Technology in the New Millennium
Bowling Green State University
Jennie Lee
Emily Gamble
Sarah Howard
Linh Nguyen
The Millennial Generation
• Millennials, by their own admission, have no tolerance for
delays. They expect their services instantly when they are
ready.
• Their worst nightmare is when they are delayed, required
to wait in line, or have to deal with some other
unproductive process.
• Their desire for speed and efficiency can not be over
estimated.
• The need for speedy satisfaction, or as some believe,
instant gratification, permeates virtually
all of their
service expectations
http://grad.msu.edu/whatsNew/millennialbehaviors.pdf
How Technology Affects
Student Affairs in 5 “Instants”
#1: Instant Communication
Changes in Format
• Advances in technology have created a culture
that demands information be quick and easy
to access
• What was once shared via paper or other
printed materials must now be made available
in a multitude of electronic formats to suit the
needs and preferences of different target
audiences
• Student affairs is no exception…
How is information being
shared today?
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Web sites
E-mail
Instant messaging
Phones
Text messaging
Web portals
Podcasts
Blogs
Who is sharing information with whom?
The main players:
 Student affairs professionals (both within and
outside a given institution)
 Students (both prospective and current)
 Faculty
 Parents
 Upper administrators
 Alumni
 Community members
E-mail
• Provided by the institution or other outside entity
• Pros—
– Ability to attach files up to a certain size
– Address book, folders, and signature features add level of convenience and
personalization
– Listservs make it simple to address a group of individuals at once
– Sense of anonymity may make e-mail a more comfortable form of
communication for introverts (Coomes, 2004)
• Cons—
–
–
–
–
More formal (but not always viewed as such by students)
Exchange of information may be deemed too slow by some
Students are not checking their campus accounts regularly (Carnevale, 2006)
Easy to lose or misplace messages
Instant Messaging
• Definition—A ”form of real-time communication between two or more
people based on typed text. The text is conveyed via computers connected
over a network such as the Internet.” (Wikipedia)
• e.g., AIM, Meebo, Yahoo Messenger, & MSN Messenger
• Conversations may take place within a Web page or through separate
software that must be installed
• Pros—free service, one of quickest forms of communication, informal,
users get immediate confirmation that their message has been received or
responded to, can provide sense of anonymity through use of self-created
“screen names,” conversations can be saved for later reference, added
features allow users to hear and see each other through microphones and
web-cams, files may be transmitted from one party to another, users may
set an “online status” or “away message” notifying others of availability
• Functional areas currently using this technology:
 Admissions
 Orientation
 Libraries
 Health Services
 Academic Advising
 Financial Aid
Phones
• Institutional “factlines”
– Employee(s) available to answer questions related to the
institution
– Ability to connect user to other offices on campus
– Convenient when person in search of information does not
have immediate access to a computer
• Cell phones
– Have made being “on call” or “on duty” less restrictive for
residence life staff
– Students easier to track down—“Nine out of every ten college
students own a cellular phone” (Kleinglass, 2005)
Text Messaging
• Definition—messages of 160 characters or less that are sent to and from
mobile phones, may include sound and/or image files (Wikipedia)
• Both cost and time effective when sent in bulk
• Messages can be sent out to different groups of contacts depending on
the content
• Perception that students use text messages more than e-mail (Carnevale,
2006)
• Examples of messages—
– Emergency Broadcasts
– Terrorist Alerts
– Weather Advisories
– School Closings
– Event Reminders Cancellations
• Omnilert—makers of e2Campus, the web-based mass (mobile)
notification system, now serving 100+ colleges and universities
Web Sites
• The “Internet is the foremost resource used for finding
information” (UCLA, 2003)
• Uses—to announce, attract, congratulate, promote, persuade,
educate, highlight, train, document, & warn (as demonstrated
2/14/08 at Northern Illinois University)
• Institutional, divisional, departmental, & office Web sites
– Audience: students, alumni, faculty, staff, & community
• Student affairs resource sites
– Audience: graduate students & student affairs professionals
• Benefits—can incorporate multiple forms of technology, are
accessible 24/7, and reach a number of audiences
Blogs
• Definition—A “website updated frequently with links, commentary and
anything else you like. . . . Blogs can be political journals, news digests,
and/or personal diaries; they can focus on one narrow subject or range
across a universe of topics." (http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/about/)
• Special features—search engines, automatic e-mail notification of
updates, file uploads (images, audio, & video)
• Students can create personalized blogs that document their individual
experiences at the institution
• Student affairs staff may utilize blogs to communicate with current
students, alumni, and colleagues both inside and outside of the
institution
• Blogs can also function as a type of newsletter within a given office
or department updating staff members on important issues/matters of
concern
Web Portals
• e.g., Blackboard
• One-stop shop offering multiple services in the same location
– Registration services, financial aid services, employee services,
academic services, miscellaneous services (parking, change of
address, etc.), campus updates & events
• Personalized content
– Announcements, calendar, tasks, courses, organization pages,
etc.
