The Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education's (VPUE) Academic Technology Specialist (ATS) Program has a new ATS in Freshman Sophomore Programs and has launched a new Undergraduate Academic Life Web Portal.
New VPUE ATS in Freshman Sophomore Programs
The newest VPUE ATS at Stanford works for Freshman Sophomore Programs, under the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education. Edward R. O'Neill will be working with faculty who teach introductory seminars, as well as those who teach in Sophomore College.
Edward comes to Stanford from the private sector. "I was consulting on a number of different technology-related fronts. I shot and edited promotional videos, built online courses in Sakai, even did 'corporate messaging' for technology companies."
Ed, as people tend to call him, earned his Ph.D. in Critical Theory from UCLA Film School. Between then and now, he taught film and media studies, including multimedia, at UC Santa Cruz, USC Film School and Bryn Mawr. Along the way, he became more and more drawn to the technology side of teaching.
"I came to technology pretty naturally. I was writing HTML in the very early days of the Web. When I taught, I did a lot with streaming media. I put lectures and video clips online. And I taught students all the skills I had."
While some ATS's come from computing, Ed is an arts-humanities hybrid. "I studied theater and literature at Yale as an undergrad. So it was partly about analysis and partly about doing."
New Undergraduate Academic Life Web Portal
The VPUE is pleased to announce that the Undergraduate Academic Life Web site is now live.
Found at http://undergrad.stanford.edu/, it's a student-centric Web site that:
- Conveniently provides the most important academic information students need while providing a portal for exploration.
- Provides multiple pathways for finding information, e.g., by type of information as well as by year.
- Requires no knowledge of administrative boundaries (nor acronyms!).
- Creates a singular online presence for students' needs in this area.
Feel free to browse the site when you have a chance and share any comments you might have by sending an email to vpue@stanford.edu.
