Tag: Education

  • Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards: A Texas Professor Focused on Artificial Intelligence, Health, and Education: Reflecting on the 2020 Census

    Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards: A Texas Professor Focused on Artificial Intelligence, Health, and Education: Reflecting on the 2020 Census

    In Fall 2019, I was truly fortunate to receive a grant from the Hogg Foundation to promote the 2020 Census in East Texas. Yes, this area includes my hometown county – Panola County, then Rusk County and Shelby County. This was an AMAZING project! Thanks Hogg Foundation!

    The North East Texas Counts campaign had three goals for the project. Goal one was “to select and train 200 NETX Counts Ambassadors and Junior Ambassadors to tell the importance of the census to the community”. Goal two was “to engage and educate at least 3,000 residents in the tri-county community (especially hard-to-count populations) about the importance of the census”. The final goal, goal three” was “to saturate the tri-county community media outlets with Census information pertinent to their residents”. Through this campaign, we hosted 25 outdoor Census booths, eight interactive community information sessions, an engaging social media campaign, and received coverage in almost 10 newspapers and television outlets.

    The North East Texas Counts began the Census season by communicating with key contacts in the community and scheduling large-scale events to educate the community about the Census. We scheduled events at the local community college, library, etc. After the three counties restricted large scale and in-person events, we decided to develop a more robust online training and development process for our interns and volunteers.

    We offered numerous outdoor Census education table sessions. However, instead of offering these sessions outside large big-box retailers in the country, we offered these sessions in formats more focused on common pain points experienced by residents of the three counties and safety protocols of the counties. Instead of shopping at big-box retailers, the residents were more focused on shopping in smaller retailers, visiting gas stations, and visiting the post office. As a result, our strategy changed. During this process, we coined the phrase, “from gas stations to grocery stores”, because these were the essential places visited by residents during the pandemic. During this process, we offered information booths outside of gas stations, libraries in each county, Tractor Supply stores, city council areas, and on the side of the major highways. These strategies proved to be very effective because many residents indicated they have not taken the Census before and they did not know the importance of the Census. We were able to provide support for these residents through interactive in-person, on-one-one programming focused on the Census.

    Community Communication

    The North East Texas Counts team began the Census season by communicating with key contacts in the community and scheduling large-scale events to educate the community about the Census. We scheduled events at the local community college, library, etc. After the three counties restricted large scale and in-person events, we decided to develop a more robust online training and development process for our interns and volunteers.

    We offered three pop-up Census education table sessions outside large big-box retailers in the country. During these sessions, participants received USB chargers, Census t-shirts, and USB wall plugs. These technology and apparel items were essential items during the pandemic, because individuals in these areas usually have to travel to larger cities for technology items. People saw our items as they drove on the highways and many turned around to hear about the Census and to receive the items. Many residents commented that they have seen several Census shirts around their town and they wanted to learn more. We did not have any Census t-shirts left after September 30, 2020.

    North East Texas Counts Census – Coverage

    This project was one of the TOP projects of my faculty career. It truly changed my life and impacted the way that I see local, state, and federal government. This project ENERGIZED me!

    Stay tuned!



    Sincerely,


    Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
    Professor of Communication

    Executive Director of the Texas Social Media Research Institute & Rural Communication Institute

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  • Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards: A Texas Professor Focused on Artificial Intelligence, Health, and Education: Use Google Trends for FREE Search Engine Keywords

    Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards: A Texas Professor Focused on Artificial Intelligence, Health, and Education: Use Google Trends for FREE Search Engine Keywords

    I really like using Google Trends for almost EVERYTHING! I use Google Trends for creating news articles, blog posts, course syllabi, and even when designing graphics!

    Here’s a video that I created about Google Trends – an amazing FREE technology!

    Exploring Google Trends is one of the best ways to discover social media topics and ideas for posts. Here’s a quick video focused on how to use Google Trends for Content Generation.

