Seven Weeks in Lebanon

By Jim Scotton

Photo Source: Hariri Canadian University website.

I am spending about seven weeks in Lebanon this summer teaching at Hariri Canadian University outside of Beirut. I am trying to orient International Communication course toward the Arab media. I am also doing research on the Middle East media since I have a contract to co-author a book on international communication. I am doing the chapters on the Middle East, Africa and China and the manuscript is due at the end of December.

I should be used to this by now since this is my seventh overseas university teaching assignment in six countries in Africa and Asia. There are 29 students in my class, which is an elective. All the students are majoring in either Engineering or Business. The university is fairly high up in the hills outside Beirut but it still gets hot during the 2-3:30 p.m. class. We have classroom fans, but if you turn them up you cannot hear much of anything.

Hariri Canadian University (HCU) began as a College of Business in 1999 with the help of Canada and the Hariri Foundation.  It now has 1500 students on three campuses. Rafiq Hariri, a former Prime Minister of Lebanon who was assassinated in 2005, wanted to develop a university that would help moderate income Lebanese students get a university education with tuition kept low through scholarships and a cooperative education program.

HCU has some strong Marquette connections. The university President since 2004 is Dr. Abdul-Rahman Arkadan, who was on the MU College of Engineering faculty before taking his new post in Lebanon. The Chair of the Department of Humanities and Languages and my supervisor is Sandra Whitehead. She has an M.A. in Journalism from Marquette and has taught in both the College of Communication and the Professional Studies Program.

Jim Scotton is an Associate Professor in the Department of Journalism at the Diederich College of Communication.

Conference Technology Earns High Praise

By Carole Burns

This past week Marquette University hosted a Vatican Conference with a focus on communication.

My “Einstein” video team of student workers was called into action. We provided both video coverage and live stream coverage of the various sessions that were held.

I monitored the three video streams to assure that the stream was functioning properly. We put three MacBook Pro laptops to the task with attached Canon ZR900 video cameras connected via Firewire.  This setup allowed us to use tripods which would give us the best opportunity for viewable content.

If you check out the main website you will see the agenda and room numbers.  The streams were all recorded and can be viewed here: AMU Room 305: www.ustream.tv/channel/wttc-video-live
AMU Room 252: www.ustream.tv/channel/resident-einstein-live-tv
AMU Room 313: www.ustream.tv/channel/live-from-the-diederich-college-of-communication

In addition, I put on my photographer hat and practiced some of the techniques I’ve learned in the past two months. While I still have a long way to go – you can view the 400+ photos on my Flickr stream.

During the three days of sessions the Einsteins also provided much needed technical support.  They were available to assist with PowerPoint setup, audio and video feeds.

The event went like clockwork. The students used their training from the year to ease the nerves of presenters and show that Marquette University is the location for a technologically sound conference.

As presenter after presenter approached me to compliment the technology support they had received I couldn’t help but beam with pride. This was our opportunity to prove what we had been training for this past year, and we put all of our team work and skill into action and proved we could meet the challenge.

I know that this school year will be a strong turning point for the lecture capture series and that my team will be at the heart of a new phase in the Wakerly Technology Training Center.

Carole J. Burns is the Director of the Wakerly Technology Training Center at Marquette University. Follow her on Twitter @burnsy1217.

Facebook: Less Popular Than Paying Taxes?

By Jennifer Janviere
I’ll admit it: the headline “Everyone Uses Facebook and Everyone Hates It” instantly grabbed my attention. With 500 million users worldwide, could the popular social networking site really be so loathed?

Apparently so, according to the article on Gawker.com and the American Consumer Satisfaction Index, which compiles public opinions about government and privately held companies each year. In a customer satisfaction survey released this July, the ACSI gave Facebook a score of 64 out of 100 points, landing it in the bottom 5% of privately owned companies. This makes the social networking site about as popular as airline customer service and the IRS E-filing system. In the category of social media, only the dwindling MySpace fared worse on the overall consumer satisfaction scale.