All About the NAU

Day 812, 20:03 • Published in USA USA • by Fionia

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In this article
How This Term Went
Major Plans for the Next Term
Registration for the Next Term (Not Quite Yet)
The NAU Needs YOU!

Like the title says, this article is all about the North American University! As those of you who read my last article know, I am no longer the Dean, but there are still some loose ends I needed to wrap up.

No other things to mention beforehand, so let's get right down to business.

How This Term Went


Wow. It was quite a month and a half between when I took charge and when I handed the job on(Dec 22nd-Feb 5th). The best way to show what has been accomplished in that time is to tell you what I started with.

Nothing. That's what I started with.

Well, that is exaggerating a little. I was given access to the registration spreadsheet (with registration having already started), told how to add people to a certain access level on the NAU site using Moodle, and was told by the former Dean that I had been given "a nice platform to jump off of". The only knowledge I had of how classes were supposed to be run was my experience from the one class I had taken, which had run until the teacher stopped showing up. I also knew that none of the classes started at even vaguely the same time (some started early November, some started late November, etc). Sometime during the week after I got the job, one of the teachers showed up in my IRC channel, and I learned even more about the problems of the NAU. Apparently, some of the teachers had not even been given lists of their students. Also, the teacher for the World History class had gone inactive, the Politics class was canceled, and the Game Mechanics teacher told me that he didn't wish to come back for another term. "Nice platform to jump off of" indeed.

So where to start? This was when I published my first NAU-related article, explaining the registration process, and also asking for teachers for World History and Game Mechanics. The same night that I published that article, I got responses for each job. The first two people that responded were JeepAmerica (for World History) and Necrosis (for Game Mechanics), and they were hired rather quickly. The next step was making sure all the teachers had some sort of syllabus/curriculum prepared. While that was in progress, I heavily advertised the NAU. By the time registration was over, 80 people had signed up to take classes. Working with the teachers, a schedule was created for the first week of classes, so that every class would start in the same week. The students were PMed, told how to access the NAU website, and told some basic information about how classes would be run. Then the teachers PMed their students, and (after some minor mistakes), all the students knew when the classes would be, and how to find materials and records of the IRC sessions for the classes.

The first week went almost perfectly. Despite some miscommunications, every class started with high attendance and the teachers were great at, well, teaching.

Then attendance sank. The Business & Economics teacher got busy with real life, and wasn't even able to tell me that he couldn't keep teaching. In other words, long story short (too late : P), the NAU hit a stumbling block.

Now, moving forward, I have to say that this term of the NAU is now ended. Student attendance is not sufficient to continue for now. However, I would like to point out the state that we ended in: all the teachers were organized, knew what they needed to do, showed up for their classes, and there was constant communication between myself and the teachers. In other words, there was some sort of structure and organization. That's what I accomplished, even if the term wasn't successfully completed. Every journey has to start somewhere.

Major Plans for the Next Term


That being said, Robert Grosseteste and I have been working extremely hard on improving attendance rates for the next term. Here are some of the ideas we will be implementing:

* Tuition charge. This would not be a very high fee, because this program is mainly directed to newer players, who are generally less wealthy. That being said, the flat-rate tuition for class at the NAU in the next term will be 20 USD. It doesn't matter if you take 1 or 5 classes, the charge is 20 USD. There are two important things to note on this subject: a) 15 USD out of the 20 USD paid in at the beginning of the term will be refunded to the students upon successful completion of the term; and b) students who signed up for class in the term that just ended and wants to retake those classes will be refunded their whole 20 USD at the successful completion of the next term.

* The schedule for classes (and explanation of how they will be taught) will be created and published before registration begins for the next term, so that students are aware of exactly what they are signing up for and what kind of time commitment it is.

* The registration period will only be about a week long this time. At the start of the last term, it was close to a month long, which gave students who registered early on plenty of time to forget what they had signed up for.

* There are also 3 or 4 new classes being created in order to cover a broader range of student interests, including a Basic and Advanced IRC class, a eRep beginners class, a Polish language class, and the return of the Politics class.

Registra tion for the Next Term
[img]http://sms-midsouth.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Register-Now.JPG[/img]

Well, no. As you might be able to tell from the section above, there is a lot of work going on behind the scenes. As I have also said, I (as well as Robert) am hoping to keep the registration period short. So, there will be another article released when registration begins, explaining the classes, how they are run, and the schedule in detail. That article will most likely be released by Robert, as he should be able to full take over by that point.

The NAU Needs YOU!


That's right, the NAU is in need of some new teachers. Current openings are for:
* Journalism 101: Teaching how to format, research, and write to the eRep audience. (As a side note: Lieutenant Scheisskopf has been an excellent teacher, and it's really too bad that he has become too busy to continue teaching)
* Politics 101: Covering the basic ideas of parties, running for office, and the structure of the eUS government (and how to get involved).
* Business & Economics 101: Economics in eRep (which are not necessarily the same as RL economics), as well as techniques for how to run a successful business.

If you are interested in teaching any of those classes, PM Robert Grosseteste, myself, or come to the #nau channel on IRC.

NOTE: Teaching does require some time commitment. If you're heavily involved in the government, or live outside of the US (and therefore in a way different time zone), this might not be the best job for you.
Another article done. As always, thanks for reading, voting, and subscribing. I hope this was informative.

Signing off,
Fionia