• Multiple forms of communication
– Group pages, discussion boards, e-mail capabilities, etc.
Podcasts
• Definition—A “collection of digital media files [that] is distributed over the
Internet, often using syndication feeds, for playback on portable media players
and personal computers. The term, like ‘radio’, can refer either to the content
itself or to the method by which it is syndicated” (Wikipedia)
• e.g., iTunes U
• Customizable interface—school colors, logos, photographs, etc.
• Students, faculty, & staff have capability to both upload and download content
(audio, video, images, text, PDF, etc.)
• Access to some files can require logging in with university username and
password
• Ideas is that individuals can review content while away from their computers
and/or engaged in other activities (e.g., walking around campus, working out,
eating lunch, etc.)
• Content may include course lectures, event or job announcements,
health
facts, school affiliated songs, etc.
• Current users—MIT, UC Berkeley, Stanford, Penn State, & Harvard
Challenges & Concerns
• “Ability to provide continual, accurate, and consistent
information” (Kleinglass, 2005)
• “Loss of personal contact” (Kleinglass, 2005)
• Lack of privacy
• Knowing where to allocate resources—
– What information is best shared through which formats?
– How many different formats should be used to share the
same information?
# 2: Instant Friends?
Sources of Prejudice for
Future Roommates on Facebook
 Photos
 Listed Interests
 Race/Color
 Assumed Socioeconomic Status
 Sexual Orientation
How Does This Affect
Student Affairs Administrators?
• Phone calls over the summer about roommate issues
before they have even met
 Speculated incompatibility
 Worries about alcohol and drug use
“Now a student's fondness for cartoons or penchant for punk
rock can annoy a roommate before the two ever meet. As a
result, administrators are spending more time dealing with
Facebook fretting before students even matriculate” (Farrell,
2006)
What Can We Do?
• Address Facebook to parents and students during
summer orientation
• Send notices about Facebook with residence life
room assignments
 Encourage online chatting or phone calls to get to know
roommates beyond their profiles
 Remind parents and students that first impressions can be
misleading
 Encourage students to consider what their own profiles
might cause others to conjecture about them
What Good Can Come of Facebook
Before Classes Begin?
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•
•
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Roommates bonding before they meet
Easing anxiety of meeting new people
Orientation Leaders keeping in touch with their students
Sense of belonging
“Despite the headaches that Facebook and MySpace can
cause for residential-life staffs, many students say it helps
them bond before move-in day. Incoming students set up
user groups on Facebook for other members of their floor
and dorm to join, and many report ‘meeting’ 10 or more
of their fellow dorm mates online” (Farrell, 2006).
A Positive Effect of Facebook on
Students’ Social Experience
• Facebook groups
promote camaraderie,
civic engagement, a
sense of belonging,
and involvement
• e.g., Virginia Tech
Tragedy
How Can Administrators Use Facebook to
Strengthen Students’ Social Experience?
