Launching EDUCAUSE'99: The Inaugural Cruise

Citation

by Morell D. Boone, O. (2000), "Launching EDUCAUSE'99: The Inaugural Cruise", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 17 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2000.23917aac.001

Launching EDUCAUSE'99: The Inaugural Cruise

Overview by Morell D. Boone, with reports from 16 contributors

EDUCOM and CAUSE: What Was

Between October 26 and October 29, 1999, the first-ever EDUCAUSE annual conference took place in Long Beach, California. The new EDUCAUSE association was born of the amalgamation of two long-standing associations, EDUCOM and CAUSE, that each had a different focus on computing in higher education.

EDUCOM was founded in 1964 by a group of medical school deans and vice presidents from Duke, Harvard, SUNY, and the universities of California, Illinois, Michigan, Pittsburgh, and Virginia. They wanted to establish a professional association dedicated to the idea that computers offered incredible opportunities for sharing resources directed toward instruction and research among higher education institutions. The first EDUCOM conference was held at Duke in 1966 with 150 in attendance. Its organization and annual October conferences served those in the academic community interested in issues involving the appropriate use of electronic technologies in teaching and learning in higher education.

CAUSE was incorporated as the "College and University Systems Exchange" in 1971 with 25 charter members. Their first conference, held in December 1972 in St Louis, hosted 118 attendees. In 1977 it refined its focus and officially changed its name to "CAUSE: The Professional Association for Development, Use and Management of Information Systems in Higher Education". CAUSE remained a smaller organization than EDUCOM though in recent years the organization and its annual December conferences were enlarged in numbers and broadened in scope. Its original focus on administrative computing issues in higher education increasingly included many issues taken up by many of the same constituents under the umbrella of EDUCOM.

EDUCAUSE: A New Synthesis

In July 1998, EDUCOM and CAUSE merged and became EDUCAUSE, a single organization representing the community of professionals concerned with the management of information resources and technologies in higher education. Dr Brian L. Hawkins, formerly Senior Vice President for Academic Planning and Administrative Affairs at Brown University, was appointed its first president. He comments that "the biggest challenge faced by EDUCAUSE was to create a conference that effectively served the additional number of participants, since the unified conference would be approximately twice the participant size of either of the two conferences...." Increased numbers, however, were not the sole or even the most important challenge facing the Program Committee for its first conference. As Hawkins writes, they "took it as a personal challenge to avoid just expanding either of the current conference identities and instead ... to create something new, and especially something that brought together communities and made a large conference feel smaller and intimate." The goal of EDUCAUSE is to become a new synthesis involving all facets of information technologies and resources and not a simple cobbling together of either of its parent organizations' agendas[1].

Long before the EDUCAUSE'99 pre-conferences were held, the Program Committee, chaired by Jill Arnold from the University of Michigan, directed its staff to develop a set of Web-based resources that would help participants use technology to tailor the conference to their educational needs. The outcome of this project, according to Hawkins, was a set of four navigational "tools" available on the Web. The Knowledge Pathfinder permits word searches to locate sessions matching individuals' interests; The Itinerary Builder allows each registrant to save, update, download, and print an individualized conference schedule; The Dynamic Registration List permits attendees to find peer groups among registrants; The Birds-of-a-Feather Signup System allows attendees to see all topic-focused sessions and to initiate a new one if they wish. This proved to be so successful that EDUCAUSE received, in December 1999, the Technology Innovation Award from the American Society of Association Executives for the development of this conference Web site.

Setting Sail at Our First Conference

The conference showed how well this innovative planning paid off. Over 5,700 people came to Long Beach to learn, network and party. Almost 90 percent of the attendees came from the USA; however, four non-US countries dominated the other 10 percent ­ 131 from Canada, 68 from The Netherlands, 34 from Australia and 28 from the UK. Over 96 percent of them registered for the conference electronically ­ with 83 percent using the Web. That was just the beginning. Even though the new conference saw almost twice as many participants as those of either EDUCOM or CAUSE in prior years, the three meeting venues (Convention Center, Hyatt Hotel, Renaissance Hotel and the Westin Hotel) were in close proximity to one another, avoiding the need to board a shuttle bus every time you want to go to a new location. For most of us, the sunny 1970s weather ameliorated any thought of grousing during the forced marches.

