Show and Tell

It's the end of the semester at Harvard.

Classes are over. Exams are done or soon to be done. The calming rush to the break has begun. Even the weather, once strangely Floridian, has surrendered to cold, usual habits.

A delicious demo at the Science & Cooking Fair.

At SEAS, each day brings yet another fair (your pick of elegant programming or pasta 2.0); exhibition (innovations like email you can squeeze or cable TV right on your laptop), or end of class project demo (racing ATVs powered by screwdriver motors or racing cell lines on a microfluidic track).

You might say that engineers like to show off.

Then again, demonstrating solutions, innovations, and engaging with an audience is part of the design process.

For the attendees the events are inspiring, fun, eye-opening, and sometimes overwhelming. Upon leaving the CS 50 fair---jam packed with students, squeeze balls, and heavy bass beats (and several costumed angry birds)---many felt as if they had just left a late night club on Landsdowne street.

I wouldn't want to be that egg.

During the fray of back-to-back expos, I myself tasted egg free garlic aioli; learned about a smart course/concentration selection tool that takes dumb data and transforms into useful intelligence; delved into the inner workings of a new, safer cranial drill; and met Lit majors who built Andoid apps and biologists who created online anatomy tools.

In the words of our dean, that we are attracting concentrators from all fields is downright "cool."

After each showcase, I heard a similar refrain from friends and colleagues who had the chance to peak into the inner workings of active learning: "I would love to take that class!"; "I want to see even more---let me know when anything else is coming up."; "I mean, wow, this is not the same Harvard of even five years ago."

These reactions---for a field that most high school students know almost nothing about ("Intel survey of teenagers shows that they don't know what engineers do, limiting from choosing those careers.") may suggest that we are winning the war on scientific and engineering literacy.

It's a good, if not great, start---but only a start.

The fairs, after all, only show a part of the inner workings of engineering and the applied sciences. The latter elements (especially the applied sciences) are harder to get your hands around.

At Harvard, we pride ourselves on our distinguished history of basic science and theory. Soil mechanics. Radio. NMR. Environmental modelling. The mechanics of cracking and breaking.

Even theoretical physics can be fun.

Today, a good number of our faculty remain committed to teasing out the limits of applied math (modeling how a flower grows and forms); rethinking common concepts like the stability of emulsions; or bending and twisting the laws of physics.

However impressive and important, these are not the easiest findings to display and play with (let alone write about).

When reporting on more theoretically-minded findings, a common joke in the SEAS Communications Office is that the following line will inevitably have to be invoked: "To achieve the breakthrough the team conducted some very sophisticated modelling."

Meaning, if we went into the details, the amount of math we would need to show and terms we would need to define would be harrowing.

The challenge of making theory tangible brings to mind a fantastic editorial by Bruce Wightman, "A Better Rationale for Science Literacy."

I think there may be a better reason that science literacy should be a major component of higher-education curricula. There is something transcendent about studying science. The humanities and social sciences, for the most part, concern themselves with the creations of human beings, our behavior, or the structure of our societies. In contrast, the sciences force us to confront the smallness and irrelevance of human beings; they serve as an antidote to self-obsession. Physics teaches us that time and matter are not absolutes; biology, that astonishing complexity can arise from a long, natural, stepwise process. The scope and existential implications of these ideas are immense.

Yes ... a lot of engineering is hands-on, touchable, and even tasteable---and by being so, it readily inspires. At the same time, to get to those apps and neat demos, required a lot of theory, wild physics, and all the intangible things that don't fit well in a display. They too are vital.

Equally emphasizing theory is also an anecdote to those worry that too much emphasis on engineering (a practical science) means that we are taking away from the traditional values of academia, or learning for its own sake.

In A Crimson article about the Occupy Harvard movement, alum and journalist Christopher Hedges sounded the warning cry:

In his speech, Hedges stressed the importance of the liberal arts education and expressed concerns about the increasing focus on science and technical fields at Harvard, saying that Harvard has begun to transform into 'a giant sort of engineering school with a few liberal arts courses.'

While he was way off base on his facts (engineering students comprise a mere 12% of the undergraduate student body), he and many others commit a far deeper error about engineering and the applied sciences. So much of their value comes from the quest to understand the way the world works, whether that has any practical import or not.

Wonder, it turns out, is reason enough to go exploring. And not just for ivory tower academics.

Mining on the moon may be a good reason to raise taxes.

When asked to explain why he would spend tax dollars on mining minerals on the moon, Newt Gingrich gave a savvy, yet sensitive response.

Just as the moon shot inspired him as a kid, he too wanted to inspire today's kids to go into science and engineering by giving them a grand, seemingly impossible challenge.

In an era where jobs, taxes, and the economy rule, the idea that a fiscal conservative would appeal to knowledge for is own sake was, well, amazing. And so, bravo!

In the coming years, more fairs that allow the Harvard community and the public to get their hands around engineering will likely debut. That's fantastic.

At the same time, we should not forget the quieter, less showy aspects that fuel discovery. Back to Wightman:"But first and foremost, they should become scientifically literate because, to borrow Darwin's phrase, "there is grandeur in this view of life."

Idealism, it turns out, is absolutely compatible with innovation.

Higher Things

Food stuff in the form of an ethereal, but very real foam.

"And... we also make things. Create stuff. You know, physical objects."

That quip came out of a white-board enabled conversation about defining Harvard. In fact, I said it and my colleague at the design school immediately seconded the notion.

As mentioned in prior posts, institutions grounded in the liberal arts, even those with heavy research components, become addicted to high-minded gerunds like: educating leaders; creating the next generation of thinkers; pushing the boundaries; facilitating innovation; advancing knowledge; making the world a better place; empowering change.

All are aspirational and even inspirational ideals. All are also very abstract---and not the easiest to hone in on analytically.

In her baccalaureate address of 2011, Harvard President Drew Faust said:

The original mission of Harvard was to inculcate goodness. As I have said before, 'veritas' was not value-neutral. It came with ethical underpinning, designed to help you ask the questions 'What do I truly value? How do I want to live my life?' The world you face is daunting, and it is uncertain. Charting a course is hard. But you are well prepared — with the analytic spirit, the capacity for questioning and for judgment, and the habits of mind your education has given you these past four year.

Of course, Harvard does not have a lock on the categorical imperative---others too seek universal truths. 

• "Seeking solutions. Educating leaders. This is our mission." - Stanford
  
• "... teaching tomorrow's thought leaders to learn to think otherwise, care for others, and create and disseminate knowledge with a public purpose." - Cornell

• "... creating new knowledge and conveying the knowledge we have to the next generation" - Columbia

The above statements are all taken from campaign materials. Campaigns are the time when institutions dust off their missions and apply a bit of modern touch-up paint.

