “Anything that I could possibly want is on this campus. How can that not be a positive experience?”

Photo For senior entrepreneurial management major Austin Minor, TCU helped him figure out what he wanted to do with his life.

“My professors have been great, really guiding me, and bringing out in me what I am passionate about,” he said.

Boschini also asked the panel if the university’s balance of athletics, academics and student life was right. Rhonda Keen’s response about TCU’s decision to invest in football and athletics in 1997 drew the ceremony’s biggest murmur from the audience.

“I have stood in most of my classes over the years and every public and private opportunity to say that this is the most foolish thing in the world. It won’t help admissions. It won’t help anything,” said Keen, Rankin professor of Nursing. “I think we have done well with football. It has not been a mistake. … What I would like for us to be able to do with that is think about the next thing that we want to do, to decide on it with the same clarity and commitment that we did with football. … I was struck by a comment [Provost] Nowell [Donovan] made about the new commons — the need for relevance — and that is one of the things we can persue with the same enthusiasm — and the same success — as football.”

The rest of the convocation followed TCU tradition as Boschini recognized the annual winners of the school’s top teacher-scholar and mentor. The Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished Achievement as a Creative Teacher and Scholar went to David Cross, professor of psychology, while the Wassenich Award for Mentoring in the TCU Community was given to Christopher Watt, chair of the communication sciences and disorders program. Neither professor attended to receive the awards.

In the written report on www.newsevents.edu, the chancellor noted that total enrollment has increased to 9,725, but it is still under the cap of 10,000 set by the Board of Trustees. Undergraduate enrollment has risen to 8,456, while graduate enrollment is down slightly at 1,269. “Of course, our goal is to increase the number of graduate students, so we still have work to do in this area,” he wrote.

Admission had another record year, receiving more than 19,400 applicants. From that, 1,853 freshmen comprise the Class of 2016, making TCU the second-most selective school in Texas, trailing only Rice University. The new Horned Frogs also recorded the highest SAT and ACT scores on record.

More good news: The freshman-to-sophomore retention rate is up almost three points from 2011 to 89.7 percent.

TCU also added 50 new faculty members for the 2012-13 academic year to maintain its student-to-faculty ratio of 13:1.

Boschini also reiterated the university’s strategic plans called “Vision in Action: The Academy of Tomorrow,” which includes new phases of construction for residence halls in Worth Hills and academic buildings in east campus, including an expansion of Mary Couts Burnett Library, which will form a new “Intellectual Commons” to complement the program and residential-driven Campus Commons.

The chancellor also addressed February’s on-campus drug bust of 16 TCU students.

“The low point of the last academic year was the arrest of several of our students,” he wrote. “This news quickly spread across the city, state and nation — in large part because of TCU’s reputation for integrity. I fully believe that our campus community dealt with this issue with transparency and character that in many ways has strengthened our reputation for forthrightness. And out of the negative came good, including a student creed and new leadership initiatives.”
Photo gallery:
140th Convocation in pictures

From the archives:
139th Convocation – September 2011
138th Convocation – September 2010
137th Convocation – September 2009
136th Convocation – September 2008

Video:

Excerpts of the 140th Convocation:

Here’s the full-length version of the 140th Convocation: