MaSSSoftech

Campus leaders at the University of Nevada, Reno have big plans for the school’s future, despite the budget cuts of the past two years.

“For the next few years, everyone is going to be a little stretched,” UNR President Milton Glick said. “Faculty, students, everyone. But if you look out five years I think you’ll see a campus with a lot of positive change.”

University officials say they hope to increase research presence on campus and create a stable funding base. The student government envisions improved graduation and retention rates and some predict an inevitable shift toward community-based information technologies.
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While both student and faculty leaders have big plans for the university’s future, both say student involvement in refining these plans and making sure they are implemented is the key to UNR’s success.

“Student input is very important to us. Probably the best way students can get involved with change at the university level is to get involved with the student government,” UNR Provost Marc Johnson said. “They’re already organized and we invite them into the decision making process in most of the things we do.”

The student government describe their main goals for the university in an early draft of their Joint Vision Plan for 2017 Associated Students of the University of Nevada officials describe their main goals for the school as achieving improved academic engagement, higher retention and graduation rates and a more diverse student population.

Students who join student advisory boards at the college and departmental levels also have the opportunity to voice their opinions to their deans and are often consulted before changes to a specific program or major are made, Johnson said.

“We’re always looking for students who want to get involved in guiding the future of this institution,” Johnson said.

Creating more research opportunities for both graduate and undergraduate students will be a primary goal for the university’s faculty, Glick said. Students will be able to participate in the research through their individual departments. Much of the university’s growth will be centered around research-intensive subjects like science and medicine, growth that is already beginning with the construction of new buildings on opposite ends of UNR’s campus.

“What we would really like to see is an expanded presence for our medical and nursing programs,” Glick said.

The increased research presence on campus may help ease the school’s recent budget woes by creating more opportunities for departments to find grant money and avoid relying on state funds, Johnson said.

“After the most recent budget reduction, we’re looking to bounce back under our own sails, so to speak,” Johnson said. “With more student research, we’ll be able to secure more funding from the federal government and industries whereas in the past we have been fairly reliant on state sources of money.”

If the university succeeds in attracting other sources of funding through grants and industrial donations, it could avoid large percentage cuts.

“These cuts are kind of a wake-up call,” Johnson said. “If we want to really grow, we have to do this.”

While expanded research opportunities and the potential for new sources of money shine bright in UNR’s future, some in the school’s administration think the largest change in store is one that will be driven by its newest students.

“The university is going to have to adjust to more community-based technology, and that’s how incoming students already work,” Steven Zink, UNR’s vice president of information technology, said. “The younger students are ahead here and the rest of the university needs to catch up.”

Community-based technology such as social networking, smartphones, and project and classroom collaboration via text and video chat applications are part of what Zink said he calls the “post-Guttenberg era” because of their advantages over paper and ink.

The fact that today’s college students have grown up using these technologies instead of watching them evolve puts them at a distinct advantage over much of the university’s faculty in their use, Zink said.

“For example, I consider myself a pretty technological person, but I had to add the Internet and cell phones to my life,” Zink said. “Students now though, they’ve grown up with all of it, it’s just ingrained into their lives.”

Because of that advantage, students have the ability to influence the future of how technology will be implemented in UNR’s classrooms, albeit in an indirect way, he said.

“Students need to push for the ability to be creative with assignments,” Zink said. “A lot of professors are becoming increasingly open to other ways to package information, not just essays in paper, but the system as a whole still needs that push.”

As long as the work was of sufficient quality, John Marini, a professor in the political science department, said he would be willing to accept assignments packaged in ways other than a traditional essay, such as a video or interactive media piece.

“There are lots of ways to express ideas and I’m open to those possibilities,” Marini said. “I’ve never had a student approach me and ask that, though.”

Jay Balagna can be reached at jbalagna@nevadasagebrush.com.