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SMCEDU Announces Board of Advisors, Moves Toward Funding

SMCEDU LogoSMCEDU, an education initiative of Social Media Club focused on improving the quality of Social Media education in Universities and empowering its community of Social Media professors, today announced its new Board of Advisors. Consisting of 15 community leaders from around the United States, the advisory board is tasked with determining the priorities for SMCEDU, assisting in securing grants for its programs, identifying key insights for success and sharing their insights with other educators and social media professionals.

"With 29 qualified applicants from which to choose, it was a tough process to choose the 15 member board" according to Chris Heuer, Social Media Club's founder. A complete list of the advisory board members with links is available at the bottom of this post.

Over the past year, SMCEDU has focused on exploring the topics that will ultimately define its role in the world of Social Media education and that are of interest to the broader community through a Twitter Chat held on Monday's at 12:30pm EST. (follow hashtag #smcedu to join the conversation) This chat, and the program has been sustained through the volunteer efforts of Yong C. Lee, the acting director of the program.

According to Yong C. Lee, "With the addition of the advisory board, we will begin our work in earnest to produce a set of programs and materials that will support social media professors, universities and most of all students around the world." SMCEDU is now in search of identifying and securing grants that will fund a core staff of program managers, editors/curators and localized efforts in post secondary schools.

SMCEDU leverages its connection with Social Media Club, which has over 200 chapters around the world, to create a path to professionalism for college graduates and ensures access to up to date knowledge that often can't be found in text books. In connection with the initiative, the growth in the number of student chapters like those established at American University, Texas State, University of Kansas, Penn State and other campuses across the country has steadily increased.

The program will not only collect the best open courseware and syllabi from existing classes helping make them available under Creative Commons licensing, but also seeks to establish a service learning program through which universities can provide experiential learning while having the students contribute to their local communities by sharing the stories of small non-profits who are making a difference. The work of the students will primarily be focused on capturing the stories of the impact the non-profits are making on their communities and sharing those stories through blogs, videos, podcasts, Facebook, Twitter and other social channels.

Chris Heuer emphasizes that "by bringing together all of these powerful stories under one site, the students will also be participating in a form of collaborative journalism, through which they will also learn from each other and connect with their peers from around the world."

The 15 member Board of Advisors will meet regularly and volunteer a few hours each month to contribute their expertise to ensure the direction of SMCEDU is in line with the established expectations of higher education administrators and professors. It is also expected that they will develop innovative new programs that further support the primary mission of the program.

If you are interested in supporting the efforts of SMCEDU, you can join their community online and/or reach out to Chris Heuer via email at chris@socialmediaclub.org

The 2010/2011 SMCEDU Board of Advisors

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