• Encourage orientation leaders and student ambassadors
to create profiles that promote the university in a positive
manner
• Encourage student organizations to create Facebook
groups to connect members and keep them informed and
involved
• Encourage resident advisors and orientation leaders to
reach out to new students via Facebook to ease their
anxiety and build relationships
• Even staff members can create Facebook accounts, which
could potentially help students see them in a more
personal light and perhaps relate to them better
# 3: Instant Fun
Changes in Programming
• Technology has changed programming in
Student Activities
• More events focused on technology (i.e. Halo
tournaments, Wii parties, etc.)
• Technology offered as incentives to attend
• Raffling off Wii game systems, iPods, digital
cameras for students who attend
Changes in Advertising
• Used to place posters on campus, chalk
sidewalks, etc.
• Now using Facebook event invitations, e-mail
announcements, text messaging in addition
to other methods
And not so fun...
Changes in Monitoring
• Many students think that when they post on
Facebook, their information is private
• Pictures of violations
• Blog entries
• Judicial Affairs officers scanning Facebook
• Cyberstalking
• Alcohol and drug violations
• Conduct violations (i.e. Storming the field after a football
game)
(Read, 2006)
http://www.bgsu.edu/downloads/sa/file30145.html
Changes in Monitoring
• Some colleges and universities are devoting at
least one staff member to browse Facebook for
information
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Could cause legal issues
Double standards
Wilfully ignoring illegal activity (Van Der Werf, 2007)
Employers using Facebook
Find out information about race, gender, religion,
sexuality – all protected in hiring decision (Read, 2006)
# 4: Instant Submission
Changes in Registration
• Students may register online for:
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Courses
Housing
Orientation
Events
• May help free up human and financial
resources
• Fewer people needed to monitor
• No extra copies to make
Changes in Application
Students may apply online for:
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Admission to the college/university
Financial Aid (FAFSA)
Scholarships
Student Leadership opportunities
Changes in Payment
Students may pay:
Online for tuition, etc.
 Using “swipe card” for meals, laundry, snacks, campus
events
 Gives students more options than just
paying
with cash or check

# 5: Instant Results
Online Self-Help Information
• Technology has impacted a variety of offices
such as Career Services, Counseling Services,
and Student Health Services.
• Availability of online self-help information and
assessments has changed the role of
professionals during one-on-one consultations
Changes in Career Services
• Traditional assessment approaches to career counseling
are less utilized than before, especially over the last 30
years with the rise of self-help career assessment tools
(Prince, Most, & Silver, 2003).
• “With this development, the roles of career development
professionals have shifted. Career professional now
routinely incorporate the use of automated interpretive
reports, referrals to Internet-Based testing sites, and
assignments to self- help reading materials “(Prince et.
al, 2003, p.40).
Instantaneous Results to Guide
Career Decisions
• Online Self-Help Career Assessment Tools
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
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Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
Self-Directed Search (SDS)
Strong Interest Inventory
FOCUS
Benefits of these tools
 For consumer
• Less expensive, Fun to explore, Less time
to complete, More readily accessible
 For developer
• Less expensive to develop, Reach broader
range of clientele
Limitations of These Tools
• Variance in quality and level of sophistication
• Some are outdated and contain offensive
language and misleading instructions
• No attention to individual differences
• Use outside of a professional counseling
relationship- knowledge and assistance from
professionals in interpretation of results
Using the Self-Help Tools to
Maximize Service to Students
• Although limitations exist in these assessments tools, these
changes can be beneficial
• Career counselors are able to engage students in
conversations about their results more in one-on-one
consultations rather than spend time completing the
instrument
• Opportunity for more students to be served since students
are required to complete these before returning for an
appointment
• Encourages self-authorship and promote critical thinking in
students
Changes in Counseling Services
• “Many counseling- center Web pages offer basic
information about psychological problems, treatments,
and symptoms”
(Mallen & Vogel, 2005, p. 914).
• Students are using these resources to figure out their
own problems
• Online counseling services are an outreach tool to serve
the underserved populations who don’t typically seek
these services
(Sanchez-Page, 2005).
Impact on Students of Color
• For some communities of color, the use of counseling
services are still stigmatized
• Students of color tend to have the perception that there
are few professionals who are similar to them (SanchezPage, 2005).