Alas, the 2.0 versions all end up sounding not all that dissimilar from the 17th and 18th century rhetoric: training and sending out an enlightened individuals [clergy, at that time] to espouse their teachings.

They don't call it the ivy league for nothing.

What's missing from these missions is the corporeal nature of knowledge.

Of course, you may predict that I will say engineering, is the missing link. (And I must happily admit my bias.)

At SEAS, after all, we have a dean who likes to say, "We build cool stuff!" 

Robots, cranial drills, novel materials, water filters, quantum dots, cancer vaccines, smart cities, nanowires, solid oxide fuel cells, and even social networks (oh my!).

The same "thing"-ness applies for the design school, as architects aren't just in the planning business, but in the building business.

Yep.That's a lot of engineering "stuff."

GSD Dean Dean Mohsen Mostafavi wrote, "Rethinking the conventions of design practice is, for us, an optimistic and essential project, undertaken with the knowledge that our efforts make a difference in the physical environment."

As much as I would enjoy having design and engineering at the heart of a future campaign, the 'physical environment' and 'cool stuff' applies equally across the Yard---and thus should be reflected in whatever bright-eyed messaging Harvard ends up using.

Here are a few examples:

• Campuses and structures matter (just ask those currently Occupying Harvard.) Ivy, after all, is the physical manifestation of elite education and of higher education in general. With the pending disruption of online, in-your-pajamas education, I think it is important that colleges and universities hold on to their enclaves, celebrate them as a distinct attribute.

• Books and collections are physical. Even now. Famed author John Updike, a Harvard alum, gave his collection to the archives. "Updike had wanted to know that the outward signs of his literary ardor—decades of handwritten drafts, typescripts, galleys, and research files—would survive him."

• The environment and sustainability---whether setting global policies or inspiring 'green' behaviors---are inextricably bound with the earth, sky, and ocean---and those seven billion people "consuming" the planet.

• Economics is the study of stuff (people's stuff). Adam's Smith's pin factory may know make iPods---but the theory remains the same. When we lose sight of the human nature of economics, things like the financial crisis happen, as abstraction replaces common sense (and well, decency).

• Educators, like those trained at the Ed School, end up in cities, towns, and in real live classrooms. The where of learning in such cases, matters almost as much as the what being taught.

Other examples abound.

Thus, even if we do not put engineering and design into the mix, we should not view education and knowledge as primarily ethereal.

Knowledge, even the most abstract, ends up landing somewhere and taking shape. Choices, even the well-educated ones of Harvard's alumni, eventually become manifest.

To build a better Harvard---and dare I say a better world---requires the stuff for dreams.

Are We Reaching: Part 2

Students lit up when they saw the LED t-shirts for Harvard's 375th.

In the last post, we asked how do you reach students?

As written about in earlier posts, often colleges and universities are so caught up in reaching prospective students they forget about the ones they have right in their own hallways.

The up-front lesson worth remembering: current students influence prospective students (far more than we do) and current students go on to be alumni (and they take their experiences with them).

I have heard stories from our own alums to the effect of: "Wow, I really had no idea about all the resources available to me! We had a career office? Really?" Or, something akin to: "Trying to find out what was going on or how to say, do summer research, was nearly impossible."

That's where good communication comes in.

A warning in advance. What follows is one of those lists that many might say, well duh, I already know all of this. If that is the case, then think of it as a check-up. If you are doing all of these things, how might you do them better? Or how might you obtain some analytics to do an assessment? 

On a practical level, how do you get the messages (often which are important, exciting, useful) through all the clutter without becoming part of the clutter?

• Email still works. Yes, email---the original killer app for the Internet is still going strong. Good email lists also still matter. Even in the age of spam, people still like being invited to something and knowing about things (even if they have no desire to attend). Be sure to edit and prune the lists constantly. HTML email can be great, but it should be used thoughtfully and not to the detriment of the most vital information. (A personal pet peeve is when dates, times, and locations are nearly impossible to find among all of the graphics and photos.) 
• Formal invitations mean more. While used more rarely these days, as above, folks still like getting invites, especially more exclusive ones (say from the dean, president, or other VIP). Whether it is via Paperless Post or actual paper, don't underestimate the power of old school communication methods.
  
• Posters merit pausing. Yes, the kinds that are stapled, taped, and hung all around campus. Very 1980's for sure. People really do stop and stare for a moment, if not longer. Some of the more attractive posters are even "stolen." (Trust us on this.) There's something about physical reminders and paper in particular that soothes the overactive mind.
  
• Videos can encourage engagement, but may not be worth the investment. If the video is necessary to "show" the nature of the event, provide instructions, the resource of an office, or explain a benefit, then the effort might make sense. If it is yet one more channel, think hard before getting the camera out of the case. I think the promo for Harvard Thinks Big is good example along with course trailers.
  
• Group outings encourage attendance. People like to go to things with other people. People like knowing "who will be there." Finding ways to create and support affinity groups is essential to good attendance or participation in an activity. It's a friendly form of peer pressure. After all, just as no one wants to go to see a bad movie alone, few want to attend an event or visit a new lab without someone else to share in the excitement.
  
• One-on-one marketing connects. Who doesn't enjoy someone taking the time to say, "Hey, I think you might enjoy this. Or have you seen this fantastic opportunity---it would be perfect!" Caring is truly sharing. Folks in communications can facilitate this or suggest that others reach out in person.
  
• If the dean (or president) deems it important, they will come (or submit an application, etc.). While when used in excess you can fall into the trap of always calling wolf, is something is critical or vital to the institution, then pull out the big guns.
  
• Door-to-door soliciting isn't always annoying. I admit to rustling people up prior to an event or activity to ensure attendance. Someones people are so locked into what they are doing they need a jolt to snap out of it and, yes, attend an info session on future careers in aviation.
  
• Web 2.0 technologies are fantastic. And yet, they are simply one more channel, not necessarily a replacement of existing methods or a good indicator of attendance.
  
• Communications cultures vary. At Google, they place daily single page print newsletters with useful information in all of the bathrooms (on the backs of stalls and right above urinals).
• Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Everyone complains about getting too many emails, e-letters, and so on. People complain even more when they don't receive information. 

On a philosophical level, how do you deal with what author Barry Schwartz calls the "paradox of choice."

