Feedback November 2002 (Vol 43 No 4)

• We need to expand digital editing and production by a factor of two.• There are never enough tools.• No digital audio, no digital camcorders. We are not keeping up with the industry.• Costs and rapid changes in the industry make it impossible to keep up.• We have huge amounts of students sharing one or two pieces of equipment. Ittakes so long for them to rotate that they barely get to use it.• The field changes faster than we can.• Not enough work stations; not enough space = not enough hands-on time.• Too many students (700) not enough money.Faculty Comfort With Digital ToolsProviding the digital equipment is one thing. Being able to effectively use it in theteaching process is something else. Faculty, many who likely spent their professionalyears in an analog environment, were asked how comfortable they feel using digitalequipment. Only 40 percent (38) responded that they feel “very” comfortable. Forty-sixpercent (44) indicated that they were “somewhat” comfortable, while six percent (6)said they were “not very” comfortable at all.In an open-ended question, survey respondents were asked to identify what wouldneed to happen for them to become “very” comfortable with the digital equipment. Alack of training and time were the two most often cited reasons for the “discomfort”with the digital tools, as indicated by the following responses:• Most of us need more training.• More training—especially in the graphics area.• Need more institutional support to attend workshops to upgrade/maintain skills.• Sabbatical to learn new technologies.• Simply more time to gain experience.• More time to learn some of the newer software.The Bottom Line: MoneyFinally, this survey asked a few budget-related questions. After all, money often dictatesthe quantity and quality of the digital equipment a program purchases. Here, we findsomewhat of a feast or famine scenario. As Table 7 indicates, nearly one-fourth (20) ofthe programs reported having an annual budget of $5,000 or less. Conversely, analmost equal number (22) reported having an annual budget of more than $30,000.The mean annual budget was approximately $17,500. When broken down by theenrollment of the institution, we see that the average annual budget goes up around$5,000 per additional enrollment category. More than one-fifth of the programs (22)reported annual budgets in excess of $30,000, including close to 15 percent in thesmall school range of less than 10,000 students (See Table 7).12Feedback November 2002 (Vol. 43, No. 4)