    Check it out! You can use Google Trends for everything from education to community engagement. Also, these are great for governmental outreach and engagement as well (depending on the search terms within your community).

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    Try this campaign! Also, there are more campaigns available in my book – Retaining College Students Using Technology: A Guidebook for Student Affairs and Academic Affairs Professionals.

    Remember to order copies for your team as well!

    Thanks for visiting! 


    Sincerely,


    Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
    Higher Education Speaker and Researcher


    My Social Media Channels!
    Remember to Follow Me on Twitter! @drjtedwards
    I Always Post Higher Education Videos on YouTube
    Find Me on Instagram
    Engage with Me on Facebook!
    Watch My Videos on Twitter Live – http://www.periscope.com/drjtedwards/
    Email Me! I am PR Friendly! – [email protected]



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  • Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards: A Texas Professor Focused on Artificial Intelligence, Health, and Education: About Your Professor

    Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards: A Texas Professor Focused on Artificial Intelligence, Health, and Education: About Your Professor

    Over the summer, I always think about how the fall courses will be better. I always strive to make my courses at least 5% better than the courses the semester before. Course evaluations are important and I want to make sure the students have a great experience, but I also want to have a great experience teaching in the course as well.

    This means that I write down ideas as I read blog posts, listen to videos, and also as I listen to local/regional/and national news. So, I get EXCITED to introduce myself to a new group of students! 

    This year, I decided to pre-record TWO videos introducing myself to the students. Here’s the video (Part 2/2) that I plan to send the students in the fall semester. This videos is based on the questions that I requested from via an email survey in the summer.

    ***

    Check out my book – Retaining College Students Using Technology: A Guidebook for Student Affairs and Academic Affairs Professionals.

    Remember to order copies for your team as well!

    Thanks for visiting! 

    Sincerely,

    Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
    Professor of Communication

    Executive Director of the Texas Social Media Research Institute & Rural Communication Institute

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  • Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards: A Texas Professor Focused on Artificial Intelligence, Health, and Education: About Your Professor

    Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards: A Texas Professor Focused on Artificial Intelligence, Health, and Education: About Your Professor

    Over the summer, I always think about how the fall courses will be better. I always strive to make my courses at least 5% better than the courses the semester before. Course evaluations are important and I want to make sure the students have a great experience, but I also want to have a great experience teaching in the course as well.

    This means that I write down ideas as I read blog posts, listen to videos, and also as I listen to local/regional/and national news. So, I get EXCITED to introduce myself to a new group of students! 

    This year, I decided to pre-record TWO videos introducing myself to the students. Here’s the video (Part 1/2) that I plan to send the students in the fall semester. This videos is based on the questions that I requested from via an email survey in the summer.

    ***

    Check out my book – Retaining College Students Using Technology: A Guidebook for Student Affairs and Academic Affairs Professionals.

    Remember to order copies for your team as well!

    Thanks for visiting! 

    Sincerely,

    Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
    Professor of Communication

    Executive Director of the Texas Social Media Research Institute & Rural Communication Institute

    Source link

  • Academic Freedom, Tenure & the U.S. Higher Education System – GlobalHigherEd

    Academic Freedom, Tenure & the U.S. Higher Education System – GlobalHigherEd

    This entry is available via Inside Higher Ed as well.

    ~~~~~~~~~

    2015 is surely one of the most momentous years in a long time regarding debates about tenure, academic freedom, the Wisconsin Idea, budget cuts, etc. Yesterday’s balanced article (‘Tenure or Bust‘) by Colleen Flaherty, in Inside Higher Ed, is but the latest of a series of nuanced pieces Ms. Flaherty has produced this year about the unfolding of higher education debates in this Midwest U.S. state of 5.75 million people.

