You might say it was just another wasteful step down the slippery slope of yuppie indulgence. But the university’s recent distribution of iPods and iPhones to a select group of scholarship recipients is part of a worthwhile program. At first glance, it seems absurd that the university would invest thousands of dollars in Apple’s trendiest gadgets rather than, say, a scholarship fund. To take such a shallow view, however, fails to consider the benefits of the university’s hundreds of years of investment in technology.
In 1887, federal legislation appropriated $15,000 a year to Maryland for the purpose of establishing an agricultural experiment station. The grant actually exceeded the annual academic budget, and provided the floundering institution a clear sense of mission. University president Henry E. Alvord seized the opportunity, establishing the school as a service hub for Maryland farmers and even dispatching faculty to surrounding farm organizations to offer free lectures on crops, breeding and fertilizers.
At heart, the university remains a research institution. Cutting-edge studies are conducted across an enormous range of disciplines, ranging from bio-sciences and nanotechnology to linguistics and terrorism. To most effectively conduct research across the university, technology must be considered not only as an ends, but also a means to facilitate research.
It is within this spirit that the university has distributed the latest Apple technology. The devices are a testing ground for new educational applications developed by the university. The programs being tested are primarily tools of convenience, offering constant access to maps and academic information. Although these initial programs do not seem like ground-breaking contributions, they do further the campus connectivity. The most important consideration is that the most momentous advances are often unexpected and unintended. In fact, the very touch-screen technology used by Apple was pioneered in a lab at this university.
As a publicly funded institution, we must retain Alvord’s vision of serving communities by sharing our technological advances. History speaks clearly to the social benefits of such service. On Nov. 29, 1912, a fire raged through the campus, a disaster that seemed to signal the death of the university. Fortunately, prospering farmers who had come to depend on the university’s services rallied behind faculty and students, enabling the university to rebound. We must continue to invest in technology, even if it means minting 130 new iPhone-wielding hipsters.
