Student debt is at an all-time high. Robert Duvic of the McCombs School presents a talk with financial management solutions for students.
Today’s college students face a daunting financial landscape due to a variety of factors that include rising tuition. A quick primer on the current outlook reveals some distressing data:
$1.26 trillion in total U.S. student loan debt
44.2 million Americans with student loan debt
Student loan delinquency rate of 11.1%
Average monthly student loan payment (for borrower aged 20 to 30 years): $351
Median monthly student loan payment (for borrower aged 20 to 30 years): $203
The lack of financial literacy, sometimes called financial illiteracy, can negatively impact a graduate’s earning potential, job opportunities and even housing options after they leave college. The Libraries are hosting Professor Robert Duvic of the McCombs School of Business for a discussion of ways to navigate the minefield of financial management during the transition to adulthood and independent responsibility.
“Got Debt? The Importance of Being Financially Literate” will attempt to guide students through basic money management skills such as living within a budget, handling credit cards, and managing student loan debt. Students will learn about resources that are available to aid them in overcoming real life financial decisions.
In addition to the lecture, the Office of Financial Aid offers courses in money management and financial aid called Bevonomics as part of a national and local effort to provide free resources to students.
Professor Duvic is a 2011 recipient of the Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award, given by the University of Texas Board of Regents to recognize faculty members at the nine University of Texas System academic institutions who have demonstrated extraordinary classroom performance and innovation in undergraduate instruction. He has also twice received The Hank and Mary Harkins Foundation Teaching Excellence Award for Effective and Innovative Teaching in Undergraduate Classes from the McCombs School of Business, among other prestigious university awards. Dr. Duvic’s areas of research are corporate capital budgeting, international corporate financial management and international foreign exchange markets. He is a Major (retired) in the United States Army Reserve and served with the Americal Division in the Republic of Viet Nam. His military decorations include the Bronze Star Medal with two oak leaf clusters and the Purple Heart.
Two years ago, I began writing end-of-year blog posts about my time at UT Libraries. As you may recall, my name is Rosa Muñoz and I am a senior majoring in Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. I wanted to give my last update before I graduate in May.
These four years at UT have flown by. It feels like just yesterday I became a Longhorn, went off on my own, and experienced what it was like being the first to attend college in my family. Now I am a semester away from graduating, and one step closer to making my dreams become a reality. Something I never thought I was capable of achieving. I have gained so much knowledge from working at the Libraries and by spending a great amount of time here. I have also been incredibly lucky to have had made such amazing relationships with not only my fellow classmates, but also with the staff from the UT Libraries who are like family to me now. Throughout my time at UT they have been such an enormous help to me and my studies. With their help I was able to make one dream of mine come true, which was to study abroad in Australia for a semester. I have learned that with the right guidance and resources anything is possible. No dream is too big or impossible to achieve. This is what UT Libraries has taught me. After 5 months, I am finally back in the states and could not be any happier to share what my experience was like abroad.
The Forty Acres has opened doors for me that never seemed attainable, and that is something I am going to miss. The UT Libraries will always be a second home. Since freshman year it is the place I go to study for my exams, pull “all-nighters” cramming for exams and final essays. I am proud to say that throughout my time at UT, I have been a part of helping renovate UT Libraries to make it an even better place. Not only has UT Libraries been useful to me while in the states, but it was also very useful to me abroad. When I needed to find certain research articles I would log into the UT Libraries databases on their website with my UT information, and use that as help for my assignments abroad.
I plan on taking a year off to figure out what I want to do before applying to graduate school. I hope to work in a lab during that time off to gain more field experience and find some clarity in selecting which career route I want to pursue in psychology. It has been tough getting to where I am now, but I know that everything will fall into place. My last spring semester is not going to be easy, but just like freshman year I will be in the library getting work done.
As a senior I can say that UT Libraries has shaped me. I have utilized almost everything that the libraries has to offer, such as study spaces, computer and printing access, writing and research assistance, access to an abundance of information, and so much more. I have one semester left to fully take advantage of these resources, and I am excited to see what else will be added. I will forever be grateful for what UT Libraries provided for me. Please consider making an end of year contribution to the UT Libraries to help support us.
