Do You Dare?

by Bistra Papazova

Interview: A One-Stop Shop for Online Student Services

Wow, we’ll move in and make a lot of money!” were Adam Ginsberg’s first words when he heard about the Hinman CEOs program. The accounting sophomore is one of the 100 students who participate in the living-learning entrepreneurship initiative at the University. The prospective entrepreneurs live on the first two floors of the South Campus Commons and enjoy fully furnished apartments, wireless access everywhere, conference rooms with videoconferencing capabilities, and voice, data, and video communications installed on their computers.

To be considered for the program, students must have a 3.0 GPA and write an essay about a business idea they have. The participants don’t pay extra fees, but must live in the dorm for at least half of their college careers. A specialized, high-technology “e-Dorm,” seminars and workshops from venture capitalists and successful businesspersons, industry-student mentoring, and unique entrepreneurship education courses give students a stimulating and supportive environment in which to dream and realize their ideas. “Some of the people are just so smart,” says Adam. “We are constantly generating random ideas.” One of his roommates is in the process of launching a fantasy football Web site, while another focuses on graphic design.

Brian Hinman, University of Maryland alumnus of the Clark School of Engineering and entrepreneur, provided $2.5M to initiate and support the program for its first ten years. The program is a joint partnership between the A. James Clark School of Engineering and Robert H. Smith School of Business. It culminates in a business plan for each new student venture and assistance to obtain financing.

www.hinmanceos.umd.edu

A year ago, William Leith, Assistant Vice President and Director of Financial Aid, started overseeing the process of defining and implementing an integrated system for students. A leadership team, consisting of rep-resentatives of the major University divisions, comes up with requirements and reports to a steering committee.

Q: What is the purpose of the new integrated system for students?
Leith: We would like to provide students with a single log-in Web site for accessing Univer-sity services, so that they don’t have to figure out themselves whom they need to deal with. We are reviewing options which include a customized interface, depending on the person who logs in.

Q: What exactly do you mean by a customized interface?
Leith: For example, if you are a recently admitted student, the system might show you orientation information. At the same time, if you are a freshman, the information would be more about “getting started.”

Q: How will the system be different from, let’s say, Testudo?
Leith: Testudo is just a collection of links to different services. It has no tracking in place. For example, let’s say you can potentially graduate this semester. If there was tracking, the system would tell you that you needed to take this and that class to graduate, and would allow you to register for the class.

Q: When do you expect the new Electronic Student Services System to be in place?
Leith: In a sense, this is a never-ending project because things constantly change. However, we expect the beginning architecture to be in place within a year. We’ve started with Admissions, and are defining processes for Financial Aid, Records and Registration, and the Bursar.

One-Stop Shop page 4