• Become a human filter. Editors still matter. How you rank activities and choices on a website or even on physical signs sends very powerful messages. Work with fellow administrators (and students!) to figure out what is truly valuable. In addition, use analytics (sometimes on the fly) to drive attention to something that is not gaining visibility or to help determine what is working well.
  
• Use a self-selecting filter. The students in CS50 developed an event calendar that pulls from all calendars across Harvard. http://events.cs50.net/

• Same bat time, same bat channel. When possible, keep a series of talks, activities, open houses, etc. at the same time and location. It makes it easier to remember and also means you have to do less work to remind people. Common hours (or free periods) are also valuable in this regard.
  
• Go to the audience. Consider announcing a new thing or new activity prior to class starting, a large-scale meeting, or in one where you hope those attending will spread the news. I give a lot of credit to the new director of the Harvard Innovation Lab for visiting students directly in their houses (i.e. dorms) to present all of the programs on offer.
  
• Declare a snow day. If an event, activity, or say grand opening of a new building, is mission-critical, then tell everyone that they essentially have the day off for the purpose of attending the activity. In retrospect, as much as the 375th Celebration of Harvard was a wonderfully wet experience, I keep speculating what would have happened if they just would have had it mid-day, cancelled classes and other activities, and just let people hang out and celebrate.

• Reward (or require) attendance. The carrot and stick model can be effective. I recall having to go to some external talks as part of a course. The professor would say, "Given that we are studying the collapse of the Soviet Union and that the world leading expert on the matter is giving a talk tonight, I require you to go. Yes, it will be on the exam."
  
• What you think is great, they might not think is great. I recently received several frantic phone calls from a colleague wondering why our students and faculty were not rushing to submit proposals for a collaborative research activity. Did I simply not send out the email? I did. I then was quite frank in explaining that the reward (see above) was way too low for people to want to engage---limited funding for projects they were likely already engaged in through other means. Too often universities create centers, initiatives, calls for proposals, etc. that replicate what is already happening on campus. Search for what is already out there before creating something new.
  
• Make it fun. Make it easy. Enough said. In an ideal world with infinite time, people truly would do x or attend y just for the sake of it. These days, a bit of "wow" or pizzazz goes a long way.

I will end with an anecdote.

These posters certainly connected with students.

In the 1990s administrators in the College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University faced a quandary.

A huge portion of the undergraduate population was majoring in business---to the great aggravation of other academic programs.

To combat the trend, the higher-ups hired a communications firm to create an internal advertising campaign directed at students to let them know about the world beyond Wall Street.

They came up with a tagline---Major In Liberal Arts and Sciences: Think for a Living---and a series of colorful, and often arresting ads.

THES ran an article about the novel campaign:

But rather than being applauded, the advertising campaign was met with scathing criticism inside and outside the school.

Students in other departments complained they were being portrayed as unthinking drones. The college was assailed by academics who sniffed that advertising was "below" it.

Do business majors not dream?

"A student who could be convinced to study arts and sciences because of a catchy slogan on a colourful banner would have to be the most weak-minded undergraduate ever admitted" to the university, said Daniel Pollyea, himself an arts and sciences major.

"There are obvious financial benefits for the college of arts and sciences to take on more students, but the fine line that once separated the academic world from blatant commercial and financial interests has been irreparably smeared."

Philip Gossett, dean of humanities at the University of Chicago, said the ads were slick and funny, but also offensive. "The ads won't fool anyone.

(From The Times Higher Education Supplement, http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=145061&sectioncode=26%29)

The ads were quickly discontinued (not before, however, I requested a few of the posters to hang on my wall.)

If you work at a place where everyone does "think for a living" make sure to think very carefully about your approach to reaching your intended student audience.

Are We Reaching? : Part 1

Courtesy of Flickr user daveknapik

How do you reach students?

That sounds like some kind of existential or leading pedagogical question. A question that has been "answered" in movies like Mona Lisa Smile, Dead Poets Society, or the Great Debaters. To reach students just add an inspiring, yet stern lecturer who makes a connection; stand on a table and profess an uncomfortable truth; or in the case of where I work, rip a textbook in half and say, "don't be part of the heard."

(That last bit really happened, as part of a video on innovation at Harvard. A member of the engineering faculty really did cleave a book in two with his bare hands---a trick that was performed earlier at a Harvard Think Big talk by a computer science instructor. I promise, we really do like the printed page.)

On the other hand, watch The Social Network, and well, the solution to getting inside a student's digital soul is right there in the title.

In my line of work the question of how to reach students is, alas, quite literal: as in, how do you get students to find out about a new program in applied computational science, an event with the former president of India, an internship opportunity with Microsoft, or gasp, a policy on the proper use of the school's identity.

How do you get them to stop, drop, and not roll their eyes?

How do you get them to slow down their buzzing brains to let in a nanosecond of new information?

As a communications officer, you are besieged by daily requests to "help get the word out" or to "encourage your students to apply for great opportunity #1,853" or to "get the community to show their spirit and volunteer for marching in a parade!"

My office gets overwhelmed coping with the publicity; I cannot imagine how those on the receiving end of all of these urgent missives feel. Well, actually, part of my job is to try to figure out how to communicate with clarity under such constraints.

Illustration by Mark Todd.

Yet, wait. Aren't these the kind of multitasking, socially networked, over-programmed kids who can process ad infinitum? Can't they juggle knives and knowledge without being cut? Don't they drink from the fire hose of veritas?

In the New York Times, alum and book publisher James Atlas called them the Super People.

"It’s a select group to begin with, but even so, there doesn’t seem to be anyone on this list who hasn’t mastered at least one musical instrument; helped build a school or hospital in some foreign land; excelled at a sport; attained fluency in two or more languages; had both a major and a minor, sometimes two, usually in unrelated fields (philosophy and molecular science, mathematics and medieval literature); and yet found time — how do they have any? — to enjoy such arduous hobbies as mountain biking and white-water kayaking."

Of course, Atlas is describing a Super Person's ability to walk, talk, chew gum, and save the world all at the same time.

Such parallel processing also implies that these students can attend to vast amounts of information and well, attend lots of events---without reverting to information overload (as in the funny commercials for the Bing search engine.)



So what's one more thing? As I have mentioned in prior posts, an amazing aspect of Harvard (or any university for that matter) is its convening power.

In a given week we have more activities that any one person could even read about let alone show up for---even if aided by Hermione's Time Turner (a magical device that allows her to be in two place at once, primarily so she can take additional academic courses).

The activities are both internal (hosted by a school like ours), university-wide (like the 375h birthday party), or external (as in visits by heads of state). Moreover, for most students, all of these activities are in addition to their classes, clubs, and athletic activities.