• Counseling centers are using the Internet to outreach to
these populations of students
• “Furthermore, through counseling-center Web pages,
students can link to self-help Websites such as Go Ask
Alice!, U-Lifeline, and Counseling
Center
Village”(Sanchez-Page, 2005, p.896).
Changes in Student Health Services
• Students are seeking health information via the
Internet to self-diagnose their illnesses.
• Many consumers trust the medical information they
find on the Internet, which is a concern especially as
this information becomes a substitute for seeking
professional care provider (Lorence & Park, 2007)
Self-Care Guides to
Living
• Since college students are using the
Internet more and tend to visit the
doctor’s office less because busy
schedules and other reasons
• Health centers are making information
available to them in self-care guides to
promote and educate students about
healthy living strategies.
Healthy
Evaluations and Surveys Online
• The Internet is a great venue to capture student
feedback on programs and services
• Links to surveys and evaluations can be sent via
emails and become easily accessible to students.
• Making sense of data collected from surveys is
easier using online survey software like Snap,
Survey Monkey, Student Voice, etc.
University of Pittsburg: Online
Student Survey System (OS^3)
• Allows multiple engineering schools to conduct
customized routine program evaluations
• Elicits routine self-assessments from students and serve
as a tracking and cross-institutional benchmarking tool
• Many problems still have to be solved with the possibility
of making this type of system nationally used for
assessment of student learning
References
Beyond E-Mail: New ways to stay in touch with students. (1 May 2006). Student Affairs Leader,
34(9), pp. 1-6.
Carnevale, D. (6 October 2006). E-Mail is for old people. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Retrieved 14 February, 2008, from http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i07/07a02701.htm.
Coomes, M. D. (2004). Understanding the historical and cultural influences that shape generations.
In M. D. Coomes & R. D. DeBard (Eds.), Serving the millennial generation (pp. 17-31). New
Directions for Student Services, no. 106. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Farrell, E. F. (2006). Judging roommates by their facebook cover. In The Chronicle of Higher
Education, 53(2), A63.
Gemmill, E. & Peterson, M. (2006). Technology use among college students: Implications for student
affairs professionals. NASPA Journal, 43(2), pp. 280-300.
Hoare, R., Besterfield-Sacre, M., Ertman, D., Gerchak, J., Johnson, T., Shields, R., and
Shuman, L. (2002) Cross-institutional assessment: Development and
implementation of the on-line student survey system. Computer Appl Eng Educ, 10,
pp. 88-97. Published online in Wiley InterScience.
Kleinglass, N. (2005). Who is driving the changing landscape in student affairs. New Directions for
Student Services, no. 112, pp. 25-38. Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
References
Lorence, D., and Park, H. (2007). Gender and online health information: a partitioned
technology assessment. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 24, pp. 204-209.
Mallen, M. J., and Vogel, D. L. (2005). Online Counseling: A need for discovery. The
Counseling Psychologist, 33(6), pp.910-921.
Moneta, L. (2005). Technology and student affairs: Redux. New Directions for Student
Services, no. 112, pp. 3-14. Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Prince, J.P., Most, R.B., and Silver, D. G. (2003). Self-help career assessments: Ethical and
professional issues. Journal of Career Assessment, 11(1), pp.40-58.
Read, B. (2006). Think before you share. In The Chronicle of Higher Education,
52(20), A38.
Sanchez-Page, D. (2005). The online-counseling debate: A view toward the underserved.
The Counseling Psychologist, 33(6), pp. 891-899.
Seabreeze, J. R. (1997). Student affairs world wide web sites. New Directions for Student
Services, no. 78, pp. 97-103. Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Shier, M. T. (2005). The way technology changes how we do what we do. New Directions for
Student Services, no. 112, pp. 77-87. Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Van Der Werf, M. (2007). Beware of using social-networking sites to monitor
students, lawyers say. In The Chronicle of Higher Education, 53(26), A28.
Young, Jeffrey R. (2006). Apple releases free ‘iTunes U’ software to colleges for
coursecasting.
The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 14 February, 2008,
from http://chronicle.com/free/2006/01/2006012501t.htm.