July 27, 2000

200 TO GATHER FOR FIRST IST FACULTY ACADEMY

University Park, Pa.–Two hundred educators from more than 50 colleges and universities around Pennsylvania will gather at Penn State’s University Park campus on Wednesday, August 2, for the first IST Faculty Academy in Information Technology.

Sponsored by the School of Information Sciences and Technology, the two-day conference–"Roadmap for Success in the 21st Century Classroom"–is meant to provide faculty members and administrators the tools and knowledge they need to effectively use cutting-edge learning technologies.

"Professors and college leaders everywhere are wrestling with the complex issues surrounding information technology and its use in teaching–it is a major issue for higher education today," said Fred Loomis, director of the IST Solutions Institute and coordinator of the Faculty Academy. "Our goal is to help provide the thinking and informational resources necessary to enable participants to surmount the obstacles facing them and take education at their schools to a new level."

"The ultimate beneficiaries will be the students attending the Commonwealth’s colleges and universities," he said. "We plan to make the Faculty Academy an annual event and create an ongoing community of practice."

Participants will examine the new learning opportunities presented by emerging technologies; discuss various technology strategies, infrastructure, and support systems; explore implementation issues raised by institutional culture and policies; and gain new skills and understanding, informational resources, and a support network.

Keynote speaker for the first IST Faculty Academy will be Dr. William H. Graves, founder and chairman of eduprise.com and a member of the mathematics faculty at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Dr. Graves is a widely recognized authority in teaching innovations.

Facilitators and panelists will come from Carnegie Technology Education, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Robert Morris College, Juniata College, Bucknell University, Bloomsburg University, East Stroudsburg State, Lock Haven University, Hershey Medical Center, the Pennsylvania Department of Education, and SMGNet, as well as from Penn State.

Participants also will have the opportunity to discuss educational hardware and software solutions with representatives from Apple, Blackboard, Campus Pipeline, Cisco, eduprise, eSocrates, IBM, Microsoft, NetG, SCT, SMGNet, and WebCT.

Kicking off at 8 a.m., tomorrow, all sessions of the IST Faculty Academy for IT will be held in the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel. The event will conclude at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday.

For further information, contact Charles C. DuBois, (814) 865-4458,

Visit the IST Web site: www.ist.psu.edu