I recall a late, great applied physics faculty member extolling my office for "putting out far too many event announcements"---as in, why do we possibly need to host so many colloquia given that there's no way to attend them all. He conflated our publicizing the events with us actually producing them.

In fact, at Harvard, every time you turn around you see yet another great lecture series on topic x. Every center, de facto, has its own series. Every department has several. Every school has hundreds if not thousands. And if you miss it, don't worry, you can watch it later online.

In addition to lecture series, each entity also now seems to have some kind of academic program even if they are not actually a school or have no way to grant a degree (a consortium, concentration, short-course, or a fellowship); a grants or awards program; and often an opportunity to tackle a given problem by just signing up!

Harvard, like many institutions of higher learning, reflects the Super People mindset. Some might say that such places, through the ever-increasing competitive admissions race, may have helped create the very Super People it now supports, and thus, is perpetuating the over-programming. In short, the snake bites its own tail again and again.

SEAS paraders at the 375th. Photo courtesy of Harvard Magazine.

For the 375th celebration of Harvard, for example, various deans and faculty were invited to multiple special events all at the same time (and often quite far apart, phyiscally). The response for how to deal with this dilemma was to, I kid you not, "think of it as a kind of pub crawl".

Our dean (and many others from what I heard) found this exasperating. Keep in mind, these are the kind of leaders that, by virtue of their roles, are inevitably overbooked.

I get the sense from the students that, each day, they face a very similar challenge of how to map out their days and nights.

As communications offices are, in part, there to help organize the chaos into something coherent for their various audiences, how can we become the best executive secretaries we can be and help ease the selection process or narrow down the choices?

I view this as a two-pronged issue.

• On a practical level, how do you get the messages (often which are important, exciting, useful) through all the clutter without becoming part of the clutter? In my day, we had a weekly printed publication of all of the events and activities at the college (all rendered in eye-harming 8 point type). If it wasn't in that publication, it wasn't happening on campus (or at least the students didn't want the administration know that it was happening.)
  
  
• On a philosophical level, how do you deal with what author Barry Schwartz calls the "paradox of choice." Too many choices is often worse than fewer ones, if not paralyzing. In a related book by Johah Leher, How We Decide, the author describes a scenario where he was so overwhelmed by the overwhelming selection of supermarket cereals that he clammed up and stood frozen in the isle for several minutes.

In my next posting, I will present some solutions.

In the meantime, if you want to feel dizzy, just check out the University calendar. I mean, wow. It's overwhelming in that cool kind of way---so much is happening all at once, all within a relatively concentrated space.

Maybe Harvard should borrow a popular tagline and apply it it itself: "To infinity and beyond."

Analytics Overload

"We are hoping this thing goes viral!"

Is that the Harvard campus I see?

So said a colleague about a video that, to be honest, looked like a homage to the classic horror show Dark Shadows.

The bucolic leafy campus was rendered in over-saturated grayscale and a tinny voice (likely from a few centuries ago) was mumbling on about being in Cambridge.

I was worried that the clip could actually cause a virus. (Judge for yourself---and by doing so, you could help that video go viral.)

Thanks to analytical tools like Google Analytics, Chartbeat, Social Flow or simply eyeballing how many likes or followers you have, success or failure is merely a click away. Such instant evaluation is a mixed blessing to those in communications---and to deans and other administrators.

Sure, we send out a snapshot of our +s and -s each month (even though, in the words of another colleague, "who knows if anyone actually looks at these stats.") Getting a major boost in web traffic or having a press release spread like a wildfire is gratifying. (As I write this, a story about a slippery surface inspired by the pitcher plant is snaking its way through cyberspace. Cool!)

You like us! You really like us!

By any measure, Harvard is hard to miss online. The big H has over 700,000 friends on Facebook, the equivalent to the entire population of greater Boston. Wow!

Moreover, Harvard was ranked #2 in a list of social media colleges.

I honestly couldn't tell you what that means---other than, thanks to being so decentralized, just about every school, center, institute, and person with an idea, likely has their own social media empire, thereby magnifying our digital footprint ad infinitum.

That said, I think it it fantastic that videos from courses like Justice or CS 50 have become "hits"---and that people really use them to, well, learn. The same goes for TED talks or our Science & Cooking public lectures (some reaching 100,000+ views).

Universities have a fantastic opportunity to use social media to share knowledge and ideas, especially with the distribution costs being relatively low.

Thinking of social media as a way to push content out, rather than to build a brand or increase yield, seems a smarter way to go. If better branding or higher donations is an after effect, then well, that's great. I do not think, however, it should ever be the aim.

John Rosenberg, the brilliant editor of Harvard Magazine said it best. "Just create really interesting content" and the rest will take care of itself. The old rules of journalism have not left us, even with all those Kindles and iPads. Story still matters.

Moreover, when you are not selling a product or beholden to shareholders and you simply cannot admit all of the qualified students who apply, how do you position gobs of data to the higher ups?

A good case study is the famed Glee-inspired Yale Admissions video, "That's Why I Chose Yale." Receiving over one million views on YouTube might suggest a fantastic success.



Notice that the comments are turned off. That was deliberate, as the frenzy that erupted after this toe-tapping treatment of one of the country's most prestigious universities was not always pretty. Will this video really help a prospective student to "choose Yale"? Well, maybe, as applications were way up. Alas, the yield was down. Maybe it was the video? Maybe not.

I do not think the lesson is not to make admissions videos. They can be helpful. The lesson could be to be as honest as possible about what an institution is really like. Again, let the stories tell themselves. (Having made a few non-recruitment recruitment videos, that's not always easy. We learned that going after what's cool, fun, and interesting was far more important than trying to convey a particular message or theme. The messages emerge on their own.)

As for success ... One viewing could make a difference to a donor or a student---and well, the rest could be history. For a small college, a few hundred targeted views could be fantastic and for a large well-known university millions of views could be meaningless.

Sure, keep tabs on all of those analytics --- to improve the user experience, to see what's hot and what's not, but be really careful about divining anything from the data.

As mentioned, I see social networking as an avenue for learning (which Apple, by the way, is really pushing as a theme with the iPad --- it's all about learning!)



Or, consider what Google's Al Spector '76 had to say in an interview I conducted with him about a year ago.

By putting out course materials and other assets, could Harvard easily be co-opted or virtualized elsewhere? Or could some of its essence be lost?

In my view, Harvard, by having its materials widely available, only increases its value to society. By so doing, it also increases its brand value. The more people who use Harvard materials, the more who will realize it is a marker for top scholarship.

