July 2001

Home

School Update

Alumni and Friends

Faculty

Students

 

 

Current Issue

Archives

 

By spending the summer as a student at UNC-CH, USA Today reporter Mary Beth Marklein is learning more about the impact of technology on higher education.
Photo by Zach Hoskins

USA Today’s Marklein studies higher education, technology

Journalist seeks student’s point of view

After years of writing stories about the admissions process, SAT scores, college drinking and trends in college curricula, Mary Beth Marklein has gone back to school to see for herself how technology is changing higher education.

“These are all things that I do stories on,” Marklein said. “I do stories on how online applications are changing the admissions process. Now is a chance to step back and say, ‘What does it really mean to take an online class?’”

Marklein, who covers the higher education beat at USA Today, is the fifth visiting scholar from the newspaper to join the School for a minisabbatical. She is here for the summer.

She plans to explore the impact of technology on higher education during her stay in Chapel Hill — a huge goal, with an equally huge project list to accompany it.

In her first week on campus, Marklein studied the use of statistics in reporting in a weeklong seminar by the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting.

She plans to enroll in an online philosophy class and take a weeklong course at North Carolina State University designed to teach faculty members how to develop online classes.

“I think I would know a lot more and be able to speak with more authority if I understood the student’s point of view and the professor’s point of view,” Marklein said.

“I want to feel what it’s like to be able to turn on your laptop at 11 p.m. and actually study.”

In addition to enrolling in classes, she intends to sit in on several other courses.

“I am interested in seeing how computers get used in classes that are not about computers or computing,” she said.

In addition to how technology is used in class, Marklein also plans to expand her knowledge of computer technology itself.

“I never felt comfortable writing certain kinds of stories because I didn’t know enough” about some types of technology, she said. With that in mind, she plans to take a computer science class and wants to learn how to build a Web site so she can design one for the USA Today minisabbatical program.

Also on the to-do list are visits to the neighboring universities and colleges to assess technology use on other campuses.

Marklein said she finds herself torn between just being a student and still wanting to be a reporter.

“The best thing about the sabbatical program is that they say, ‘Don’t write anything when you’re down there,’” Marklein said. “This is my opportunity to think big thoughts.”

But there are stories she wants to write anyway.

“I happen to be a NASCAR fan,” she said. “One of the stories I want to do is a NASCAR story.”

As only a true college student would, she decided to take one class just for fun — about the music of the Beatles. She said she thinks she will be the only student in the class to have seen the original Ed Sullivan broadcast.

Marklein said she fell into the higher education beat. After earning her master’s degree in journalism and public affairs at American University in 1988, she freelanced and taught newswriting courses at American for almost 10 years.

The stories she was assigned were most frequently about education, she said. She got to know those editors well and eventually developed expertise in that area.

In 1997, when a higher education position opened up at USA Today, Marklein started full-time, after previously contributing to the paper as a freelancer.

After the action-packed summer Marklein has planned, most people would be in need of a break. But she will still be here in August, after the summer session has come to a close.

“I want to take advantage of August as back-to-school time on a college campus,” she said. “I want to stand in the middle of Franklin Street and just see what happens.”

Kris Morgan is a master's student in the news-editorial sequence.