Maximizing Campus Impact

Closing Thoughts

As this guide was being created, we had the chance to talk to more than 50 NMC directors and centers about the kinds of things they are doing, and how they have navigated the sometimes tricky waters of campus budgets, politics, and uneven leadership to get their work done. Across the NMC membership, it is easy to see example after example of how people at the front lines of teaching and learning are providing models of innovative practice and stimulating innovation in countless ways to help their communities use technology and media to foster creativity, teaching, and research. The impact such centers are making goes far beyond providing basic computer and audio-visual support — impact means getting faculty, curators, administration, and other campus leaders to become invested in, even passionate about using new media tools and techniques to transform their own work and practices.

The kinds of impact highlighted in the case studies highlighted here are illustrative, and showcase what can be done through collaboration, through trust, through clarity of purpose, and through resourceful problem-solving. Centers that do this are going to be crucial to the continued growth and progression of any organization. The successes of campus and museum-based New Media Centers are many, but the challenges that have had to be met and overcome have been many as well. The work we do is hard, but we do it because it is deeply meaningful, with profound potential to change peoples’ lives.

For that reason, we hope that you will find the straightforward strategies presented here and the real stories that accompany them to be useful in maximizing your own success. They are lessons hard won, from people who learned them in the trenches of teaching and learning.

For the authors and contributors, the joy of this project has been in discovering and discussing these lessons, which members have encountered over and over on campuses large and small. May they be as helpful to you as they have been to us.

• Abbe Altman, The California State University
• Jared Bendis, Case Western Reserve University
• Vincent Doogan, New York University
• Victor Edmonds, University of California, Berkeley
• Jurgen Faust, Cleveland Institute of Art
• Jim Ferolo, Bradley University
• Vince Friedewald, Notre Dame
• Lucia Gilbert, University of Texas at Austin
• Lorah Gough, Houston Community College System
• Larry Hatch, Bowling Green State University
• Joeann Humbert, Rochester Institute of Technology
• Todd Jensen, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• Larry Johnson, The New Media Consortium
• Helen Just, St. Edward's University
• Robert Kaleta, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
• Diane Keller, Union College
• Coco Kishi, University of Texas at Austin
• Barbara Knauff, Dartmouth College
• Anne Leonard
• Mace Mentch, Case Western Reserve University
• Tamrat Mereba, North Carolina Agricultural &
• Technical State University
• Larry Miller, University of Tennessee
• Paul Mireault, HEC Montréal
• Wayne Morse, Emory University
• Paula Nichols, Lamar University
• Terry Patterson, Art Center College of Design
• Leah Perlman, Rochester Institute of Technology
• Kathleen Plinske, McHenry County College
• Nick Pumilia, Marquette University
• Mike Reese, John's Hopkins University
• Jason Rosenblum, St. Edward's University
• Alicia K. Russell, Northeastern University
• Ruth Sabean, University of California, Los Angeles
• Esther Schooler, Maryland Institute College of Art
• Cynthia Scott, San Diego Community College
• Kevin Shanley, Edmonds Community College
• Wendy Shapiro, Case Western Reserve University
• William Shewbridge, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
• Rachel S. Smith, The New Media Consortium
• Krista Terry, Radford University
• Derek Toten, Tulane University
• John Weber, Tang Museum at Skidmore College
• Jim Williamson, University of California, Los Angeles
• Holly Witchey, Cleveland Museum of Art
• Lou Zweier, The California State University