Author: Luke Lauer

Starting next year, residence hall open hours will be extended on the weekends. Included in the changes, Thursday nights will become the only night without open hours. This all in response to the Residence Life Student Satisfaction Survey.

According to Marc Smithers, director of residence life & housing, starting in the 2015-2016 school year, all residence halls will have open hours extended to 1am on Friday night and extended until 12am on Saturday nights. In surveys for the last several years, Smithers said, “Students [have been] asking for an updated open hours policy, especially talking about wanting to stay later on the weekends.”

Saturday open hours will now start at 7 p.m., instead of 4 p.m., to reduce confusion, add consistency throughout the week, and compensate for later hours on Friday and Saturday according to Smithers.

Additionally, open hours will now be in effect on Monday nights in only the men’s dorms, Rothenbuhler and Shenawana. On Wednesday nights, only the women’s dorms, Lambien and Gillette, will have open hours. This is based on a staggered model used at Taylor University according to Smithers.

A way to remember the days is “Monday men’s, Wednesday women’s,” said Smithers.

This will benefit students in many ways. One of these ways is more interaction cross hall among the students according to Krista Maroni, Lambein resident director. She said, I’ve noticed that students tend to stick to visiting one building of the opposite gender (whichever that might be for any given couple or friend group).”

Jon Craton, Rothenbuhler resident director, said in addition to listening to the majority, Residence Life also wants to “respect the smaller constituency on campus that appreciates the privacy and freedom that comes from not having opposite gendered students on their floor every night.”

School night open hour times on Sunday through Wednesday will remain the same from 7-11 p.m. This leaves Thursday the only night with no open hours in the dorms.

Addressing the the potential student concern for the change’s effect on quiet hours, Smithers said, “We don’t see when hours are not quiet hours all the other hours as ‘loud hours.’ There’s a healthy respect for community in both non-quiet hours and quiet hours.”

Part of the decision is also budgetary and practical, said Smithers, because these open hours will now reflect the hours of the proctor desk. “This will be reflecting the lounge hours, so the lounges will close at the same time that the desk close, at the same time open hours close,” he said. “We are trying to make it less confusing.”

Responding to requests for open hours all hours of the day, Smithers said, “we value the kind of community we can build in the residence hall and so when we have this constant pressure to invite people into our residence hall that takes away from the floor community and the hall community that can be built.”

“We like to set aside times when we can open up the residence halls to outside visitors,” said Smithers. “But we also like to have the bulk majority of our time be for the residence, for the hall, for the floor.”

Overall, Residence Life expects students to respond positively, as well as benefit from the changes. Maroni said, “There will always be push back, any change no matter the size has some, but I think this will benefit the student body overall. They’ve been given more trust, freedom and hopefully more ownership over their ability to effect campus rules and policy.”

This semester, Houghton became the first liberal arts college in the country to offer an undergraduate class in data science. It is also the first Christian liberal arts college to offer any class in data science according to Carmen McKell, cofounder of BaseMetrics.

“Data Science is the art of turning data into actions,” says The Field Guide for Data Science.

Seminar in Data Science hosted guest speaker Paul Yacci, data scientist at Booz Allen Hamilton and co-author of The Field Guide for Data Science, on Jan. 21, marking the first official class of the semester. Yacci said, “It will certainly will be interesting to see what comes out of liberal arts background towards data science.” He said he was “excited to kick of the series” and is the first of many guest speakers to be part of the weekly seminar.

According to course coordinator and technology librarian, Glen Avery, the course has weekly guest speakers from the field of data science lined up. McKell, also course coordinator and Houghton alumna is connecting with data scientists to speak at the seminar.

Stefan Heeke, executive director of SumAll.org, was the second speaker, via Skype, last Wednesday. Some other future speakers include Amanda Stent, principal research scientist at Yahoo Labs; Michael Lyons, director of analytics for the Buffalo Bills; and Philip Martin, SumAll.org data scientist. Avery is also trying to get in contact with a digital historian in Australia.

As part of the seminar, McKell said students will, “have a great opportunity to connect with some of the top Data Scientists in many areas including sports analytics, healthcare, business etc.” Grace Baleno, senior and class participant, said “it is good exposure to the field [data science] and making good connections.”