Imagine this — your student just returned to campus from Thanksgiving Break and realized that finals are just around the corner. What do they do? Panic? Eat more mashed potatoes or pie and try to forget about it? I’ll never argue with more pie, but when your student calls to talk about this stressful time, tell them that instead of panicking or eating their feelings, they can take advantage of services offered within the libraries.
University Writing Center at PCL.
PCL houses several partner organizations who offer great services to students:
The Writing Center (in PCL) offers help at any point in the writing process. Tell your student that good writers seek feedback! Appointments here
The Sanger Center’s Public Speaking Center is now open in PCL – their consultants can offer suggestions on any presentation or speech assignment. Appointments here
Tutoring for intro-level Calculus, Biology, and Chemistry courses is now available in PCL’s UFCU room. See the schedule
The UT Libraries house many new services for students, but librarians have always been available to help with research. Students can ask us questions about finding sources of information, about choosing or narrowing a topic, about when and how to cite sources, and about which sources of information are credible. We are available to help in several ways. Your student can:
If your student has an assignment that involves technology, we can help with that too! They can:
Visit one of the library Media Labs at PCL or Fine Arts Library to use specialized software
Check out equipment like video cameras and microphones at PCL or Fine Arts Library
We know that finals are stressful, so we want to help with your student’s work AND help them de-stress. With dogs! We have therapy dog study breaks a few times at the end of the semester:
When Teaching and Learning Services initiated the PCL Media Lab pilot phase in the Fall 2014 semester, we opted to experiment with a unique staffing model. Partnering with the University Leadership Network, a similarly youthful campus initiative, we developed a tiered, three-year internship program that would synthesize our staffing needs with an effort to cultivate digital media expertise in the Libraries.
In Year 1, interns undergo basic training in audio, graphics and video software, following step-by-step tutorials that we developed in house. By the end of their first semester, we expect our interns to have a shared vocabulary in multiple areas of media production. They assemble a short podcast using Audacity, then reconstruct a digital collage in Photoshop, and finally use public domain footage to edit a short video with music in Adobe Premiere Pro. For the Spring 2015 semester, we encouraged our interns to specialize in a software area of their own choosing, and to propose a project with the most appropriate software. That approach resulted in two short films, a digital music composition, the first phase of a student organization’s website, a 3-D modeling project and a graphic guide to using the pilot lab’s scanners. Furthermore, the Lab Assistants produced tutorial guides to help users understand the workflows and technical vocabulary required to produce this work.
Starting in Fall 2015, we wanted the Year 2 Lab Assistants to improve on their existing strengths, develop their areas of interest and, when possible, create work that could benefit UT Libraries as an institution. What follows is a summary of the work done this year by our ULN Lab Assistants as part of the digital media training that forms the backbone of their internship, and helps us to offer expertise to users in the PCL Media Lab.
Graphics
During the first semester, Product Design junior Whitney Chen and Fine Arts sophomore Jessica Vacek collaborated to produce a desktop calendar, copies of which were printed and sent to Libraries’ supporters. The pair took original photographs in different library branches around the 40 Acres, then embellished those pictures using Adobe Illustrator
From the Libraries calendar by Whitney Chen and Jessica Vacek.
Later in the semester, Whitney designed UT Libraries’ annual holiday card, which is distributed stakeholders and peers nationwide.
Greeting card by Jessica Vacek.
In the spring semester, Jessica took a turn doing some work for Communications by designing our popular Greetings from the Library postcard, distributed for free in PCL and featuring iconic images of the branch libraries (such FAL’s hanging piano).
In another graphic combining freehand drawing with Adobe Illustrator, Jessica also gave us a new design for the birthday cards that UT Libraries sends to supporters. Much of Jessica’s artistic training has been in freehand techniques and photography (check out some of her work here: http://operation-jessica.tumblr.com/), so her internship in the PCL Media Lab has helped her to integrate more traditional media with new digital tools.