Another noticeable improvement this year was in network accessibility. The network was as sophisticated as those on many of our campuses with one large difference ­ its lifespan was only one week. The conference network consisted of multiple T-1 lines coming from the hotels into the exhibit hall floor where two DS3s provided for access to the Internet. The corporate sponsored PCs, Macs and laptop Internet ports were more abundant than ever and the lines to use them were considerably shorter.

In addition to the three general session speakers (Colin Powell, Rita Colwell, and Barry Munitz) the conference included:

• •

  30 half- and full-day pre-conference seminars;

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  eight featured speakers addressing key issues facing higher education;

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  more than 100 concurrent sessions housed within five main tracks;

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  a special track with 29 concurrent sessions that focus on EDUCAUSE itself;

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  nearly 130 informal poster sessions;

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  24 constituent group meetings;

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  26 corporate presentations and workshops;

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  over 150 exhibitors;

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  15 Birds-of-a-Feather sessions organized by the conferees themselves.

The First General Session

Introduction

The first General Session began Wednesday at 8.30 a.m. with Brian Hawkins, President of EDUCAUSE, greeting a packed "conference arena". He talked about the path taken to form the new association and how much care was put into planning this inaugural conference. He then introduced the Program Chair, Jill Arnold, who talked about the new ways that the pre-conference committee and staff built a program centered on "communities of interest". She in turn introduced Jay Nusbaum, a Vice President at Oracle, whose company sponsored the keynote speaker. Mr Nusbaum mentioned that the "Oracle Promise" supports the keynote speaker's non-profit organization, "America's Promise", with $100,000,000 of financial support. As the packed house waited, Mr Nusbaum simply said, "It is my pleasure to introduce to you the chair of America's Promise, General Colin Powell, who will talk to us about 'Challenges of a Changing World'."

The General Speaks

General Powell was a professional soldier for 35 years before his retirement in 1993. As many of us know, Powell started from humble beginnings in the South Bronx, New York, to go to the City College of New York. Upon graduation he was commissioned as an Army infantry lieutenant. He served twice in Vietnam, earned a Master's degree in business administration from George Washington University, was selected as a White House Fellow, and served tours of duty in Korea and twice in Germany. In the 1980s, he served as senior military assistant to the Secretary of Defense and as assistant to the President for national security affairs. He attained the rank of general in 1989 and was appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff the same year. He oversaw Operation Desert Storm in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. After his retirement, his 1995 autobiography, My American Journey, made him a bestselling author as well. In 1997, Powell chaired the President's Summit for America's Future in Philadelphia. Since then he has been serving as chair of American's Promise ­ The Alliance for Youth, the national campaign on behalf of the nation's young that was launched at the summit.

Powell mentioned that he is most proud of his two grandchildren and his work with "America's Promise". He joked that he is an analog grandfather and his two grandsons are digital kids. He went on to talk about America's Promise (financially backed by Oracle and other corporate sponsors) and asked the question, "Where are the 'minority boys'?" He was referring to how many minority children along with their non-minority counterparts get to go to schools where there are computers, the Internet and librarians. Minority children face bigger challenges because, even with these resources, they still go home to an environment that is not as supportive as the environment awaiting the majority of non-minority children. The five fundamental parts of America's Promise are:

1. 1.

   Caring, loving adults (mentors, tutors, boys' and girls' clubs);

2. 2.

   Safe places (boys' and girls' clubs);

3. 3.

   Healthy start in life (nutrition and health care);

4. 4.

   Marketable skills in the information age (Oracle, AOL); and

5. 5.

   Kids' service (give back to the community).

