Five Colleges, Incorporated: Technology

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The Five Colleges have a long history of working together on technology related projects. Since the nineteen eighties, with the advent of personal computers, the schools have frequently worked together to help their faculty and staff members and students, take full advantage of technology to further teaching and research. Intensive summer training sessions for faculty and staff members in the use of word processing and spreadsheets during the 1980s were followed by the development of shared online services, collaboration in networking, joint purchasing, and more advanced training. Working together enables the schools to share programming, maximize personnel skills, and achieve economies of scale.

Today, more than ever, technology is integral to the higher education and research missions of the five schools. In June of 2000, the Five College Board of Directors singled out technology as a key area in which to encourage collaborative exploration and action.

A mission statement drafted subsequently outlined their hopes and expectations.

"As part of the long-standing commitment of the consortium to improving teaching and learning among our member institutions, Five Colleges, Incorporated will seek to establish itself as a laboratory of national prominence for exploring how technology can enhance learning and the creation of new knowledge...We see these two goals -- greater interactivity among the campuses and greater focus on the application of technology to learning -- as reinforcing each other...."

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