The Right Spend

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Technology & the Community College

The Right Spend

2/1/2008

By Matt Villano

"We don't have any real margin for error," he says, adding that his budget for technology purchases is about $250,000 per year. "When you know you have only that one opportunity to do it correctly, relying on other schools for help in decision-making and even purchasing can be a big help."

Other schools stretch their IT dollars by collaborating with fellow institutions in different ways. At Genesee Community College (NY), for example, officials use a few different surveys to gauge student and faculty opinions on technology purchases already made each year. One of the surveys catalogs opinions from students throughout the State University of New York system. Another survey, widely used in the community college sphere, is the Community College Survey of Student Engagement, which culls opinions on specific types of technology in use, from students at more than 75 two-year schools across the US.

Larene Hoelcle, vice president of human resources and planning at Genesee, says survey results enable her to catalog user feedback in categories such as ease of use, efficiency, and overall value to the learning experience. When it's time to make purchasing decisions, Hoelcle and Stuart Steiner, the college's president, review students' reactions to previous tech purchases, to make sure they're spending the school's IT budget on technologies that fulfill user requests for improvement.

"By using these surveys, we can see what is working at other schools in New York State and peer institutions across the country," Hoelcle says. "Because we have only 6,500 students, the broader perspective [those surveys provide] always helps us make the toughest choices about technology investments."

FOR MORE INFORMATION

IN THE WORLD of two-year schools, the best place to get additional information on maximizing expenditures is the American Association of Community Colleges. This group's membership represents 95 percent of all accredited two-year community, junior, and technical colleges in the US.

Other good resources include the Center for Community College Policy, the Council for the Study of Community Colleges, and the Community College Research Center, which is affiliated with Columbia University (NY).

Finally, the Community College National Center for Community Engagement at Mesa Community College (AZ) offers service learning and civic engagement resources for community colleges of every shape and size.