Could you duplicate Harvard in a purely virtual or online world? My answer is ‘no’ because Harvard is most significantly the interactions of people, in a variety of settings, where co-location is quite important. I think of my undergraduate experience, for example, in North [now Pforzheimer] House. My interactions with my roommates Geoff Clemm [formerly of Sun and now at IBM] and Trip Hawkins [founder of Electronic Arts] as well as people in other disciplines, like Yo-Yo Ma, vastly enriched my education.

The open courseware initiatives, like the one at MIT, are a valuable approach, I think, to getting more material to a wider audience. There is a lot of change happening in education, but I see every reason to believe that the online technologies should significantly enhance Harvard in the broadest sense.

Given that Google is the king of analytics, I think he has the right take on how higher education can use social networking to further its mission. After all, if places like Harvard and MIT don't do so, someone else will.

Crlt+Alt+Del: A Higher Ed Reboot

That was not the classroom I sat in, but pretty close.

An unadorned room with bad lighting. A long wooden table surrounded by slightly uncomfortable chairs. A professor---white-bearded, tweed-jacketed. 12 students. A photocopied packet of great works, from Rousseau to Darwin to Veblen.

That was the set-up for one of the best academic courses I have taken. Ever.

HSCI E-113 Science, Technology, and the Good Society (21314) (Syllabus)
Peter Buck, PhD, Senior Lecturer on the History of Science, Harvard University.
Graduate seminar. 4 units. Graduate credit $1,325. Limited enrollment.
Thursday, Jan. 31, 5:30-7:30 pm, 51 Brattle Street, Room 219. Spring term

Seminar on the hopes and fears associated with scientific and technological change since the beginning of modern times. Ideas about how advances in science and technology will improve the human condition in the future. Explanations of why technical progress has not produced promised social and political benefits in the past. Readings include classic descriptions—More, Bacon, Condorcet, Mill, Marx—of what the good society will look like, when and if it arrives, and classic accounts—Hobbes, Weber, Veblen—of why expectations have not yet been met and, perhaps, cannot be realized.

Francis Bacon's is way smarter than you.

Professor Buck, who joined the Harvard faculty in 1966, is now retired. He had only one primary rule: we had to admit that all of the thinkers we were reading were way smarter than we were.

The aim of the course was to figure out, by close reading, exactly what they were saying and why they might be saying it, not to claim that Mill or Marx were "wrong."

We were not allowed to go beyond the text and bring in contemporary or personal assessments.

Such constraints were liberating and led to spirited discussions that he marvelously kept in check.

I admit to having many moments of... "This is why I love higher education!"

Alas, with e-readers and social networking sites ... students cast as consumers and faculty doubling as entertainers ... and the glow of the screen replacing the quite white of pulp and ink ... this throwback to a simpler time in academia may be in jeopardy.

In fact, according to two thinkers, the entire American higher education system is in a crisis. Harvard Business School's Clayton M. Christensen and his co-author Michael B. Horn believe all is not right in the ivory tower.

More fundamentally, the business model that has characterized American higher education is at—or even past—its breaking point.

Christensen, the guru on disruptive innovation, believes that with the advent of online learning, even venerable institutions like Harvard are vulnerable. That said, he's excited about what's to come.

What is exciting about this emerging reinvention it that it has significant potential to help address the challenges facing American higher education by creating an opportunity to rethink its value proposition—its cost and quality.

The ease of creating and distributing content (just look at the fantastic TED talks or MIT's Open Courseware or CS 50 right here at SEAS) have the potential to down costs while at the same time upping distribution. That may sounds like higher education should embrace the Walmart model---philosophy for 50% off and name-brand professor for less!

Christensen is, however, not suggesting that the popular for-profit online educational institutions of the day (many of which are now under attack for their aggressive recruiting methods and questionable outcomes) are the model. Instead, places like Harvard should embrace the new frontier and help set the standards for Higher Ed 2.0.

A case-in-point is Stanford's radical move to open up a popular course in Artificial Intelligence to anyone who wishes to take it. Here's the kicker: all the virtual participants can submit homework, take exams, and receive a grade. All eyes are going to be on that class for sure.

Before we move into an argument on the pros and cons of online learning, the sacredness of the campus, the idyllic professor-to-student experience (as I revelled about above), I'd like to take a step back.

"Former lecturer" Eric Mazur in action.

At SEAS we are very fortune to have the insights of a brilliant applied physicist and teaching expert, Eric Mazur.

Professor Mazur has been on a mission to disrupt another type of tradition: the lecture.

In "Farewell, Lecture" (Science Magazine), he talks about his personal discover that his teaching, for lack of a better word, stunk. He writes:

My lecturing was ineffective, despite the high evaluations ... The traditional approach to teaching reduces education to a transfer of information ... However, education is so much more than just information transfer, especially in science. New information needs to be connected to preexisting knowledge in the student's mind. Students need to develop models to see how science works. Instead, my students were relying on rote memorization.

In short, the students in his intro physics course were not learning. They could not apply basic concepts to new problems. Mazur, thinking as a scientist would, decided to apply the same methodology he used in the lab to the classroom.

Since this agonizing discovery, I have begun to turn this traditional information-transfer model of education upside down. The responsibility for gathering information now rests squarely on the shoulders of the students. They must read material before coming to class, so that class time can be devoted to discussions, peer interactions, and time to assimilate and think. Instead of teaching by telling, I am teaching by questioning.

Mazur went one step further, not only abandoning the traditional lecture, but bringing in whole new ways of engagement. He was an early adopter of clicker technology---a way for students to answer questions in real time and then see individual and class results in real time. Now he has moved onto mobile devices and is even using GPS to track how clusters of students tackle a given problem or how certain students influence other students and either help or hinder one another to the correct answer to a problem set.

Mazur will soon take  a sabbatical to help refine his teaching methods and empower other faculty at Harvard, especially in the sciences and engineering, to integrate his methods into their courses. He warns, however, that the technology is not the game-changer.

However, it is not the technology but the pedagogy that matters. Unfortunately, the majority of uses of technology in education consist of nothing more than a new implementation of old approaches, and therefore technology is not the magic bullet it is often presumed to be.

To quote Eric Clapton, "it's in the way that you use it." Meaning, before we rush into a YouTube utopia for higher education, it might be wise to figure out what is and is not working in the traditional classroom set-up. After all, even if all courses end up online one day (which I think is very likely), they still need to be well-crafted and thought out.