Whitney was equally busy with clever graphics work this semester, this time training her designer’s eye on promotional materials for one PCL’s most popular events, the visits from dog therapy groups. We’ve featured some of Whitney’s work on Tex Libris before and there is more to view on her portfolio website, so we’ll just let these two pieces speak for themselves.
“The Dogfather” by Whitney Chen.“Barks and Recreation” by Whitney Chen.
Video
Video production and editing software is some of the most popular in the lab, so it’s no surprise that it was an equally popular area for our Lab Assistants to choose for specialty training. We featured one of these projects in Tex Libris earlier in the year, recounting how, using Adobe Premiere Pro, Charisma Soriano (Junior, Marketing + Film and Television), Lucia Aremu (Junior, Government) and Jocelyn Mendoza (Junior, Bilingual Education) “organized, shot, edited and produced a short documentary film” about the Freud Reia punk collection that the Fine Arts Library had recently obtained.
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The video team took a more whimsical approach for their next project, using iMovie to stitch together a dreamy snapshot of life after hours in the PCL.
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We unfortunately lost Jocelyn Mendoza to another internship at the beginning of the spring semester, but the video team benefitted from the addition of Computer Science junior Victor Maestas, who has been active in amateur filmmaking since high school. Working with Librarian for First-Year Programs Sarah Brandt, Victor, Charisma and Lucia produced an Orientation to UT Libraries video that will be used to help incoming freshmen get to know their way around different branches and library services.
3-D Modelling
With the increasing popularity of 3-D printing, and especially in light of the incipient makerspace in the Fine Arts Library, we are grateful to have the expertise of Thang Truong, a Biology junior, in the PCL Media Lab. Thang began experimenting with Autodesk’s Maya software last year, and has significantly expanded his knowledge to include 3-D printing with Sketchup and more complex modelling techniques in Maya and Blender, another application offered in the Media Lab. The images below feature examples of Thang’s work, including an iPhone case that he printed through UT’s Innovation Station.
3d modelling.iPhone case by Thang Truong.
The PCL Media Lab Assistants continue to exceed our expectations and do a terrific job of helping our patrons in the lab. Next year we aim to offer more one-on-one and small group consultations with the Lab Assistants, allowing them to share their expertise with an increasingly large user base.
As the fall semester kicks into full swing and due dates for papers and projects start to loom, the reference staff at the Perry-Castañeda Library is gearing up to best serve the student population at UT both in person and online. One of the key access points for many students seeking help in the evening and nighttime hours is the Ask a Librarian service, which is staffed by graduate students in UT’s School of Information. The program welcomed four new interns over the summer, all of whom are excited to serve both the UT community and the broader, international base from which they receive questions.
Christina Gasull.
While the Ask a Librarian interns each take multiple shifts staffing our instant messaging-based reference service, they also gain experience in several other areas of academic librarianship. Answering email questions received from patrons worldwide is an important aspect of the internship program, and allows the interns to interact with a very diverse range of questions across a broad spectrum of disciplines.
Laura Gienger.
Staffing the Information & Research Help Desk in person at the PCL is another vital component of the internship, and provides the Ask a Librarian staff with valuable in-person reference experience. “Staffing the chat, email, and Research Help desk has been an amazing learning experience about serving the varied information literacy needs of a vast research institution with incredible diversity,” said Christina Gasull, one of the new interns. Laura Gienger, a returning intern appointed last spring, agrees: “The most interesting part of this position so far has been getting glimpses of all the different research projects and papers that students are currently working on!”
Hayley Morgenstern.
Communication and collaboration with full-time library staff is another important aspect of the internship program. In addition to working their digital and in-person reference shifts, all of the current Ask a Librarian interns have taken on additional projects in fields they are passionate about, working with librarians to develop and carry out work in areas of their interest. Hayley Morgernstern is exploring subject librarianship in Gender and Sexuality Studies, Ian Goodale is working with the Slavic bibliographer to research and supplement online research guides and do cataloging work, Robin Vickery is creating stack guides for the dance, music, and theatre materials at the Fine Arts Library, Laura has worked with the digitizing of materials, and Christina is currently helping to revise the PCL’s Youth Collection.
