An Information Technology Program for a Small Liberal Arts College: An Interdisciplinary Approach

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An Information Technology Program for a Small
Liberal Arts College An Interdisciplinary
Approach

• Loren K. Rhodes
• Michael L. Frandsen, Dennis L. Johnson,
• Donna S. Weimer, David J. Fusco
• Juniata College, Huntingdon, PA

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Juniata College

• 4 year liberal arts college, central Pennsylvania
• 1300 students, mostly residential
• Program of Emphasis (major)
• students encouraged to design own POE
• often interdisciplinary programs, double majors
• 50-60 individualize their POEs
• 2 advisors approve

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Juniata College

• Regionally known for sciences pre-medicine,
  biology and chemistry
• Education
• Computer Science since 1980
• 1998 an alumni couple gave multi-million dollar
  endowment for an IT program

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Donors Vision for IT

• scholarship leveraging communication and problem
  solving skills with IT courses
• internship engage industry experience
• leadership management skills
• entrepreneurship build a technology product and
  successfully market it
• interdisciplinary a collaboration among existing
  departments

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Design Process

• Pre-existing programs
• Mathematics/Computer Science (Nat. Sci.)
• Accounting/Business/Economics (Soc. Sci.)
• English/Communications (Humanities)
• IT program was developed from on-campus committee
  from these departments
• External Advisory board was established

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Departmental Cooperation
Information Technology
ComputerScienceMath
BusinessAccountingEconomics
CommunicationEnglishTheatreArts
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Advisory Board

• Development of the program
• Internship placements, on-site projects,
  equipment
• Membership (lt20)
• alumni, big and local business, government
• ATT, Nortel, Lucent, Microsoft,
  PricewaterhouseCoopers, Datatel, Eclipsys, Penn
  State IST, Fairfax County VA

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Curriculum Goals

• CS fundamentals, software development, database,
  network
• Communication skills, oral presentation and
  technical writing
• Business fundamentals, management,
  entrepreneurship
• Experiential - student teams working on industry
  projects for 3 semesters internships
• Change management

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IT courses

• Principles of IT
• First course
• Web based, using WebCT or Angel
• Business, Communication and CS courses
• Innovations for Industry capstone sequence
• Three semesters, junior and senior years
• Team projects

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Computer Science

• CS 1 and CS 2
• Software Design (Engineering)
• Networking
• Web Design
• Discrete Structures

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Business and Communication

• The Management Process
• Behavior Analysis of Organizations
• Business Strategies
• Art of Public Speaking
• Professional Presentations
• Technical Writing
• Indiv_at_metaverse.com

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Indiv_at_metaverse.com

• Challenge students with the past, present, future
  analysis of technologys impact on society
• 1892--Can we predict new technologies?
• 1940--Can we anticipate their consequences?
• 2000--What is progress?
• 2100--How do we prepare for change?

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Innovations for Industry(I-4-I)

• The hallmark of our program
• A required, three semester experiential learning
  opportunity
• Places teams of students in organizations to
  identify and understand problems, and recommend
  and apply IT solutions

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I-4-I Goals

• To provide students with real-world experience in
  the needed technical, business and communications
  skills to function as members of an IT project
  team
• To provide service to partnering organizations
• To obtain real-world feedback for students and
  faculty

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I-4-I Process

• Combination of classroom, on campus, and in the
  field activities
• Emphasis on project management, flexibility,
  communication, team work, and problem solving
• Teams of 3-4 students
• Faculty sponsor for each team
• Evaluation by client, faculty, peers

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I-4-I Organization

• Three courses IT 300, IT 380, IT 480
• All meet together
• Exception is IT 300
• Focus on project management
• 5-Phase Project Management,Weiss/Wysocki
• Case studies
• Teams are a cross section of the 3 levels

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I-4-I Technologies

• Project management
• Networking
• Web Development
• Handheld OS
• ASP
• Use cases
• XP

• Database/SQL
• Java
• C
• Visual Basic
• XML
• Linux

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I-4-I Student Comments

• "Maybe I learned more in this class than I
  learned in all the other classes I have taken.
• "I dont know how to describe to you how much I
  have learned in the last semester through words.
  My actions speak for themselves. I have grown
  because of this course and I feel that I will
  continue to grow in the semesters to come."

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I-4-I Client Comments

• "I do think that this was a great learning
  experience demonstrating the dynamic environment
  that they will have to operate in. They reacted
  extremely well to these changes. Based on the
  barriers they faced, they exceeded our
  expectations.
• "I wanted to let you know your database has been
  tested and is now up and running . You did a
  great job on meeting our requirements for the
  ASP. The people who have been through the
  training so far have been impressed. Thanks for
  the great work."

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Areas of Concentration

• Students choose three courses in various areas of
  application
• Digital Media
• Entrepreneurial Studies
• Communication Media
• Computer Science
• Business
• Individualized

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Integration of IT campus wide

• The application of IT naturally integrates into
  other disciplines
• Criminal Justice
• Biology (Bioinformatics)
• Environmental Science
• Education
• Psychology
• Political Science

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Staffing

• All current and planned IT faculty are joint
  appointments
• 2 Business / IT
• 2 Computer Science / IT
• Communication / IT
• 2 Environmental Science / IT
• Network Services Director / IT

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Facilities

• Faculty representing 3 departments
• Teaching/Learning Technology Center
• Computer/Network Services
• Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership
• Currently scattered across campus
• In 2004 all IT-related departments will be housed
  in one facility

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Summary

• Interdisciplinary
• Experiential
• Teamwork, project management
• Access to technologies
• Educational technology
• http//departments.juniata.edu/it