In addition to connections, Martin will become a mentor for students, according to Avery. Martin will advise students on their final project of data evaluation, analysis, and visualization. “Students will get a chance to work with real datasets as part of this course to tell their stories with data,” said McKell. The semester will end with students giving a presentation on their project.

Sarah Slater, senior and class participant, said the class has already “been really interesting because the teachers are people who are in the industry. I think this is an opportunity you don’t have in a lot of classes.”

“Glen Avery and I are very impressed with the diversity of students in the class,” said McKell. “They come from a variety of backgrounds, including psychology, computer science, business, biology, math, accounting, communications, and international development.”

Concerning students of the class and discussion during his presentation, Yacci said, “Bringing all those people together really fostered an interesting discussion surrounding some of the topics. One of the things I find is working with someone from a different field field often makes you have to force yourself to really think outside the box a little bit.”

McKell said, “At the end of the course it is our hope that these students will have a better understanding of the basics behind data science, and see how it fits in with their future careers.”

“I think the area of using data science for social good is a lot more interesting and intriguing to me,” said Baleno. Yacci said, “I think Houghton has a real interesting opportunity here to do a lot of good in the social good arena. I think there is still a lot that could be done as far as social good problems. I think the liberal arts perspective really would bring a lot from their end.”

Houghton College has made progress on the proposed new data science major this semester, which opened up new opportunities for current students. Internships, job opportunities, and new classes in data science are already available for students.

Alumna Carmen McKell, said of data science, it is a “new field designed to fill the demand for data-savvy professionals in virtually every part of the economy.” Ken Bates, department chair of business and economics, said managing and marketing cannot be done properly, “unless we can somehow harness the streams of information flowing at us all the time,” which is a good visual for what data science is about.

According to Bates, the curriculum is in progress. Originally, he said, curriculum had a lot of computer science courses, but Bates, McKell, and Garfield Fisher, McKell’s husband, who are involved in creating the curriculum, are worried about excluding communication, business, and psychology majors who do not want to take all the computer science classes. Now they are considering a more interdisciplinary approach, and perhaps adding several tracks in the major. In conjunction with a liberal arts education, McKell said, the data science major will prepare students “to communicate complicated findings to a wide range of people in several different ways such as written text, or infographics, as visual stories or data dashboards.”

McKell and Fisher will be on campus Dec. 11-12 to work further on the curriculum with faculty and meet with students. Bates aims to have the curriculum sent to Albany, New York for the state’s approval sometime early next semester.

Bates does not expect a new hire in data science. However, he said, because of the pending major as the business department searches for one finance and one accounting faculty, they will likely favor candidates with some expertise in data science.

As the data science curriculum progresses, the college is already offering two new classes: Data Science Senior Seminar during the spring semester and Social Media Marketing and Data Analytics during Mayterm. The one credit hour spring class will “help expose them [current seniors] to some aspect of data science right away so they hit the ground running with a little more knowledge about the industry,” said Bates. Glen Avery, instructional technology librarian, is the coordinator of the course. The course will likely involve guest speakers on various topics in the course. Taught by alumnus Shane Fraser, The four credit Mayterm class will expose students to everything social media and look at how organizations are, and can use data gathered from social media.

Kim Pool, director of VOCA, said the three branches of the proposed data science major, are social good, learning analytics, and sports analytics. Social good is concerned with humanitarian, nonprofit, and government efforts; learning involves higher education such as admissions or alumni relations; sports will involve Houghton’s own sporting data, possible connections with the Buffalo Bills and Sabres, and concussion analysis of athletes. Along with this, Pool anticipates a new concussion lab in the KPFH.

In October, Pool attended the data science Strata Hadoop Conference in New York City. McKell and Fisher, who own BaseMetrics, an advanced analytics and visualization company based out of Ottawa, Canada, also attended the conference. Amanda Stent, alumna and principal research scientist at Yahoo Labs met with Pool and McKell at the conference, who shared some of data work at Yahoo. McKell said, “Much of the Strata conference was devoted to the best practices in data science, with presentations from some of the worlds’ leading data scientists on to to make data work in business, health, finance, media, fashion, retail and government.”