Robin Vickery.
All of the interns are passionate about serving the diverse communities of patrons they encounter. As Robin said, projects “that advance the library’s mission to support its community of patrons and researchers are what interest me most about librarianship, so I am excited for the opportunity to be so involved!”
The Libraries held a Kick-off event on September 16 to share design renderings of a new academic work space in the Perry-Castaneda Library called the Scholars Commons that will be piloted on entry level starting early next year.
My colleagues and I had the great opportunity to welcome attendees into an empty room behind yellow paper-covered windows to share a “before” glimpse of what the UT Libraries hopes will become a favorite place on campus for graduate students and scholars.
Scheduled to open in January 2016, this “third space” for serious study is a pilot project to test services and different types of spaces.
The Scholars Commons initiative is comprised of 3 main areas:
silent study space,
a Data Lab, and
a Graduate Landing Spot, with reservable media-equipped rooms, a lounge and a break room.
Design development for the space was informed by input from graduate student and faculty focus groups and a survey with over 1,200 respondents conducted last spring. Additional insights came from the Graduate Student Assembly (GSA), the Graduate Student Writing Group and Graduate Student Services within OGS. The design was created by Harmony Edwards-Canfield of E+MID (Edwards + Mulhausen Interior Design), also responsible for several successful recently completed PCL projects.
Situated opposite the new glass-walled Media Lab, in what was formerly the Periodicals Room and the adjacent office suites that housed the Research and Information Services department, the Scholars Commons is tangible, visible evidence of support for serious students and scholars.
The materials in that space were relocated elsewhere within PCL, and the staff relocated to a UT Libraries office suite in the new Learning Commons, next to the University Writing Center. As with space used to create the Learning Commons, the Scholars Commons project represents intentional repurposing of staff space for student use.
The office suite closest to the PCL lobby will host speech center services provided by the Sanger Learning Center and research consultations in media-equipped meeting rooms with UT Libraries librarians. When not reserved for consultations, the rooms will be available for group study use by students.
Subject specialist librarians, or liaison librarians, already work one-to-one or in small groups with students and faculty to advise on literature reviews, research paper resources, data needs and other aspects of the research process and lifecycle, including publishing. These refreshed rooms will expand existing consultation space.
The large room that once housed the current periodicals and reference materials will become silent study space. And the office suite in the back of that room will be a dedicated Graduate Landing Spot for group study and informal community building.
The Scholars Commons will also offer programming, including salon events with featured speakers, research presentations and exhibit space. In brief, the pilot focuses on real-life needs, real-world challenges, research and relationships.
Kick-off participants enjoyed locally-sourced refreshments and live music by Maxwell’s Daemons, a celebratory nod to the soon-to-be-silent zone for scholarly endeavor.
Brianna Frey, an Architecture graduate student in attendance, expressed that the quality and amenities of a study area are important because productivity stems from the ability to focus. “Additionally, it is important, especially because my field has a lot of group work, to have collaborative spaces in study areas” Frey told the Daily Texan. The pilot will offer both options.
Monitor this blog and UT Libraries social media outlets for more details as the January reveal approaches.
Prior to the opening of the Learning Commons, the Libraries were piloting a digital Media Lab in the PCL to gauge how useful students would find certain hardware and software in service of their personal and academic creative work.
The diminutive 14-seat pilot helped to guide the development of the robust new 44-unit strong Media Lab that opened as part of the new Learning Commons last Tuesday, and, thus far, its central and very visible location has attracted even greater attention and use than was imagined.
Even during the pilot phase, though, the lab was earning a the loyalties of regular users, many of whom are students in departments that don’t necessary provide access to all of the tools or resources that can help to ballast student productivity.
We discovered one such student through the approval process for filming in PCL, which is a pretty regular occurrence, especially with members of the RTF and Communications programs at the university.
Nate Jackson is a Communications senior at UT who wanted to shoot a short film on synesthesia for a Journalism Portfolio summer class using the 5th floor stacks in PCL as a backdrop. As is the case with almost every request to use Libraries facilities for class projects, Jackson received approval, and enthusiastically agreed to share the finished work with us upon completion so that we could highlight alternate student uses of the libraries.
