Like many aspects of the Miami Experience, learning from and about difference and diversity is not confined to the classroom. Indeed, co-curricular activities are an essential component in our efforts to create and learn from diversity. We have many student groups that provide the opportunity for leadership, support, and learning. Valerie and I had a group of such leaders over for dinner a couple of weeks ago and were impressed by their dedication and the range of active experiences that enhanced their intellectual and personal development. Yet it was also clear from the conversation over dinner that we need to be more organized and even more purposeful in our efforts to engage the broader community. The "MUvement" program a few weeks ago was a fine example of an event that purposively sought to combine community, learning, and entertainment to celebrate diversity.
Another classic way in which we embrace difference is through the study of foreign languages and cultures. In an active approach to the study of foreign language, students have a real opportunity to understand how their own language and culture defines them as they see themselves through the lens of "the other." Of course, combining the study of language and cultures with international travel provides the ultimate form of engaged learning. We are proud that 30 percent of our students now have an international study experience. But given the critical importance of both global understanding and an understanding of ourselves, we should set a goal of at least half of our students having a study abroad experience before graduation. We are also fortunate to have a good representation of international students who come to Miami, as evidenced by this wonderfully colorful display of flags that add so much to the festive atmosphere today. Our challenge is to find more ways that we can draw from their differences to enhance our learning as well as making sure that they feel welcomed here.
I would like to conclude this brief discussion of embracing difference and diversity by recognizing our long-standing and deepening relationship with the Miami Tribe. We are the only university in the U.S. named for an Indian tribe, a point of great pride for us. I cannot begin to express the honor you have shown to me and to Miami University by your presence here, Chief Leonard. I look forward to our visit to your home in June. We are so very pleased that we have 15 students from the tribe studying at Miami, that your son is on our faculty, that we have a major commitment to studying the Myaamia language, led by tribal member Daryl Baldwin, and that in the fall of 2008 we will host a major exhibit of Miami Tribe artifacts in our Art Museum. All of these contribute to our learning by providing insights into a culture that has much to teach us. Thank you.
The dramatic improvements in information technology over the past 30 years have radically and rapidly changed how we can achieve the fusion of learning. A colleague recently remarked on the surprise of a student when she learned that her professor completed college at a time when there wasn't an Internet or World Wide Web. In 1993–94 while I was at the National Science Foundation, I was puzzled by the excitement of some of my colleagues there who were testing a new software package named Mosaic, which I now understand to have been one of the first Internet browsers. I am sorry to confess that at the time, I couldn't imagine why they were so excited, but here we are, scarcely more than a decade later, when a new generation of students can take the Internet and ubiquitous computing for granted. We could easily spend a very long time discussing the ways in which IT is transforming education, but I will restrict my brief comments to three: the ability to access raw material, the ability to customize or individualize learning interactions, and the ability to engage the broader world.
Of all the changes stimulated by technology improvements, I believe that none are more important than the dramatic improvements in our ability to access raw material for research. For most of the history of Miami University, students have been forced to rely heavily on texts that described what others had concluded from materials they had gathered. The ability to interrogate the same materials used by scholars was at best extremely limited because access to the material was limited, as was the capability to analyze that material. Thus, the questions and methods of analysis were defined by someone else and students were relegated to the role of observer rather than inquirer. Today that is vastly different.
Consider my own case. When I began as a student, census data were available in limited form and locations. To use the data, I copied numbers from pre-defined tables and then performed manually some rudimentary descriptive analysis. I moved on to a counter-sorter, a mechanical device that allowed me to sort and count computer punch cards that contained some simplistic data. In graduate school I graduated to the use of card readers to input computer programs and data. It was very laborious and I was required to punch in all of the data by hand, but I did have access to statistical packages like SPSS to conduct more sophisticated analysis. It was laborious and time-consuming since the data and program were physically submitted to a person behind a counter. Assuming that none of the cards were "eaten" by the card reader—and I have many a sad tale there—I received my output sometime later, often overnight. Well, you get the idea. This was not a research friendly environment, even for an advanced graduate student, much less an undergraduate.
Now fast forward. Students today, at all levels, have at their fingertips through the Internet almost unlimited access to the same raw material that researchers are using or have used. From the human genome to census data to historical archives to the world's finest art collections, students can reach out over the Web and follow their own curiosity with real data. This capability fundamentally redefines what is possible in education and opens wide the possibility of fusing scholarship and teaching into learning. Of course this capability produces new challenges such as authenticating the data and learning how to effectively search and analyze huge amounts of information. But we also have incredible new tools to aid us in this effort. In my own department, Geography—which, by the way, is celebrating its 100th birthday!—we have gone from an environment in which we struggled for long hours in the cartography lab to produce maps for analysis to an environment in which a few key strokes will yield useful spatial displays from vast sources of geographic information.
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