Educators around the world have been trying to make a college education easily available and affordable for years, and now it seems most universities have found their solution: massive open online courses.

UH announced on Friday it will join other universities that have taken steps to offer MOOCs. Coursera, one of the companies worldwide that links colleges together to provide free courses to anyone who wants to learn, will begin discussing its future with the UH System and nine others across the nation.

“Coursera is working with the most renowned and well-respected universities, and we’re excited to join with our peers in using the MOOC technology and content to improve the quality and access of our educational offerings,” said Interim Provost Paula Short in a press release.

While Coursera’s goal is to extend free education and classes not for college credit, UH — after the original implementation of the technology — will phase in courses that will count toward degrees and will require tuition.

“We will evaluate full potential of the program over the next year and move forward in a strategic way that enhances our Tier One status and student success initiatives,” Short said.

The partnership will encourage faculty members to incorporate the online resources in their classrooms, which will create a more thorough and diverse education.

“We think the coming decade will see a transformation in the way education is delivered, where teachers and online content come together to better serve students on campus and beyond,” said co-founder of Coursera Daphne Koller in a press release.

At first, UH will spotlight science courses but will try to bring more to the table.

“Courses developed by our National Academy of Science faculty in engineering and natural sciences should be popular MOOCs that we can offer, as well as other online courses that allow the student to self-pace instruction to achieve mastery before moving to the next topic,” Short said.

MOOCs are a relatively new topic in the higher education world, and the Coursera company is even newer. The company began in April 2012 and since then has generated more than 300 courses and 3 million users. UH will be among the more than 70 partners of the company, a list that includes Rice University, Yale University and Princeton University.

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UH IT services have reported suspicious computer-hacking attempts on campus and throughout the state.

“UIT Security has received reports of suspicious phone calls received by UH employees that appear to be attempts by hackers to gain unauthorized access to university computers,” said Executive Director of IT Security Mary E. Dickerson in a campus-wide email.

“We also received notification from the State of Texas Chief Information Security Officer that employees at other state agencies are also receiving these calls.”

One computer user on campus answered the phone to a caller claiming to be troubleshooting a problem with the building’s WiFi. The caller tried to run a remote controlling program that would give the caller access to the user computer. The user, becoming suspicious of the caller, hung up the phone.

In a similar incident, the caller claimed to be helping purge the system of a virus and that he, the caller, would be helping the user to make changes to the computer. The user asked for the caller’s name and company, and at this point the caller hung up.

UIT security is asking all students and UH employees to be alert when using the campus computer system.

“Do not provide any information regarding university computers or accounts over the phone to people you do not know,” Dickerson said. “University IT staff will not ask you for this information.”

“If you have concerns about the validity of someone who is contacting you or if have received a phone call such as described above, please report this immediately to UIT Security at security@uh.edu.”

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Interim Provost Paula Short, under the instructions of President and Chancellor Renu Khator, announced eight new positions within the division of academic affairs at UH and the UH System.

Although four of the positions will be permanent, half of the appointments are only interim positions. Two of the newly appointed administrators will assume system-wide roles.

The new appointments came after an announcement made by Khator on May 13 that she, along with the provost, will begin to reorganize the division of academic affairs.

“In October, the provost and I engaged the Pappas Consulting Group Inc. to create a functionally aligned organizational structure for the Office of the Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs/Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost,” Khator said in an email announcement.

“Our objective was to be able to optimally support the University of Houston’s Tier One classification and to ensure student success at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.”

After Khator announced the restructuring, Short sent out her own email, proclaiming the resignation of eight administrators.

The new eight positions announced Tuesday do not directly replace the former eight, but assume new responsibilities and titles.

Among the interim appointments are Richard Olenchak as interim associate provost of faculty development and faculty affairs, Teri Elkins Longacre as interim vice provost and dean of undergraduate student success, Dmitri Litvinov as interim vice provost and dean of University of Houston Graduate School, and Jeff Morgan as interim associate provost of education innovation and technology.

Some individuals received permanent appointments, such as Richard D. Phillips as associate vice chancellor for system initiatives, Chris Stanich as associate vice chancellor and associate provost of institutional planning and analysis, Edward Craig Ness as associate provost of finance and administration, and Ramanan Krishnamoorti as chief energy officer.

The administration remains busy as it continues to search to fill more positions.

“In addition to these appointments, we will begin searches to fill the following four positions: associate provost for strategic enrollment planning, vice provost for global strategies and studies, chief health sciences officer and chief arts officer,” Short said in her email to the UH community.

“We will also appoint a university-wide working group to develop a strategic plan for university engagement.”

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UH is undergoing an influx of redesigns, construction zones and remodeling; yet the biggest Cougar face lift is happening within the office of academic affairs.

These eight administrators will lose their positions under President and Chancellor Renu Khator’s reorganization plan, which was announced to the University on Monday. | Courtesy of UH.edu

President and Chancellor Renu Khator announced in a campus-wide email on Monday that in order to completely support the University’s Tier One status, she plans to begin taking steps toward creating positions within the administration to better the University, and to eliminate the positions that have become obsolete. All of the actions that Khator will be taking were formulated under the advisement of the Pappas Consulting Group Inc.

