USABC Educates Students, Community

Nestled in the heart of downtown Fairhope, Ala., under a canopy of lofty oak trees, USA Baldwin County (USABC) awaits students and faculty with the serenity and quietude that set it apart from any other college campus in the area. Even USA’s busy main campus can’t rival the warmth and welcoming tranquility USABC has graced downtown Fairhope with for over two decades.

But underneath this blanket of good, old-fashioned peace and quiet is a bustling, growing campus – a hub for learning in a city nationally recognized for its laidback, small-town feel. From technological advancements to campus performances by prominent musicians to lectures by literary experts, USABC reaches far and wide to offer students unmatched opportunities with a quality of learning identical to that of USA’s main campus.

USABC Director Dr. Phil Norris, who has led the campus in its growth and development for 24 years, said the campus remains community-oriented while trying to increase its variety of events for students.

“What we want to be in this community is the place you want to come for innovation,” he said. “We’ve moved to a social-networking marketing model for USA Baldwin County. We’ve recognized the importance of social networking, and we’re teaching the community how to use the sites [and] what to use them for.

“Is that educating the community? Yeah.”

Last summer and this past December, USABC held free workshops open to the public that trained them to use Web sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Three librarians from USA’s main campus helped teach the sessions, along with USABC’s resident technologist, and more than 350 people attending learned how to use social networking to their advantage, Norris said.

Every two weeks, USABC holds a social networking salon and links it to the main campus using a server called Polycom. People from local organizations meet for two hours and share anything they’ve recently learned about technology, Norris said.

“Everybody has to bring something,” he said. “You’ve got to talk about technology, about what’s happening.”

About a year ago, USABC set up a Polycom room to import classes from USA’s main campus, Norris said. He and his staff are currently trying to get the USABC’s fall 2010 schedule filled with classes imported from USA’s main campus via Polycom to expand the curriculum USABC offers. Growing the availability of classes at USABC remains staff members’ biggest challenge, Norris said, and they’re looking at adding another Polycom room.

Norris likened USABC’s instructional focus to a three-legged stool: The first leg is online courses, which the campus is developing, he said. Polycom is the second leg, because it allows the campus to import or export courses.

“We’ll be mainly importing [classes], since the main campus has so much more curriculum,” he said.

Third is what Norris called the “traditional classroom structure on campus.” This past semester, USABC offered an eclectic mix of classes from numerous disciplines taught at USA’s main campus, like Criminal Justice, Communication, Psychology, Education, and Social Work.

All three of the legs, using hybridized instruction (which combines online learning with classroom instruction), comprise USABC’s learning goals.

“It’s time to change,” Norris said. “It’s time to use all technology. We’re very interested in technology and pushing [its] limits.”

USABC offers plenty for students, faculty and community members to do out from behind a computer screen, too.

More than two months ago, Sarah Guthrie, granddaughter of Woody Guthrie (famous for “This Land Is Your Land”), played a concert for a mainly non-student crowd with singer-songwriter Grayson Capps at USABC’s St. James Classroom Complex Performance Center. Guthrie sang “This Land Is Your Land” at the end of her set, and according to Norris, “it brought the house down.”

“The house was just electric,” he said of the crowded hall. “You could feel it. Here [was] probably the most famous song of the last century, and it’s so tied up with the Great Depression, and [Woody Guthrie] was probably the most famous musician in the ‘30s and ‘40s. We were lucky to have her.”

USABC holds its yearly Fairhope Film Series for crowds hungry to see films that are “unique and unusual and artistic, and things you’re not going to be able to see anywhere else,” Norris said.

“These are films that, if they come to Mobile, they’re going to come for three days,” he said. “Is that the mission of the University? You bet.

“Our role is not only to our students, but to our community. It’s to give you things you’re [otherwise] not going to be able to get and to raise issues and talk about things.”

One of the issues raised on the USABC campus was of public education and economic development.

On March 6, Dr. David Bronner, CEO of the Alabama Retirement Systems, led a discussion at the St. James Performance Center that encouraged his audience to continue pushing for more public education funding for the Baldwin County school system. USABC co-sponsored the event with the Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce.

“We feel like it’s important, so [we brought] in a guy [who’s] the most important economic developer in the state and also controls $30 million and also tells it like it is,” Norris said. “Is that part of what we should be doing? You bet.”

For more information about USABC and its events, visit southalabama.edu/usabc.