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ALSO
IN THIS ISSUE In His Element College for Kids Parking 101 Go With the Flow Close Encounters Chancellor's Page Development News Factoids Newsmakers Accomplishments
of faculty and staff… |
When
wave after wave of change washes over the subject you teach, what do you
do? From shorthand to machine transcription to speech recognition, mimeograph and ditto machines to color copiers, erasers to Liquid Paper to backspace and block-delete, huge 144-key comptometers with a hand-crank to credit-card size calculators, telephone switchboards with long cords to cell phones and pagers, Simpson has seen it all come and go –– and has taught most of it. Today, she’s as comfortable at her computer chatting with an student in a virtual classroom as she is on her original 1929 Underwood. She still owns that antique typewriter and fondly recalls the days she instructed Miramar College students on early electric models. College computer labs are now filled with state-of-the-art Pentium IVs and Apple iMacs. Simpson’s last “shorthand” class was in the 1980s, replaced by machine transcription, which has now been replaced by speech recognition software. “The only constant in life is change,” says Simpson, “and I have always made that statement the core of all that I teach. Education must be fluid; the ability and willingness to change must be concrete.” More than technology has changed in Simpson’s career at Miramar College. What was once a predominately female student population in office technology has now become gender equal. From secretaries to CEOs, from technicians and doctors to senior citizens wanting to learn how to e-mail their grandchildren, keyboarding has become the new “second language” — more than a required skill in the workplace, but a necessary life skill. Men and women of all ages and ethnicities now fill Simpson’s classroom seats. “I’ve noticed changes in student characteristics over the years,” she says. “Today, everyone is working while going to college. The ages of my students and their level of education is much more varied. Many are finding that the competitive marketplace requires individuals with years of experience to return to college to get a formal education to compete with college grads that bring their degrees, but have no experience in the job market. “A greater number of students are younger, too. Some are still in high school. And only five years ago, most of my students didn’t have Internet access; today, about 95 percent of them do. Today’s students have been raised with video games and are very familiar and comfortable with computers.” Diversity is not only reflected in the students themselves, but today’s global business world has required a shift in curriculum. Business students must be sensitive to and familiar with multicultural perspectives and business trends of today’s marketplace. For instance, Simpson now teaches students in her International Business class how to design, offer and receive a business card correctly. Not only should the card be printed on both sides in respective languages, but Japanese culture requires that a card be received with both hands and read in the person’s presence, reflecting the respect in which it was offered. Curriculum has moved from being “theory based” to presenting practical application and on-the-job principles for the business world. Simpson’s business classes include assignments to interview CEOs of successful organizations and minority-owned businesses and those case studies are today’s real-life textbooks. Advice from the likes of San Diego Sheriff Bill Kolender, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs, San Diego Postmaster Glenn Crouch, and MP3.com inventor Michael Robertson now guide Miramar students. What hasn’t changed is the demand for business classes. Simpson has dealt with overcrowding, waiting lists, and lack of facilities since her early days at Miramar. “I remember having 300 students in the very first office skills lab we offered. To maximize one professor’s presence, we scheduled 15 different course sections at one time. It was the first open-entry/open-exit college-level course to be offered in the San Diego Community College Distrct. With too few typewriters, we used pictures of keyboards and I’d call out letters; students would practice on paper keys. For the records and file management students in the group, we’d gather outside for lecture, while others in the lab would be perched atop phone books to reach calculators on countertops. We were responding to student needs and that called for being innovative. The saying on campus in those days was that I needed roller skates to get around to all the students in that single lab!” Always committed to finding a way to serve increasing student demand, Simpson joined a handful of other professors to be the first in the San Diego Community College District to take their classroom into cyberspace. Her online courses, Business Communications and Introduction to Business, are as popular as her on-campus sections, filling up quickly and amassing waiting lists. The Internet has offered options to meet demands during the college’s facility crisis, one exacerbated by the area’s rapid population growth. “It’s a great option for many students — those self-motivated and those who can’t get to campus — but I miss the personal communication and the nonverbal cues you get from students in the classroom. In any case, each of my students receives my utmost personal attention,” she says with the warm smile that everyone who has ever met Simpson recognizes. TOOLS OF THE TRADE.
In 30 years of teaching business communications, Dorothy Simpson has used
manual to electric to electronic instruments. Ever flexible, she was among
the first professors to utilize the Internet for online classes - a 21st
century solution to over-crowded classrooms and busy student lives.
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