In parallel to further exploring and implementing Mazur's findings, our dean is committed to putting more of our course content online and using technology to enhance teaching and learning (from virtual office hours to social networking sites). For engineers, this just seems natural---why not use the same technology you teach about to enhance teaching itself?

David Malan makes a profound point.

David Malan, the hero behind the CS 50 revolution, will help lead the effort across the school and the entire College.

Malan has been incredibly smart in how he has used technology to enhance teaching. The aim is not to replace anything per se, but to find ways that an online video or a mobile app can help the student experience.

An online course selection tool developed through CS 50, for example, has transformed the way students shop and choose courses.

Virtual office hours have made it easier for undergraduates, many who keep odd hours, to connect. (In fact, one or our faculty now holds in-person office hours in the late evening, as that when the students are most likely to need the help.)

Sometimes by improving the basic clunky mechanics behind the educational engine, you get more bang for your buck than investing in a multimedia experience for a course on, say, Shakespeare.

In the case of the course I took from Professor Buck, he insisted that everyone come to class prepared, making a reaction paper (which he graded prior to the class) a requirement for entry. Such simple housekeeping kept the discussions focused and productive---and the solution was no-tech and free. Having taken dozens of courses, it still puzzles me that more professors do not adopt these simple solutions.

Online learning can be fun too!

Believe it or not, one of my other favorite academic experience was online---completely online. I took a sequence of technical writing courses from Northeastern University in what would have been in the early days of the online learning revolution (University of Phoenix did not exist then.) In that case, given the material and the need by many taking the course to managing demanding full-time jobs, the format was ideal.

In the case of both the seminar format of Professor Buck and the online system offered by NEU, as Mazur advocated, pedagogy took the lead, and the right methodology and format followed.

I agree that disruption to higher education is coming. I'd even admit that it is likely needed. I was chatting with CS faculty member and Extension School affiliate Henry Leitner last night about putting courses online. While we both were extolling all of the benefits, he summed it up in a way that I had not thought of before. "This is simply a great way for Harvard to give back. To share its intellectual wealth with the world. It's the right thing to do."

Again, online learning, while disruptive, should not be seen as the substitute teacher (or the substitute academic experience).

Decision-theory guru Jonah Leher wrote a brilliant piece on social networking that gets to the heart of the matter in his assessment of social networking versus actual socializing.

This doesn't mean that we should stop socializing on the web. But it does suggest that we reconsider the purpose of our online networks. For too long, we've imagined technology as a potential substitute for our analog life, as if the phone or Google+ might let us avoid the hassle of getting together in person...

These limitations suggest that the winner of the social network wars won't be the network that feels the most realistic. Instead of being a substitute for old-fashioned socializing, this network will focus on becoming a better supplement, amplifying the advantages of talking in person.

For years now, we've been searching for a technological cure for the inefficiencies of offline interaction. It would be so convenient, after all, if we didn't have to travel to conferences or commute to the office or meet up with friends. But those inefficiencies are necessary. We can't fix them because they aren't broken.

The point of Peter Buck's course on Science, Technology, and the Good Society, was just that, an exploration of "why expectations have not yet been met and, perhaps, cannot be realized." That should be kept in mind before higher education is given a reboot.

Superheroes and such

Jack Ryan and Captain Ramius in the Hunt for Red October.

I love the scene in Hunt for Red October when Jack Ryan is ungraciously air dropped into a submarine during a torrential storm. The film's hero, who professes a fear of flying and turbulence, has no special powers, weapons, or Conan-like physical attributes.

Instead, Ryan, the man sent to save the world from possible nuclear annihilation, is an academic. "I'm not an agent, I just write books for the CIA," he says, half-embarrassed.

Riffing on the same topic, the first Indiana Jones' flick opens with Indy teaching archeology in stuffy college classroom at fictional Marshall College. That even some of his foes later refer to him as "Dr. Jones"---without any irony---cements his status as a professorial superhero (with a whip).

Indeed, knowledge is the answer.

The higher ed adventurer/hero with high mental powers motif shows up again in The Da Vinci Code, the television series Fringe,  and even in the fabulously titled The Librarian. Iron Man could also be included, but the protagonist is as much industrialist as engineer. (Let's not even get started with Harry Potter, but sheesh, most of the film takes place inside the high school/college we all really wanted to attend---and what are wizards and witches other than faculty with magical powers.)

On the print side, academics get less of a warm welcome, especially considering recent works like John Updike's Roger's Version (about chaos theory and proving the existence of God) and Ian McEwan's latest, Solar (about a revolution in the physics of energy production).

Despite their grand achievements in world-altering science, morally, Roger Lambert and Michael Beard are less than superheros. (In Solar, McEwan, I think quite cheaply, thinly fictionalizes the entire former Harvard president Larry Summer's women in science and engineering fiasco.)

So, are you expecting me to suggest that, despite their faults, we should elevate academics to modern superhero status? Out with Captain American and in with the Chair of American Studies! Turn the librarians and labs into fantastic fortresses. After all, Jack Ryan and Indiana Jones did best the Russians and Nazi's, respectively, and well, saved the world.

Imagine entirely new movie franchises (in 3D) with academics saving the day with their brilliant retorts! Oh the faculty meetings would offer up a bevy of brilliance. I suspect that would, alas, end up being more Monty Python than Michael Bay.

UCSD's  library kind of looks like a fortress suitable for a superhero.

I am going to go one better. Should universities attempt to put a stake in the ground and help make the world a better place? Dare I say it, or say they are going to "save the world"?

Reading all of the PR copy (some of which I wrote) seems to suggest that the aim of most research universities is to use knowledge and its applications to solve our most challenging problems. (Just read some of President Faust's speeches or the recent op-ed from the SEAS dean, Cherry A. Murray.)

Tackle global warming. Discover cleaner, greener sources of energy. Cure disease. End hunger. Promote tolerance. Protect our privacy and security. End poverty. And even, revitalize the entire economy.

Aspirational, yes, but not without evidence or success. Especially during WWII universities like Harvard became hotbeds for practical science, cultivating everything from computing to cryptography to medical imaging to eventually, the Internet.

While slightly less grandiose, our Harvard friends at Public Health promoted the designated driver program, reducing drunk driving in the U.S.; the Ed school created Sesame Street, educating and inspiring generations of kids; HMS invented one of the first "cures" for certain types of cancer with the drug Gleevac; and at SEAS, we have a lot to pat ourselves on the pack about (See our list of favorite milestones (baking powder being my personal favorite)).

MIT has long been a game-changer.