After going into some detail on each one of these five points Powell began the memoirs portion of his 40-minute address. He talked about his family, his early military days, his days as a general, and his work with the Presidents beginning with Ronald Reagan. He wrapped things up with a spellbinding story about his role in the preliminary talks held between US Secretary of State George Schultz and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1988. Gorbachev said to Powell, "I'm ending the cold war ­ sorry, General, you will have to find a new enemy." Powell remarked, "From that moment on my world changed." The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 and now, Powell snorted, "Gorbachev is now my competitor on the US lecture circuit. He's now doing Pizza Hut commercials and Bob Dole is doing commercials for Viagra ­ go figure." For the first time in history, "democracy" is the dominant ideology of the world and we are hopefully entering the new century without a competing ideology. He concluded, "What's missing? Give soldiers a mission, training and a family and they will succeed. Why isn't this happening in civilian society? We need to promote the concept of the family for 'all the children' ­ this needs to be our nation's strategic position." The keynote speaker delighted and enthralled his spellbound audience and received thundering applause and a standing ovation.

Acknowledgements and Awards

Brian Hawkins had a tough act to follow when he presented the winners of the five 1999 EDUCAUSE award programs. Fortunately, he was able to interest the slightly diminished audience by showing a well-produced video about each award winner. Mike Roberts, Interim President and CEO of ICANN, received SCT's Excellence in Leadership award; Seton Hall University received Novell's Campus Networking award; PeopleSoft's Best Practices award went to Washington State University; CAUSE/EFFECT Contribution of the Year award went to Dorothy Frayer of Duquesne University. Four EDUCAUSE Medals, whose recipients were nominated by an outside professional association for the innovative ways they have used technologies to create active, learner-centered education, were awarded to: Phillip W. Barak of the University of Wisconsin for his outstanding Web site on soil sciences (the American Society of Agronomy); Randall J. Bass of Georgetown University for his outstanding Web site on American Studies (the American Studies Association); Jack Dangermond of ESRI for his Web site on GIS (the Association of American Geographers); and Dorothy H. Verkerk of the University of North Carolina for her outstanding Web site on Celtic Art (the College Art Association).

To end the first General Session, Brian Hawkins brought up Mike Roberts, Excellence in Leadership award recipient, for a special recognition and presentation of a plaque. Mike had been the Vice President for networking at EDUCOM for many years and held various posts in both prior associations.

The Second General Session

Introduction

The Second General Session was held on the following day. Hawkins opened the session with a thank you for members who helped organize the pre-conference. Jill Arnold followed with housekeeping announcements and the introduction of the MCI Worldcom speaker, Rita Colwell, Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) who presented "Information Technology: Ariadne's Thread through the Science and Technology Labyrinth".

Rita Colwell

The National Science Foundation, an independent agency of the federal government, provides support for research and education in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology. Prior to becoming NSF director in 1998, Colwell served as president of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute and professor of microbiology at the university. She has held numerous advisory positions in the US government and private foundations, as well as in the international community. She is a nationally respected scientist and educator with 16 books and 500 scientific publications behind her.

Colwell began her talk with a commercial about the NSF's 50th anniversary. She then mentioned that the NSF had just received almost all of its $4 billion budget request. There will be a $90 million budget increase for computer initiatives and $36 million set aside for equipment in the terascale project aiming to link science and society.

Colwell traced the NSF's role in the history of the Internet and offered a glimpse of future frontiers. She explored how the role of information technology in today's world of science and technology compares to the mythological thread that Ariadne used to guide Theseus through the treacherous labyrinth. Her initial thesis explored how the IT-squared initiative ("Information Technology for the Twenty-first Century"), led by NSF, will strengthen the fiber of information technology and its links to all fields. Advances in other NSF priority areas ­ biocomplexity and educating the future workforce ­ are intertwined with progress in information technology. Colwell argued that the thread needs to be connected to new areas such as extending science and engineering education to under-represented groups and bringing advanced networking to the broader higher education community. She posited three notions:

1. 1.

   Seek unity ­ We need to come to grips with the new computing model (theory ­ experience ­ simulation leading to new linkages). The NSF is putting great emphasis on a new thrust ­ "Biocomplexity". She is very interested in this thrust since it encompasses her own personal area of research, Vibriocholerae, or the circular representation of the large chromosome. She illustrated the tremendous linkage between the research within these projects and the Internet. She sees the Internet as "the thread between disciplines".