“Throughout this effort, the consultant reached out to the deans, the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate, and the vice presidents for their comments and ideas,” Khator said. “The consultant further solicited input from department chairs and college business administrators. Most recently, the consultant shared the initial conceptual model with the Council of Vice Presidents, the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate and the deans for their reaction and comments.”

Khator said the feedback was positive and, along with the consultant firm, the groups formulated a full report that details the administrative actions to be taken by UH. The document focuses on transforming the office of the senior vice chancellor for academic affairs and senior vice president for academic affairs and provost.

“The reorganization calls for the creation of new positions, the elimination of currently existing positions and the realignment of functions to different reporting structures,” the Pappas Consulting Group said in its report. “The changes are both horizontal and vertical. Some will be easier to implement than others. Some may be done immediately upon authorization to proceed, others will need to be undertaken sequentially and iteratively. Some will need to be developed from the proverbial ground up.”

The document continues, further detailing the precise duties of the new positions.

Interim Provost Paula Short sent out her own campus-wide email a mere hour and a half after Khator, naming all of the administrators whose jobs were eliminated.

“While the reorganization is necessary to ensure student success at the undergraduate and graduate levels, change is sometimes difficult, especially when personnel are affected,” Short said. “The organizational transformation outlined in the consultant’s report eliminates eight existing positions. No other changes to existing positions in administration are recommended in the report.”

According to the email, Jerald Strickland, associate vice chancellor and associate vice president of International Studies and Programs; Stuart Hall, associate vice president, graduate and professional studies; and Agnes DeFranco, associate vice president for undergraduate studies, are returning to various faculty positions.

Elaine Charlson, executive associate vice chancellor and associate vice president for academic affairs, is electing to retire, Short said.

Three more administrators — Marshall Schott, associate vice president of University outreach and associate vice chancellor of planning and administration; Libby Barlow, assistant vice president of academic affairs; and Kathryn Peek, assistant vice president of University Health — are announced to be pursuing other opportunities.

Rounding off the eight, the position of associate vice chancellor and associate vice president for planning and outreach has been eliminated. The position is empty as its former possessor, Ed Hugetz, remains as interim provost at the University of Houston-Downtown.

Although drastic changes have been made, the process is in its early stages as UH begins a search to fill the new positions.

“I will announce the interim appointments for the new positions created in the reorganization plan by Wednesday, May 22,” Short said. “The Office of Academic Affairs will begin national searches this summer to fill the positions.”

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Students usually go to college to help them secure a job by getting a degree, but for the students in the UH dance program, getting jobs in their field is happening well before they graduate.

“I believed I needed more experience in dance,” said dance senior Katey Tidwell, who works at The River Performing and Visual Arts Center. “There is always more to learn when it comes to dance. By majoring in dance, I learned about all of the aspects of dance: how to choreograph, teach, costume, light and how to produce your own show.”

The dance students are looking to expand their experience in the classroom and immediately apply it to
the “real world.” When it comes to moving on from the current positions that they hold, having that degree
seems to be the object that will give them a leg up against other dancers.

There are negatives to trying to accomplish both at once, though. Instead of being focused on excelling
in one area, students are stretched between two important goals in their lives.

“Working my way through school has been helping me a lot in focusing on what I want to do with my career in dance,” said dance junior Vi Dieu. “But it is because of school that sometimes I cannot work to make money.”

Tidwell said she has the same issue. One or the other will get forgotten for some time if the other needs
more attention. But Tidwell said her homework will go undone whenever she has to put in more hours at work.

Math junior Jaymes Barcenas, who originally a double majored in math and dance, had to forget his dance degree and take it as a minor because of the workload, among other reasons, but he said the program changed his life.

“If I wouldn’t have danced in the department, I wouldn’t have been so close to the ballet teachers as I am now, and I wouldn’t have my ballet mentor,” Barcenas said. “In a sense, the department was a stepping stone for dance just like the MET (an off-campus studio), and me dropping the major was my break away from being forced to become what they, the modern teachers, want me to be and finally become what I want to be.”

The dance students have an understanding of what they want and what they don’t want with their careers and their education because they are experiencing what it is like before they graduate. It is hard to balance both, but without that, their opinions and personal choices would not be the same.

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Senator Guillermo Lopez authored the Bill to Amend the Bylaws to Restore Mandatory Committee Review of Legislation, which was brought before the Student Government Association Senate on Wednesday during their last meeting of the semester. | Kate Morris/The Daily Cougar

SGA closed the semester Wednesday at their final meeting until the summer.

The meeting consisted of the introduction and first readings of two new bills and nine student appointments to the senate.

Senator Guillermo Lopez authored a Bill to Amend the Bylaws to Restore Mandatory Committee Review of Legislation, which was presented first. Under this bill, legislation would be sent to standing committees to be reviewed after the first reading.

A second bill was introduced titled An SGA Bill to Amend the Bylaws to Simplify the Senate Order of  Business, authored by Speaker Sebastian Agudelo and Senator Lopez, which calls cleaning up the order of business and providing students with an updated agenda.

