On Aug. 2, the University of Oregon officially joined the Big Ten Academic Alliance, which opened opportunities in research and education areas as the university hopes to be a leader in academia among other schools in the alliance.
The Big Ten Academic Alliance is “the nation’s preeminent model for effective collaboration among research universities,” its website reads.
UO is one of 18 schools that are now part of the BTAA, along with the University of California, Los Angeles, University of Southern California and University of Washington. With the switch, there are now more opportunities to enhance student opportunities, according to the BTAA.
“These are tremendously exciting and challenging times in higher education, and the Big Ten Academic Alliance is helping its member institutions navigate the changing landscape and position themselves for continued success,” Big Ten Academic Alliance Executive Director Keith Marshall said on the website.
One of the big changes coming to UO is the BIG Collection. Undergraduate, graduate and post-baccalaureate professional students and faculty will now have both in-house and in-person access to over 90 million books through the BIG Collection. The BIG Collection currently holds more than 25% of prints in North America, according to the BTAA Impact Report.
Once the BIG Collection is complete with the additional schools joining, UO students will have access to the third-largest library in the world, behind the Library of Congress and the British Library according to Maurice York, director of library initiatives for the BTAA.
“Those libraries will now also be our libraries,” UO librarian Alicia Salaz said to Oregon Quarterly. “It will really build on existing partnerships we have to share those kinds of resources with local partners like Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.”
UO students will also have access to UBorrow, a service through the BIG Collection that provides rapid access to over 90 million books in the collection. Students who check out a book through UBorrow will get the book within a week and can check it out for up to 12 weeks, with an additional four-week renewal if needed.
Another big change coming to UO is the addition of CourseShare.
CourseShare is a program that allows students to take less commonly taught language courses from a distance. The program will allow UO students to register for both shared language and regular courses at the same time.
Grades and credits will still be reported on students’ UO transcripts.
The program is hoping to partner with the UO’s Yamada Language Center and Northwest Indian Language Institute, according to UO Provost Chris Long. Students who are interested in a language course that is not already offered will have to talk to advisors about CourseShare possibilities.
Along with education opportunities, there are also new potential opportunities for research, especially for graduate and doctoral students.
One of these new research opportunities is the Summer Research Opportunities Program.
The goal of the program is to increase the number of underrepresented students, including minority students, first-generation students and students from low-income families who are pursuing graduate studies and research careers, according to the SROP. This is regardless of race or ethnicity.
This program aims to help prepare undergraduates for graduate studies. Students in the program will work one-on-one with a faculty member from a top-ranked research institution according to the BTAA.
The Traveling Scholar Program, available for doctoral students, will allow students to spend up to a full academic year pursuing specialized courses of study, researching unique library collections and working in advanced laboratories and facilities at other BTAA universities.
According to BTAA, any student in this program will not have to change registration procedures from their home university. This means that students will stay registered at their home university and will pay the regular fee charged.
Faculty members of UO have leadership opportunities through formal training to level up leadership.
The Academic Leadership Program is a year-long leadership development program that addresses the challenges of academic administration, according to the website.
Long participated in ALP from 2011 to 2012 when he was an Associate Dean at The Pennsylvania State University.
Although this is UO’s first year in the BTAA, students can expect to see these changes in the next couple of years, as UO adjusts to these big changes.