Summer 2012 - Robert Morris University

CAMPUS REPORT
> Put Down the Phone
and Slowly Back Away
Lecturer Yvonne Bland dared to ask students in her
Survey of Mass Communication course in March to
spend 48 hours without texting, talking on a cell phone,
or using Facebook or other social media. Bland, a selfprofessed
social media and Internet junkie, imposed the
same conditions on herself. Shockingly, this cruel
experiment did not violate any state or federal laws, or
university policy. Students recorded their experiences in
old-school blue books, the kind that alumni over the age
of 35 may remember from their own final exams.
“I want to build awareness of just how dependent upon
technology we have become,” said Bland. “We don’t see
that technology is a big deal – that we are able to reach people
24/7, the instant gratification of realizing where our friends
are all the time.”
Several local papers and TV stations covered the classroom discussion
after the two-day experiment, as students admitted to rediscovering the
simple pleasure of face-to-face conversations and eye contact. One sheepishly
admitted to using the assignment as a welcome excuse not to talk to his long-distance
girlfriend for a couple of days. Another marveled that people once actually wrote letters by hand.
(Link to media coverage of the class on Foundations Online.)
2
> First Bowling, Then
Global Domination
The School of Engineering, Mathematics and Science hosted the Southwestern Pennsylvania
Regional Qualifying FIRST Tech Challenge, in which high school student teams
had to build a robot that could bowl. More than 200 students from 19 schools
participated in the event. The university also hosted the Allegheny County
MATHCOUNTS competition, organized with the Pittsburgh chapter of the
Society of Professional Engineers, in which 167 middle school students
competed to reach the state finals.