Oral History Project - Retired Faculty
Mr. Bob Hart
Instructor
Department of Instructional Technology
Director of the Center for Educational Technology
Director of the Office of Information Technology
(1979-2002)
Interviewer: Sharlonne Rollin
Date: 23 October, 2007
Q: How did you come to work at the College of Education at the University of Georgia.
A: I received my undergraduate degree at the University of Georgia in journalism and I was in ROTC. I was commissioned in the Air Force and I went out to Texas for four years as an Air Force officer. After that, I had known I’d always wanted to teach elementary school; thus my wife and I went back to graduate school at Texas Tech University. When we finished there, I decided to follow her goals, which were to work on a doctorate at the University of Georgia. When we came back to Athens, I taught fourth and fifth grade and decided that’s not what I wanted to do. So I went back to get an advanced degree at the University. While I was doing that, I taught as a graduate assistant in the instructional resource center on campus.
While working on my degree, they asked me if I wanted to be an instructor in the College of Education once I finished. And I said there’s nothing I’d rather do. I took that position, and that’s where I started my career in the College of Education back in 1979. I was an instructor for three years and left for a year to work on a political campaign in Atlanta. Afterwards, I returned to the University, and I worked for the College of Education’s developmental disabilities center on campus, which was not in Aderhold Hall.
They then asked me if I wanted to start teaching again in the instructional technology department, and I taught there from 1984 to 1986 until the College started the Center for Educational Technology where I became the center’s first director. We had computer labs, checked out audiovisual equipment, had a film library, etc. I did that for eight years then was asked in 1994 to work with a statewide project called GSAMS which is the Georgia Statewide Academic and Medical Systems. The dean and president of the University gave me a leave of absence from my position to work with GSAMS with the understanding that I would come back to the College when the project was complete. Well that was supposed to last two years, but it lasted four.
I did come back to the College of Education in 1998 and taught in the Department of Instructional Technology for two years and was then asked if I would serve as Director of the Office of Information Technology in the college, which I did until I retired in 2002.
Q: Over your career, what stands out for you now? What did you like and dislike?
A: I think what stood out for me was the College’s willingness to provide and develop support in the area of technology for all faculty and students. A lot of people probably don’t realize this but for many years the College of Education was the leader in providing technology across campus. Most would be surprised and think, “The business school or another place would have had a larger emphasis on technology for their people,” but that’s not the case.
When I started as director of the CET (Center for Educational Technology) our dean was Alphonse Buccino. Dean Buccino was a go-getter as far as wanting to provide technology support for everyone in the College of Education. A lot of people may tell you that Dean Buccino was very difficult to work for (which I never found the case), yet he was probably the most brilliant man I’ve ever met. He was always a huge promoter of technology. He knew that the College had to be a leader, because our students had to know about technology if they were going to be the excellent teachers we wanted them to be.
So what I remember and admire most about our College is we were for many years the leader (in technology). We had some of the first computer labs on campus. Places like the Georgia Center would call us and want to use our labs if we weren’t using them. Business students would come over and use our labs.
I think having Dean Buccino, along with another man, Dr. Kent Gustafson, who was head of the College’s Department of Instructional Technology really helped promote the effective use of technology in the COE. They were both instrumental in helping the College find the funding we needed. The funding was not handed to us for technology. We had to go find it and the Dean and Kent were masters at finding dollars.
Later, when money for technology started being distributed from sources on campus, the folks on North Campus would say, “Well the College of Education doesn’t need the money because they already have labs.” Dean Buccino and others in the COE had worked hard to receive grants and find other sources for money to be used for computer labs and other technology. And so, he and I would always fight: “You can’t penalize us because we already have resources.” It wasn’t always easy to get the monies, but we were able to do so. Dean Buccino deserves a lot of credit for that.
Q: What are some memorable experiences during your career?
A: Back in the early ’90s, Southern Bell had been overcharging customers in the state of Georgia for some sort of phone services and so they had a big pot of money they had to give back to the state. Governor Zell Miller decided that he was going to take that money and he was going to start a distance education program in the state. Six or seven schools that were picked to try it out. Four high schools and three or four colleges. The College of Education initially wasn’t picked as one of those colleges. This did not sit well with Dean Buccino.
