Space Grant Consortium - University of Wisconsin - Green Bay

important learning concepts. Through these sessions, additional faculty became interested in the
prospect of including this technology as a tool for their students’ learning, expanding the use of
the technology in courses be yond social science and environmental science to such courses as
business and management, adult education, psychology, global studies and healthcare studies.
GIS steering committee. The steering committee was set up to bring GIS to Alverno, and to
determine the most effective ways to utilize finds to incorporate GIS into the curriculum. It was
initially comprised of members of the Social sciences and Environmental sciences in the School
af A rts and S ciences. It h as s ince ex panded t o include r epresentatives from each o f t he four
schools a t A lverno; t he School of A rts and S ciences, t he S chool of Business, t he S chool o f
Nursing, and the School of Education, along with support staff from the library and academic
computing. Faculty, staff, and administration are all represented on t he committee, as well as
most of t he a bility de partments. W e ha ve be en hi ghly s uccessful i n obt aining uni versal
acceptance of the potential for this technology across the curriculum.
Networking with other institutions. A strong network has been formed between Alverno
and t he U niversity of W isconsin-Milwaukee ( UWM), w hich o ffers a G IS c ertificate p rogram.
Faculty at UWM have been part of the Alverno GIS steering committee, and have shared their
expertise b y p resenting at a G IS s eminar f or t he en tire A lverno f aculty i n S eptember 2 007.
Alverno has also formed ties with several consulting firms, and their staff have also been part of
the GIS steering committee.
Initial GIS training for faculty and staff. The Initially, t he g oals of t he G IS A cross t he
Curriculum pr oject were to a pply G IS t echnology i n t wo s pecific di sciplines; Environmental
Science, and Social Science, by restructuring select course content in geography, environmental
geology, and earth science courses. T o do t his, we formed a steering committee composed of
key faculty members from Physical/Earth Science, Technology, and Social Science departments
along w ith out side c onsultants, t o r eview t he c urrent c ourse c ontent a nd i dentify a core of
courses from each discipline area that can integrate GIS concepts and infuse geospatial science
and t echnology content. Within e ach o f t hese t wo de partments, i nterested faculty t hen were
selected to be trained in GIS. With this training, the selected faculty were to develop curricular
activities for students using GIS, so that students had a chance to use GIS in different settings, to
work with it as an analytical tool, and to see its applications in multiple disciplines. If faculty in
other disciplines b ecame interested in using G IS, we hoped to be able to train them at a later
date, w ith a ne w s ource of f unding. The co sts of pr ofessional de velopment i n G IS a re f airly
high, s o w e a ssumed t hat onl y a f ew hi ghly m otivated f aculty m embers w ould be a ble t o be
trained in GIS.
However, we found that we co uld train our f aculty more cost-effectively b y hiring a G IS
professional to teach a 1- to 2-credit GIS course at Alverno. Alverno obtained 25 licenses for the
GIS software (enough for a full computer lab at a time to work on GIS). This software was not
funded by the grant, but as in-kind matching funds from the College. We selected an instructor
from a pool of well-qualified applicants. The course was first offered in the spring of 2006, and
has been offered each spring since then, with the potential for students to repeat doing different
project activities. This c ourse provides an ov erview of G IS uses, and was built on l aboratorybased
exercises and assessments designed to introduce students to the major concepts, features,
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