MIT recently celebrated its 150th. And well, wow. It is hard to argue that without MIT, the world would be a very very different place. Email. Biotech. Radar. Quarks. The Roomba.

Case closed. Universities have long been superheroes! Hooray.

And yet. And yet. Other than in times of great distress (such as war), universities do not, in fact, boast that they are going to change (let alone save) the world or direct all of their energies towards a single-minded goal. Doing so is not only presumptuous, it is dangerous.

Any good Kuhnian knows that revolutions do not work in an orderly fashion and that "enemies" do not come in brightly colored tights. And most professors, especially in the sciences, are very weary of suggesting that their latest discoveries will lead to a manufacturing revolution, cure, or the next Google or Facebook. When such things happen the normal reaction is utter surprise. "I wasn't trying to change the world, I was just solving an interesting problem" is a common refrain.

Is picking low-hanging intellectual fruit enough?

It does seem disappointing. Universities do make a huge impact, but they have to be careful about over-promising the fruits of knowledge (except after the fact---as that is what alumni are for). And yes, knowledge for its own sake is a lovely, wonderful thing. You cannot, however, base fundraising campaigns or calls for massive government or corporate investments on picking low-hanging fruit.

Moreover, given the multi-billion dollar endowments of some of our most well-known institutions, underselling impact doesn't play all that well to alumni, budget-minded politicians eager to slash federal funding for research, or to the public. 

To hedge, Harvard, in particular, takes a different tactic, employing a kind of six-degrees-of-separation scheme. The tagline is: We educate leaders, who then go out and lead governments, companies, and institutions that end up making a difference.

This is reminiscent of like BASF's former tagline: "We don't make the products you buy. We make the products you buy better." (A typical advertisement is below.)

MIT, as it did for its 150th celebration, shows its contributions in a similar way: the number of spin-off companies and overall economic impact of various inventions and technologies.

These are all fine indicators of success. What they lack in the "wow" department they make up for in celebrating the long-term dynamism and overall value proposition of American higher education.

That said, I am a sucker for a good moonshot. And given our current government's distraction about debt, I doubt it is going to come from Washington---at least soon.

Couldn't universities step up, or better, band together, and declare: We will cure cancer. We will stop global warming. We will invent an ideal form of energy. We will revolutionize transportation.

IBM's Watson was a big risk and big reward endeavor.

Believe it or not, companies have been far less bashful about getting out in front of problems. IBM set out to create a machine that could pounce on the world's leading Jeopardy! players. Guess what? Watson did so with a flourish.

Google, honestly, wants to put everything its programmers can get their hands on online. Amazon is changing the way we read.

Apple changed music, forever. And private entrepreneurs are building planes that can fly in space and Virgin Galactic is signing up customers right now. On a bigger scale, consider that sequencing the human genome was a collaborate effort of a private company, the government, and higher education.

(And if you want to read about companies going a bit too far, check out Fordlandia, Henry Ford's quest to create an American Midwest-in-miniature in South America or books about Milton Hershey, the candy man who wanted to develop the perfect little utopia.)

So where does that leave universities in the world-bettering equation? Will we have to continue to look to fiction and film for our superheroes? Or wait for companies to tie profits to issues of great promise?

Instead, I think universities should think big and dream big.

• They can identify the kinds of problems that need to be solved---and show how, even in small ways, that they are making progress.
• They can collaborate and join together as in the case of the Internet 2.0 and partner with industry to tackle Moore's law, quantum computing, and other deeply challenging frontiers.
• With vast projects like the Large Hadron Collider, universities can continue to convince governments that it is worth the investment to get to the bottom of how our universe works and spark the public's imagination.
• They can work with countries to solve infrastructure and energy problems and become the 'hubs' (virtual and physical) where people are brought together to get their hands dirty and come up with not just policy solutions, but real engineering solutions.
• They can encourage their students to enter competitions with big goals, like Robocup, which seeks to create a robotic soccer player that can compete with humans by 2050. Better, they can create such competitions themselves---if it worked for Netflix to create a smarter algorithm, it can work for higher education.
• They can, as MIT did, celebrate their contributions, showing how they make world not just better, but far more interesting and exciting. (To be inspired, just check out all those TEDx talks.)

Ultimately, even with all of the excitement of flash and explosions at the movies, the kinds of down-to-earth superheroes are far more compelling. In fact, the recent trend has been to unmask the heroes and show their humanity (from the reboot of Batman to the latest Spiderman to shows like Heroes.)

Believability is potent stuff. Jack Ryan works as a latter-day hero precisely because it is his book smarts that win over the day, all with a bit of humility and humor. The world and its problems are way too complex for solutions that only offer bludgeoning as a response.

To wit, you cannot blow up global warming without destroying the earth. Thankfully, moviegoers are smart enough to realize these nuances, as superheroes now operate in a grayer, tougher landscape.

An assessment of the modern battlefield by SEAS's Kit Parker, my favorite bioengineer-soldier, offers precisely this dose of reality: "It is the most intellectually complex environment that probably our military has ever operated in."

Blue sky thinking in higher ed should be more than just about caps.

This is not to say that universities should not attempt to go for the gusto.

In fact, it may be better if they encourage some blue-sky thinking---just blue sky thinking at a slightly lower elevation and with a net.

"The choice we have is not between reasonable proposals and an unreasonable utopianism. Utopian thinking does not undermine or discount real reforms. Indeed, it is almost the opposite: practical reforms depend on utopian dreaming." - Russell Jacoby, Picture Imperfect Utopianism 

What's It All About? : Part 2

In my prior blog posting I had intended to discuss the notion that universities are all about the students, and instead, talked about everything but that. To be generous, every roundabout eventually leads to an exit.

Campus curmudgeon P.F. Kluge.

When I was in college, an alum and part-time creative writing professor, P.F. Kluge, chose to live in a freshman dorm. A safer form of embedded journalism (with vomit rather than explosive projectiles being the only obstacle), his aim was to write an expose of his alma mater.

The book, Alma Mater, came out as the college President was ending his two-decade long term. Usually a gentle man, at our senior dinner everyone could tell that President Phil Jordan was angry (and not just because a week earlier students had burned his cardboard likeness in a massive bonfire).

The place he had dedicated a life to was snubbed by Kluge as "the second best Italian restaurant in town" and as a lower tier academic institution, already demurred by its non East Coast setting, where "every kid's a winner."

"For God's sake," he roared, "is this Kenyon College or Kluge College?" ... which then led to everyone chanting one or the other, with no clear winner as the two choices sounded nearly alike. "And by the way," I am almost certain he went on to say, "there are NO jobs. So tough luck for all of you graduates." 

