In July, our team did some research on how the the top universities were going mobile. Instead of letting it waste away on an Excel spreadsheet, we decided to create an infographic which breaks down the data a bit further. It covers how many of the Top 100 institutions have mobile, what kind of mobile solution they have, and how they did it.

(Click image for full-size)

 Feel free to re-post the infographic on your own blog, just give us a shout out if you do!

- iCampus

Today, InsideHigherEd.com published an article titled Grad Student Diversity at Risk?, which discusses current diversity statistics and the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court decision on whether colleges and universities can consider race and ethnicity in admissions decisions.

At the bottom of the article are some great comments and reactions from noteworthy individuals that are definitely worth sharing. The first being from Roger Clegg, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, who was cited in the article in his opposition to affirmative action policies in Higher Education; and Tracy Mitrano, the Director of IT Policy and Institute for Computer Policy and Law at Cornell, who presents a great argument on behalf of the admission policy.

Roger Clegg:

“I appreciate IHE quoting me in this article.  Here’s a more extended take:

(1) In the runup to Fisher, we will likely see a lot of “studies” like this, by advocates and designed to shore up the crumbling case for racial preferences.

(2) The irony of this particular study is that the weight of research shows more and more clearly that racial and ethnic preferences have HURT African Americans and Latinos and Native Americans in the STEM area. Because of the systematic mismatching of students and schools, those groups admitted with academic qualifications lower than other groups have tended to drop out or switch majors into easier disciplines. This was the conclusion of the recent study at Duke; this is also argued comprehensively in the amicus briefs filed recently with the Supreme Court by Richard Sander and Stuart Taylor, and by Gail Heriot, Todd Gaziano, and Peter Kirsanow.

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Earlier this week, InsideHigherEd.com posted an essay by Peter Burian, a Professor of Classical Studies and Dean of Humanities at Duke University, titled ‘Defending the Humanities’. In his essay, Dr. Burian bemoans America’s tech-obsessed youth and the declining appreciation of the humanities. The essay is, of course, beautifully written, and all of his points regarding my generation, completely true. But are the humanities also suffering from their own rigid self-perception?

There’s an unfortunate misconception among young people that the humanities are devoid of critical thinking and problem solving, and that obtaining an English literature degree somehow precludes one from future financial success, or a career in the business world. As most of us know, this couldn’t be further from the truth. But what message, if any, are high school seniors and their parents getting?

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This may be one of our shortest blog posts ever, but we think it’s worth sharing.

Yesterday, Timothy Chester, the CIO of the University of Georgia, tweeted out this little gem:

@goicampus No, CIOs don’t innovate, they create context for innovation by others – students, faculty, or staff in #highered #cio

— Timothy Chester (@accidentalcio) May 21, 2012

We hear a lot about “innovative CIO’s” in higher education and thought this was an extremely refreshing view on what a CIO’s role really is in promoting innovation on their campus.

Just some food for thought.

When we first came up with the idea behind EZ Axess, it boiled down to a simple mission: give students easy access to the campus services that matter to them. In the past two years we have done just that. To date, we have helped over 30 institutions mobilize their important campus services in a branded mobile app – serving hundreds of thousands of students.

Yet as our company has progressed, so has our mission. While “easy access” is still essential to our company, it is just the first step to our greater goals. Building on top of that, we are now re-imagining how students experience campus life. With this new mission comes a new name.

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Today, we’re excited to bring you iCampus for Android. We’ve already seen hundreds of thousands of users download and use our iOS and Mobile web apps, and now we’re thrilled to offer a way for Android users to join their iOS friends in getting instant access to their important campus services.

We’ve been working tirelessly to make this new Android app a first-class mobile campus experience. While our Android app has all the same features as our iOS app, it was built with the Android user in mind — using specific UI elements that Android users are already accustomed to.

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