Organizational Culture

This 47 minute podcast features a keynote address from the EDUCAUSE 2008 Enterprise Conference. The speech, "Today's Clash of Cultures on Campuses and the Role IT Needs to Play," is by Morris W. Beverage Jr., President of Lakeland Community College.

Campuses today face a growing number of clashing cultures. Faculty struggle with traditional methods of teaching in an environment where demands for flexibility and convenience are rising. Learners increasingly treat a college degree like a commodity. Battles rage over resource allocation. Politicians are exerting influence on campus operations and outcomes. This session addresses these issues and the role IT departments need to play to help higher education not just survive, but thrive.

This 17 minute podcast features an interview with Ann Hill Duin, Associate Vice President & Deputy CIO at the University of Minnesota. Our conversation was recorded at the CNI 2008 Spring Task Force Meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

Dr. Ann Hill Duin is Associate Vice President and Deputy CIO at the University of Minnesota where she provides direct oversight of two large units within the Office of Information Technology--Academic & Distributed Computing Services (ADCS) and Networking & Telecommunications Services (NTS). Dr. Hill Duin serves as a catalyst for innovatively leveraging technology to advance and support extraordinary education, breakthrough research, and dynamic public engagement. She provides leadership for establishing a long-term vision and innovative IT strategic plan that is consistent with the mission, vision, and action strategies for the University.   

EDUCAUSE Now is a monthly podcast, focusing on the intelligent use of information technology in higher education. Each episode features a variety of stories, interviews, and views that relate to IT in higher education. EDUCAUSE Now will also inform you about upcoming events, report on past events, and feature the movers and shakers in policy, teaching and learning, security, and a whole host of other important topics for our members. Let us know what you would like to hear at podcast@educause.edu.

This episode of EDUCAUSE Now features:

I am attending EduWeb 2007 this week.  This is a conference focused on web technology in Higher Ed -- with a slight tilt toward marketing and recruitment.

At the heart of our MICA Connected strategy we are trying to bridge the gap between marketing/communications/public web  experience and systems/services/private content.  Many of the discussions and presentations at EduWeb offer great examples of how broad the web experience can (should?) be.  In his keynote address, Bob Johnson said "message control is dead" -- yet so many campuses are afraid of letting more people participate in shaping the college's web experience.  So many people I've talked with this week really believe that the best ambassadors for our institutions are our students and faculty.  We believe that our web presence would be richer, more exciting and a more true reflection of our campus experience if we tapped into the authentic resources of our own community.

Getting paid to do something you love can totally ruin the experience.

Odd, eh?

I am vaguely aware that there are many ways of understanding this phenomenon. Many investigators think we have more than one motivational system, and these systems compete - activating one can knock out the other.

One study I've found focuses precisely on this phenomenon. It's called Effort for Payment: A Tale of Two Markets by James Heyman and Dan Ariely, in Psychological Science (Vol15—Num11: 787-793). They were studying "homo economicus", and they wanted to see if adding compensation to a task would affect how much effort people put into a task. If humans are rational self-maximizers, they argued, then the more you pay them, the better they will perform. This is not borne out empirically. In their words:

In this recording, Vidya Ananthanarayanan sits down with Rich Kogut to chat about his experiences with the first American research university built in the 21st century.  Learn about the challenges & opportunities presented by opening a new campus, the questions of centralization vs. decentralization, identity management, and the use of technology at UC Merced.