Pool, McKell, and Fisher met with employers such as: SAS, a business analysis company, Microsoft, RapidMiner, Bloomberg, and Bell Canada to inquire about data science internships for Houghton College students. They also met with Stefan Heeke, CEO of SumAll, a data and impact analytics company, who has a nonprofit organization branch. According to Pool, they also discussed creating a fellowship in New York City for Houghton students “Students would bring their own research data and be given guidance and instruction on analytics, dashboard visualization and policy implementation,” she said “It would be a great experiential learning opportunity for students interested in applying data science to a humanitarian effort.” McKell and Fisher also discussed opportunities to use business’s data software software in classes within the major.

Bates said there is no other Christian college offering a data science major. He hopes for Houghton to be the first, or among the first, especially from a liberal arts perspective.

Concerning the application of the major in the workplace, McKell said “Let’s just say, there is not a job that can’t be enhanced with the understanding and use of data.” Bates said, “Right away there are job opportunities for our students.” He adds the VOCA office is already lining up contacts.

Bates said he asked employers, “if they were open at all to entry level liberal arts students and they all said absolutely ‘yes!’ They prefer to hire those kinds of students, our kinds of students, as opposed to someone who’s finished a masters degree in data science.”

Student participation in many chartered clubs and planned campus activities has decreased this year in comparison to past years. There are fewer chartered student organizations and others are lacking leadership. In addition, there is sparser event attendance than in the past, the SGA has down-sized, and Make a Difference Day participation dropped by half. Junior, Brittany Hark, observed it seems “20 percent of students are doing 80 percent of the work” on campus.

Last year there were upwards of 33 active clubs, and this year there are just a little over 16 under the Student Government Association (SGA), according to Jared Cram, executive officer of student life. Greg Bish, associate dean of student involvement and leaderships programs, sees the phasing out of some clubs as healthy as enrollment has declined.

According to the Academic Records Office, in Fall 2011 Houghton College had 1095 enrolled students on campus. In Fall 2012 enrollment dropped to 999, then 947 in 2013, and now 932 as of Oct. 1 of this year.

The Lanthorn editor, the campus’ literary magazine, up until last week was unfilled, despite funding and stipends available. In the past, the successors were usually brought up in the organization according to Bish, but this year that did not happen. Benjamin Murphy, last year’s Lanthorn co-editor and 2014 Houghton graduate, said the position was not well advertised at the end of last year because of the restructuring of the SGA. According to Ava Bergen, sophomore, few knew about the editor position at the end of last year or the beginning of this semester.

Bergen and Essie Fenstermacher, junior, have recently stepped up to the position to be co-editors. Laura Johnson, sophomore, Hope McKeever, junior, Sylvia and Emily Morrow, seniors, have also joined the cabinet.

Fenstermacher said she wanted to do it because she “would hate to see the Lanthorn cease to exist.”  Bergen said “I think we assumed that someone else was taking the position because we didn’t hear anything about it.” When there was no sign of the Lanthorn the two contacted Bish for the position because they thought it is an important aspect of the Houghton community. Bergen said they will do their best to create a publication for this semester, “maybe not a large one, because of time restrictions.” Next semester they plan on producing two Candles, the smaller publications, plus the final release party of the Lanthorn at the end of the semester.

Concerning campus events, Bish said he does feel there is less student participation this year, compared to past years, even though there are roughly the same amount of events happening. As an example he pointed out at the question and answer with President Shirley Mullen on Oct. 30, there were only 16 students. Katherine Labrecque based on her observations and debriefing as student body president, agreed that student activity in planned campus events seems to have declined.

Make A Difference Day this year had only 200 participants compared to 450 last year and 350 the year before. Labrecque links this to several factors. She pointed out Make a Difference Day was right after midterms and October break. Additionally, first year students were not required by Transitions to participate. A good policy change said Labrecque, as she thought forced service was not a good idea. She also believes students did not want to take part in an all day event on a Saturday and suggested a new model of service. Bish also said five athletic teams were away that day, perhaps contributing to the decline.

Some organizations are doing better this year according to Cram and Bish. Journey’s End Tutoring (JET) has gone from one van of students to up to four this year. Bish pointed out this is perhaps a better way for students to serve as it is a weekly service, rather than a one time event.

Cram said he believes students have not noticed events by organizations so they are less likely to get involved with them. It is sort of a “vicious cycle” of an unawareness of opportunities that contributes to a lack of leaders, he said. If students do not notice what a club is doing, they are not going to join the club. Cram believes students feel less isolated if they are more involved. Bish said, “There are some pretty amazing things here that you [students] are missing out on… but you not going to be able to take advantage of them later.”