Five new students were voted into a seat in the senate, including a new Director of External Affairs, political science junior Bria Riley.

“I want to get SGA more effectively involved in the community, I think we are underrepresented.” Riley said. “This is a commuter campus, and this is also a campus full of transfer students, and those students are not aware of the organization. We really do play a very important role in our student body. With that being said, I want to be leader and engrain in the student body that we are effective.”

“I call us the leadership machine of the campus and to properly work we need all of the components; were better as a whole than we are broken apart.”

Additionally, SGA welcomed: public relations junior Alexandria Sauls as director of public relations; finance graduate student Charles Haston as graduate at-large senator, seat two; teaching and learning sophomore Geordie Daniel as senator of the College of Education and kinesiology freshman Edgar Cisneros as sergeant at arms.

Current senators taking on a new role included: political science junior David Ghably for Academic Affairs Committee Chair, Guillermo Lopez for Internal Affairs Committee Chai, political science and liberal studies senior Yesenia Chavez for Student Life Committee Chair and finance junior Sunil Motwani for Administration and Finance Committee Chair.

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A student reported that she was sexually assaulted in her Cougar Village room by Keon Mark Whitehead, 19, while she was drunk April 13.

According to the criminal complaint filed against Whitehead, the student said she could only vaguely remember what happened, but she recalled Whitehead, an acquaintance of her roommate and her, standing beside her bed after she had been drinking for several hours.

She then said her legs had fallen off of the bed, and she remembered Whitehead picking them up, and according to the complaint, Whitehead confirmed — via telephone the next day — that the two of them had sexual intercourse and that he did not use a condom.

According to the complaint, Whitehead had videotaped the student sleeping until her roommate told him to stop. He also admitted to the UH Department of Public Safety that he knew she had been drinking, and that he engaged in sexual contact.

According the UHDPS’ daily crime bulletin, she reported the assault shortly after midnight April 15.

Whitehead was taken to Harris County Jail with a bail set at $30,000, and his next court date is May 16.

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The International Student and Scholar Services Office provides UH’s almost 4,000 non-immigrant international students with the tools to begin their American education and take it back to their country of origin.

International students who come to the University with a temporary visa are greeted on their arrival with a check-in process.

“They have to check in with us and the reason is because our office is in charge of the responsibility of ensuring that the student is on an appropriate visa for study,” said Anita Gaines, director of ISSSO. “There are some types of visas that don’t permit study. Or there may be cases when the international student may have a concern or problem before getting here that we need to see.”

During check-in, the entire staff meets each student individually, who then walks through stations that provide information about everything from how to get housing and how to pay bills to how to obtain a drivers license. The office has trained peer advisors, both American and international, who help with the process.

“There is a lot of information to guide them through when first arriving here,” said Jin Zhang, associate
director of ISSSO.

To help the students feel more comfortable in their new environment, ISSSO has an International Friendship Program that connects them with other students from their country.

Gaines said the process gives arriving students everything they need while studying in America.

“It gives us the opportunity to give them information about how to get started here,” Gaines said. “Beyond check in, we have a two-day orientation where we provide information about the American educational system, about the city, about the University and about the things they are going to need to know to be successful in this country. They have so many additional obstacles that they need to cross, and at least they know where to go for different services.”

The services are available to all international students at UH. According to the Fall Semester 2012 Annual Enrollment Report, there is a total of 40,746 enrolled students at UH, of which 3,520 are non-immigrant international students.

Most non-immigrant students come from China, India and Vietnam, the report said.

These students are also given the opportunity to get work experience on- and off-campus while at UH. ISSSO does this through several training programs designed for different types of international student according to their immigration documents.

“In either case we are involved in helping them with the process to gain authorization to work,” Gaines said. “It has to be related to their major.”

Zhang said that while some students do stay in the U.S. to begin their careers, she thinks most non-immigrant students go back to their country to work. The current economic situation in each country varies, affecting the decisions of students to either stay or go back.

“Some students find that the company likes them and they like the company, so they stay here,” Zhang said. “Some students return home, and I think that is almost always the case. These days we do see more students return home than before, especially people from developing countries.”

India-native Rahul Parthasarathi, an international accounting graduate student, has a different perspective. He said students from underdeveloped countries like his feel that that staying in the U.S. will give them the chance to get back what they put in to their degree.

“People from India actually pay more, because the cost of living here is expensive,” Parthasarathi said. “I spent $40,000 in undergrad. I would like to get that back by working here. Any job here pays more than anything back home. India is at the bottom of the economy chart, because it provides cheap labor among other things. But the U.S is at the top.”

Whether they stay or if they go, both Zhang and Gaines said they are proud to offer all the services they can through the ISSSO to current and future international students. Gaines said having such a prominent international community on the UH campus helps everyone at the University.

“Our university being such a diverse campus, the second most diverse research institution in a city that is known to be the most diverse city in the U.S., puts us in a really unique position to be able to celebrate the diversity here,” Gaines said. “It helps everyone in the community to be better educated about the world. Many people don’t get the opportunity to travel to another country, but you can learn a lot from someone who is from another country.”

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