A Big Week of Hangouts for Duke
Did you know Google has an office in Chapel Hill, North Carolina? It’s located in Southern Village, just a short drive down 15-501 from Duke University.
Because of their proximity, I’ve had the chance to meet with Google Higher Ed reps a number of times over the past year. Some of these conversations resulted in Duke participating in Google’s recent College Admissions Week programming with six other universities.
The goal of College Admissions Week is to allow prospective students around the world to connect with and learn about top universities, regardless of financial or geographic barriers. Over the course of College Admissions Week, Duke and the other participating universities used Google+ Hangouts On Air (HOA), which are multi-person video chats, to present information to prospective students about academics, student life and the admissions process.
Duke participated in the following Hangouts as part of College Admissions Week this past week:
Christoph Guttentag, Duke’s Dean of Undergraduate Admissions, joined the kick-off panel hosted by The Princeton Review.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ_ZB9Qy28g
I hosted two current Duke students, Nadine Goldberg and Connor Cotton, who talked about student life and responded to questions from prospective students.
A Duke admissions officer, Sam Carpenter, held an information session about admissions and responded to applicant questions.
We were able to reach hundreds of prospective students through these video chats in a new and interactive way. Special thanks to Google for inviting us to participate and The Princeton Review for anchoring the program!
As an added Google+ HOA bonus, Duke Lemur Center postdoctoral fellow Erik Patel was featured in an hour-long special on Animal Planet, Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012 at 8 p.m. Eastern, talking about his work in Madagascar with the rare and elusive (and gorgeous) silky sifaka lemur. We held two Google+ Hangouts with Erik and Charlie Welch, lemur center conservation coordinator, before and after this BBC-produced documentary aired to learn more about their efforts to prevent illegal logging, to educate Malagasy schoolchildren about conservation and to establish protected areas around the last remaining lemur habitat.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYFeP60_uik
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIsI3j_eVKs
What a GREAT way to use technology to share information and make connections!