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After viewing the finished product — which coincided with the preparations for the Learning Commons opening — and being extremely impressed with the quality and skill it exhibited, we reached out to Nate to find out if, in addition to serving as a location for his film, he might also have used the Media Lab at PCL as a resource in the process of creating it. As it turns out, that was indeed the case; Jackson used the tools provided by the Libraries to edit and record voice-overs for the project.
Nate graciously indulged us by participating in the opening of the Learning Commons, where he and his co-creator of the film project Erin Kedzie talked to attendees to the event about the process of making the film and the value of the resources in the Media Lab to their classwork and creative projects.
“Being able to go any time the PCL is open and having this software available works really well for me because I can’t afford this computer software on my own,” Jackson recently told the Daily Texan.
Jackson and Kedzie are just one story in a massive community of talentedstudents on the Forty Acres who have the opportunity to succeed because the Libraries are finding ways to provide resources that level the playing field for everyone, regardless of program or personal resources.
Mark Goodwin is a project assistant for HeadsUpGuys and student librarian in the Music, Art and Architecture Library at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He undertook a practicum with Music Librarian David Hunter of the Fine Arts Library at UT this spring. He has graciously provided the following reflections on his time in Austin.
For my two-week practicum, I was extremely fortunate to be given the opportunity to work under Music Librarian and Musicologist Dr. David Hunter at the Fine Arts Library at the University of Texas in Austin. My time there resulted in profound growth on both a professional and personal level.
Dr. Hunter was an outstanding mentor. He has a tremendous amount of experience and knowledge relating to the profession and was more than willing to share this wealth of experience with me. He was also exceptionally kind and constantly made sure I was getting the most out of my time, even going above an beyond my role in the library to inform me of events occurring throughout the city. In terms of my role, Dr. Hunter had me take on an assistant-type position in which I shadowed him and helped with his daily duties. This was key to making the experience an invaluable one for me, and I am extremely grateful to Dr. Hunter for giving me this role. Continue reading Reflections on a Practicum→
Again this year, the Libraries took measures to help our hardworking students survive the end of another (or for some, a first) academic school year by providing some de-stressors during the weeks leading up to finals.
As papers and projects came due and the looming shadow of finals all but enveloped the collective population of the campus, we were again fortunate to have a ready partner in Austin Dog Alliance who was willing to provide a much-needed visit by their four-legged staff members, and whose mere presence can be diversion enough to lighten the mood and reorient Longhorns in the throes of all-nighters and marathon cram sessions.
Along with pups, facilities project manager Frank Meaker amassed a new collection of whiteboard drawings from throughout the PCL over the spring semester, and we gathered those on our Flickr account to document this season of the spontaneous art therapy that provides yet another momentary escape from the serious rigor that occurs in service of developing the next generation of leaders at the UT campus. (More about the whiteboards at the UT Tumblr.)
HornRaiser campaign to build the Fine Arts Library Recording Studio in numbers:
45 Days
8 matching gifts totaling $4,350
127 gifts
158% of our original goal
$15,895
We are very excited that this campaign not only exceeded our original goal of raising $10,000, but also exceeded our stretch-goal of raising $15,000.
We are very thankful for those who contributed and helped us broadcast our message throughout the campaign.
So what’s next?
A preliminary meeting has been scheduled to start brainstorming and planning for the actual construction of the Fine Arts Library Recording Studio. We hope to have everything ready for the fall 2015 semester.
As I have mentioned before, this project is a smaller piece of a larger project called the Creativity Commons. We are still fundraising for the other studios in the Creativity Commons:
Video Production Studio, $50,000
Game Developer Studio, $35,000
Maker Workshop, $25,000
3D Design Workspace, $15,000
Recording Studio (funded!)
While these tools are available in other areas on campus, they are restricted to students or a certain major. The Creativity Commons will be fully accessible to all current UT students, faculty, and staff.
To give a gift to support the Creativity Commons, click here, or click here to read a previous post with more detailed funding opportunities for individuals or corporations.
Mark Goodwin