The Dean made a lot of phone calls to the right people to make sure that the College of Education was one of the four colleges that were selected to be involved in this distance learning project called Georgia ClassConnect. He then came to me and he said “Bob. We have to be involved in this and I need for you to take lead since you are head of the CET in the College.”
I said, “Dean, look at everything we’re trying to do. We don’t have the staff, we don’t have the personnel, and we just aren’t going to be able to take this on.”
He looked at me and said, “Bob, I want you to take this and be in charge of this for the College of Education and make sure it works.”
Of course, the second time he said it, I knew better than not to say no again.. I probably shouldn’t have said no the first time. I said, “Okay we’ll do it.” The college became involved right away in this distance learning project. There were eight schools involved in this, and we worked really hard to see if distance learning could work in the state. After a couple of years, the state decided to really go forward with this and that’s when it officially became known as The Georgia Statewide Academic and Medical System (GSAMS.)
Dean Buccino would hear about new innovations in technology and ways they may help education and act on them. If he saw there was something the College needed to be involved in, he would go out there, make sure we got involved, and do the things that we needed to do. More often than not he was right.
Q: Looking back over your career what advice do you have for others studying and working at UGA?
A: I think one piece of advice I would give to students, faculty and staff is to look around and see what is available to you and take advantage of it, especially in the area of technology. We have teachers and professors in the College who really promote technology and are national leaders in using technology effectively in education.
I know technology is just a tool, but I think it’s a wonderful tool that can help students be better teachers, administrators and clinicians.
Look around and see what’s available to you in the College that you might not realize is available, like in the Office of Information Technology. They provide equipment, workshops and classes that students can take.
I would also suggest that folks in the COE always remember to put students first. We tried to do that down in OIT and I think we were pretty successful.
Q: What are some of the critical events that occurred during your career at the College?
A: I don’t know what year it was but it was sometime in the nineties. The university started charging students a technology fee. It was a big controversy whether or not to dot his. The students were allowed to vote on this fee and they voted for it. If I remember correctly the students who voted for it would never have to pay the fee because they would graduate by the time it went into effect.
The University knew that in order to put in all the networking infrastructure, computer labs, and servers needed for research and instruction a lot of money was going to have to be spent on technology. And not just in the College of Education but the University as a whole.
There were many, many, many committees formed to determine how and where that money would be allocated. And the College of Education was leading the way, with faculty and staff serving on just about any committee that was formed on campus. We helped develop policies and procedures regarding the kind of networks that would be set up. We would do a lot of research, interview, and talk to a lot of people about what really needed to be done and what they needed. Unfortunately, we probably made mistakes along the way, but I think overall, what we did was very good.
But in those first couple of years, as money was being allocated, I would sit in that meeting and folks would say, “We need to give Arts and Sciences this much money and we need to give College of Education this much money.” And often that initial amount of money they wanted to give the College of Education was not proportional to the number of students we had. We often had to fight and lobby very hard to get our fair share, which we did.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to add that we haven’t talked about?
A: I just wanted to bring up again that one of the nice things about the College of Education was that when we initially started putting all of this equipment in these labs, we were very willing from the beginning to share with other people on campus. And that’s very unusual. Folks get very territorial when they start installing new facilities. I won’t name names of other colleges, but there was one place on campus even though we let them use our computer laboratories when we first had them and they didn’t. They refused to let us use theirs a few years later when we needed to do so for a conference we were hosting. They told us, “No.” We immediately went to the director of that organization on campus to further state our case and it only took them a few minutes to change their mind and let us use their facilities.
One of our main goals in the CET and the OIT (Office of Instructional Technology) was to make sure that our services, equipment and facilities were there for our students. We would allow and encourage students from other colleges to use our resources, but COE students always had a priority.
Another thing that we did that when we first started was to be open seven days a week. We would have our computer labs open from 8 o’clock in the morning to 10 at night on Monday through Friday. I believe 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturdays and 2 until 6 p.m. on Sundays. And nobody else on campus did that. So, we had students from all over campus using our facilities.
Mr. Bob Hart
Ed.S., Instructional Technology
University of Georgia
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