    While I’m immersed in the tumult as a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I can’t help standing back and trying to look at the big picture. Studying, living, working, and visiting a range of other countries, including universities in Canada, England, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and France, as well as being based in the U.S. since 2001, often engenders a drive to compare. And when comparing and reflecting upon what this wonderful university and the state/national higher education system (systems, in reality) has to offer, I increasingly think too much is taken for granted, or assumed. This is a relatively risk-oriented society, and I’m struck by how many people (including many of of the people leaving comments below ‘Tenure or Bust‘) assume the system is ‘broken,’ resiliency can be counted upon, and mechanisms to turn the system on a dime exist, if searched for long enough. They also ignore path dependency, and prior developmental trajectories and agendas, the ones that have led us to where we are now, a nation that has some of the strongest and most dynamic universities in the world. Problems and weaknesses exist, of course, but people in Wisconsin and the U.S. more broadly don’t seem to know just how many other countries are desperate to create just the types of universities that exist here.

    And what are some of the deep (core) principles and conditions that have led to the creation of so many world-class universities and higher education systems (at the state-scale) in Wisconsin and the U.S. more broadly? This question brings me to the words of Hanna Holborn Gray, the esteemed president of the University of Chicago from 1978 to 1993. In conference panel comments reprinted in the Summer 2009 issue of Social Research, Hanna Holborn Gray deemed universities to be a very important and special institution:

    …the only institution in our world, that is, as it were, commissioned to always take a longer-term look. The only institution in our world that is commissioned, so to speak, to concentrate on the mission of discovery and learning, and the transmission of learning, on the elaboration and interpretation and debate over important ideas, over what is most important in the cultural world.

    Emeritus President Holborn Gray then begged the question: “What is it that makes that profession or vocation possible? And what is it that makes the institution in which it is carried on a genuine institution?”

    Her question was actually answered 115 years earlier to this day (18 December 1900), by the founding president of the University of Chicago, William Rainey Harper, in his ‘36th Quarterly Statement of the President of the University’:

    When for any reason, in a university on private foundation or in a university supported by public money, the administration of the institution or the instruction in any one of its departments is changed from an influence from without; when an effort is made to dislodge an officer or a professor because the political sentiment or the religious sentiment of the majority has undergone a change, at that moment the institution has ceased to be a university, and it cannot again take its place in the rank of universities so long as their continues to exist any appreciable extent of coercion. Neither an individual, nor the state, nor the church has the right to interfere with the search for truth, or with its promulgation when found. Individuals, or the state, or the church may found schools for propagating certain kinds of special instruction, but such schools are not universities, and may not be so denominated.

    Genuine ‘universities’ like the University of Chicago and those that make up the University of Wisconsin System are associated with conditions of autonomy, and are spaces that respect and uphold academic freedom. And from the faculty perspective, academic freedom is significantly realized via the mechanism of tenure, which enables faculty to focus upon things like “establishing revolutionary theories about economics” (one of Milton Friedman’s many contributions in Chicago), the sustained basic research that underlies the creation of the iPhone (that the University of Wisconsin-Madison contributed to), challenging research questions related to democratization, authoritarianism, sexuality or violence, complex global challenges such as climate change, and so on. And in so doing, these faculty members (in association with staff & students) play a major role in creating the conditions that have helped us facilitate the formation of one of the world’s first university-linked technology transfer units (WARF) in 1925, through to generating research activity and spin-off firms that has made the Madison city-region one of the US’s most advanced industrial bases (according to the Brookings Institution in 2015) — a now common process of geographical concentration that the World Bank and others (e.g., David Warsh) note is inevitable, but defacto functions as ‘engines’ for regional and national economies.

    I have no doubt the vast majority of the University of Chicago’s current faculty would make the same argument I am above: after all, that great university’s leadership has been doing so since it was founded 125 years ago in 1890. Visionary leaders like William Rainey Harper and Hanna Holborn Gray were aware that the long and challenging road to build one of the most dynamic and powerful higher education systems in the world depended upon more than platitudes about ‘academic freedom’ – academic freedom actually had (and has) to be realized each and every day.

    Kris Olds

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