Kluge felt that compared to his college days on the hill, the institution now embraced a milquetoast mentality. Students got away with everything. Faculty were friends you could call by their first name rather than icons of intellectualism. The college was a pit stop, a finishing school, a temporary oasis until real life. And the students.

Oh the students were coddled and cared for rather than shaken into a higher form of consciousness. He called this phenomenon "Kamp Kenyon" and wrote about it about ten years after the book was published in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

At current prices, we’re more than ever obliged to deliver the goods, to turn out English majors who don’t regard the apostrophe as an unidentified flying object. This we attempt to do, at Kenyon College, and often we succeed. But the obligation to challenge is matched by another demand: to accommodate. And this has led to another institution, a burgeoning case of mission creep, something that is called Kamp Kenyon.

The Huffington Post named Kenyon College one of the nation's friendliest, an accolade that no doubt would suggest to some that accommodating students far outranked academics.

Ironically, Kluge hinted, by focusing too much on the students, Kenyon, and institutions of higher learning in general, had actually abandoned their true missions: teaching, inspiring, passing on the thrill of knowledge.

Here’s the problem. Kenyon College is about challenging and testing students, Kamp Kenyon is about accommodating clients. Kenyon College keeps students busy, Kamp Kenyon makes them happy. Kenyon Colleges trades in requirements, Kamp Kenyon in appeals that become entitlements. Kenyon College has rules, to which it makes rare exceptions. Kamp Kenyon trades in excuses which become the rule.

Much like some college presidents wanted to keep higher education away from the marketplace, Kluge wanted to keep higher education away from too much outside influence---and creature comforts. Alas, even in a small, hard to find Gothic enclave hugged by cornfields, there was no escape. (To read Kluge's "love story" for the college, or perhaps his apology, check out his excellent novel Gone Tomorrow.) Keep in mind, all of this well intentioned hang wringing happened a decade before the onslaught of social networking and mobile devices.

Beet is a modern campus satire.

In Roger Rosenblatt's satire, Beet: A Novel, the longer-term consequences of a system of higher education run by the inmates becomes clear. Here's a passage taken from a Washington Post book review:

These aspects of academia are so well pre-satirized in real life that it's a challenge to exaggerate them, but Rosenblatt pigs out with one satiric observation after another. Beet College offers "Native American Crafts and Casino Studies; the Sensitivity and Diversity Council; the Fur and Ivory Audiovisual Center; Ethnicity, Gender and Television Studies; Little People of Color; Humor and Meteorology; Bondage Studies; Serial Killers of the Northwest; Wiccan History." This is the kind of campus that awarded "a plaster-of-paris bust of Rosie O'Donnell" to the male professor most sensitive to women's issues, but then refused to let him into the meeting because he was a man. 

Is college today simply a fine dining experience?

With even Harvard, a College with the most competitive admissions process in the universe, awarding over 20% of students A's, perhaps college has simply become a fine dining experience, where a student's every whim is immediately satisfied by white gloved waiters.

One undergrad even wrote an essay in Harvard Magazine suggesting that Harvard should be harder. (My suggestion: Come over to the engineering school and delve into our courses. Or take Math 55.)

As mentioned, there is a troubling irony that as colleges and universities strive to meet the demands of their students (the top of my inverse pyramid in the last blog), or in the words of our own dean, attempt to "put teaching and learning first", that the educational experience can be diluted.

Imagine instead, as Robert Hutchins did, The University of Utopia. A place focused only on higher learning (the wonderful tagline used in a Northeastern University marketing blitz a few years back.). Hutchins' wrote:

“Education is not to reform students or amuse them or to make them expert technicians. It is to unsettle their minds, widen their horizons, inflame their intellects, teach them to think straight, if possible.”

That's not the Four Season's; it's a BU dorm.

One may accuse me of cynicism, but Hutchins' Baconian-inspired idealism is not likely to take hold. The $100 million sports complexes, five star accommodations like those at Boston University (nicer than most hotels), vegan dining options, courses on happiness, and so on, are not going away.

Kluge's simpler, "real" college experience is a dream permanently deferred and best for novels. (A more eye opening view of college days of the past can be found in Philip Roth's Indignation---the anti-campus novel).

With the students apparently winning, has higher education lost?

Based upon my experience of helping to develop a new engineering-focused college admissions tour this summer, I think there is a different, more upbeat, way of looking at things. Yes, it is all about the students*---but with that lovely little asterisk at the end.

Our new tour, in draft stage, was developed with the generous help of a recent graduate in computer science, Neena Kamath '11 (now a project manager at Microsoft). Neena, in fact, began giving the tours on her own due to demand by students and parents who wished to know more about science and engineering at Harvard. (Imagine a gift like that for a public relations professional.)

During a "mock" tour with our dean and other administrators, Neena talked about the traditional Harvard experience, the Yard, the house system, the Harry Potteresque dining experience in Annenberg; academics; interactions with faculty; and the basic bread-and-butter of student life.

Her equal focus, however, was on what some might consider all the "extras" that get in the way of traditional classroom learning. Namely: research in the lab; Hack Nights; Robocup competitions in Turkey; summer internships; starting companies; going abroad; networking with future employers; engaging with alumni; varsity sports and intramural sports; ski trips with faculty and lab mates; concerts; using digital resources; living in Cambridge/Boston; volunteering; and so on.

A Harvard HackNight doesn't look like traditional learning.

It became clear that for her, there was not much of a distinction between what happened inside and outside of the classroom. Meaning, everything was part of being at student at Harvard---and everything offered an opportunity for learning, knowledge, and growth.

Harvard extended in ways that I could not even imagine, well beyond even the extensive campus that flanks the Charles river.

Despite advising freshman for five years, I suddenly realized that I really did not know what it was like to be a student in the 21st-century. That also led me to believe that many others who work in and write about academia (even those with noble intentions) may not know either.

So, a more accurate statement may be: universities are all about the student experience. And that experience is shaped by other students, faculty, administrators, the physical campus, resources, and outside activities. The relationship among all of those things should be a constant push-and-pull, rather than an idee fixe. And with social networking, online learning, and e-books---oh my!--- any higher ed utopia is going to be a moving target.

The insight that my campus experience is not the same as a student's experience may seem incredibly obvious, but only by hearing Neena's perspective on the tour, did it suddenly make sense.

Thus, it's only fair then to end with a profound student insight about the college experience:

"It's not at all what I expected it would be, but it's awesome."

- Olga Zinoveva '12, computer science concentrator