2. 2.

   Revolutionize education ­ Colwell recommended reading Douglas Robertson's The New Renaissance to better understand the brain's complexity as it relates to learning. She insisted that "there must be a stronger linkage between universities and K-12 in forming true partnerships".

3. 3.

   Erasing the digital divide ­ Colwell then emphasized the division between the information haves and the have-nots in the USA and among the rest of the world. While less than 2 percent of the world is on the Web, Colwell insisted, "the racial gap is increasing".

She then cleared her throat and made the following announcement:

• •

  NSF has just awarded almost $6 million over four years to help institutions of higher learning that traditionally serve minority communities prepare for the next generation of information technology and computer networks, and the best to last ­ the grant will be administered by EDUCAUSE.

In a prepared press release to support this announcement, Vice President Al Gore said, "I am delighted that the NSF is reaching out to minority-serving institutions in support of the administration's Next Generation Internet initiative." In the same release Colwell said, "the country vitally needs the talents of the groups underrepresented in the computing field." Brian Hawkins also noted, "EDUCAUSE has been centrally involved in the networking of higher education from the beginning. We are delighted to be able to work with NSF and the minority-serving institutions in this critical effort to extend the benefits of advanced networking and computing throughout the community."

Colwell concluded her remarks with, "The thread of information technology runs through our role as educators regarding seeking unity, understanding learning and equalizing the playing field via universal access to information resources."

One Obvious Benefit

After the General Sessions, the participants got a chance to go to a variety of sessions or to the extensive exhibits area. One obvious benefit of combining into one annual conference was the vendors' increased interest in "doing it up right". There was a noticeable difference in the quality and effort they put into their support of the conference itself and their individual exhibits within the exhibit hall. Another observable difference was the increase of Web-related and service-provider vendors.

All Aboard!

The main reason for this review's subtitle, "The Inaugural Cruise", was the Thursday evening event, "All Aboard the Queen Mary", sponsored by Microsoft and PeopleSoft. The sponsors rented the entire ship, permanently docked in Long Beach Harbor a mile across from the Conference Center. Some of us were already staying in this magnificent hotel during the conference. But on this night "the old girl" provided every participant with a night to enjoy her history, ambiance, food, five entertainment venues, and numerous cash bars. The ship was built in Scotland and launched in May 1936 and much of the interior retains its Art Deco style. The Queen Mary made its final voyage, around the world to Long Beach, in 1967. It was opened to the public for viewing in 1970 and, later, parts of her cabin areas were converted into hotel rooms. What a bon voyage party! It is impossible to think of a more fitting tribute to the launching of EDUCAUSE than to have its major celebration on such a magnificent ship.

Some of us had to leave this wonderful vessel first thing Friday morning before the conference concluded at noon. The final plenary session sponsored by SCT was presented by Barry Munitz, president and CEO of the Paul J. Getty Trust. That session, focusing on higher education as a competitive industry, is reviewed elsewhere in this issue.

See You Next Year

Of course, an annual conference is not the sole reason for creating a new association but if EDUCAUSE'99 is any indication of how right it was to have a single conference in October instead of two smaller ones in two separate months, then this goes double for merging EDUCOM and CAUSE into the EDUCAUSE association. Bravo and full speed ahead!

EDUCAUSE 2000 will be held October 8-11 in Nashville. Gee! Nashville doesn't have a cruise ship. I wonder where the Thursday night party might be? Don't tell me ­ I'll have to head south next October and find out for myself.

For access to the proceedings for EDUCAUSE'99 and information about the next annual conference see: http://www.educause.edu

Note

1. For additional information about this new organization, its first conference, and efforts of special interest to the library community, see Hawkins, B.L., "EDUCAUSE: Reflections on the First 500 Days" in this issue.

Morell Boone is Dean, Learning Resources and Technologies, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI. morell.boone@emich.edu