New Virtual U - Press and News

Major Higher Education Degree Programs Announce Support for Virtual U: The University Simulation Program

More than 20 institutions vow to integrate new version of university simulation program into higher education administration programs during 2002

To obtain review copies:

Beth Bryant or Ben Sawyer
Phone: +1 207 773 3700

PHILADELPHIA (April 2, 2002) -- More than 20 professors of higher education administration across the United States have agreed to use the newly released Virtual U version 2.0 in their higher education administration classes and seminars.* The group, which was trained on the software at a conference held in early February, represents a significant jump in the number of graduate and doctoral programs that use Virtual U as a key part of their curriculum.

"Faculty and students appreciate interactive simulators as major new tools for teaching and learning, and now higher ed has its own flight simulator," said Jesse Ausubel of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which sponsored the conference in February and the development of Virtual U 2.0." VU provides people with an actual working environment to test their own ideas and strategies involving the key issues facing higher education today. They can test both reasonable and outrageous ideas."

Version 2.0 Released Virtual U version 2.0 will be released to the general public on March 18. Containing more than a dozen important new features, the newest release is available for the first time via free Internet download.

"Virtual U 2.0 is a big leap forward for our classroom users," said Ben Sawyer, who leads the project and distribution team behind Virtual U. "We've improved the program, the documentation, and the pricing. This makes an already important emerging tool even more useful. With this group we've significantly increased our classroom adopters to more than 30 institutions. We expect to double that number over the coming months."

Educational Use
During the February conference, key educators from some of the nation's top universities, including UCLA, Indiana, Harvard, and Virginia, trained to use and teach with Virtual U 2.0. Educators also convened roundtables to brainstorm specific applications of the versatile software and to provide feedback to the development team for future versions. With the release of VU 2.0 on March 18, the group of conferees joins a growing list (www.virtual-u.org/vuinuse.html) of classroom adopters using Virtual U as well as a greater list of adopters throughout academia.

"We've been using Virtual U 1.0 in our higher education graduate courses and it has been very helpful in aiding student understanding of universities as systems," said Joshua Powers, Assistant Professor of Educational Administration at Indiana State University. "Version 2.0 offers a number of new features aimed specifically at classroom users, that will make it an even better tool for our students. I'm excited to see the software maturing. Virtual U can play an important role in preparing tomorrow's senior college administrators."

Each adopter will use Virtual U in classes of 5-25 students per semester. Although some will use Virtual U throughout the year, others will use it for small workshops, year-end "competitions," and as a complement to paper-based cases they've used before Virtual U's release. The educators will provide reports to the project team, which will use the insights to improve the software. The team will also share the information with a growing user base of administrators and classroom adopters.

To support the increased classroom use, the University of Pennsylvania's Institute for Research on Higher Education will author and edit a year-long electronic journal titled "Virtual Update." This journal will focus specifically on academic use and improvement of Virtual U.

"It is all too rare that we get together as higher education faculty and share ideas about improving our teaching," said J. Douglas Toma, a faculty member at Penn and Virtual U expert. "The ideas about integrating Virtual U. into our courses will do just that. Now, with 'Virtual Update' we can take the next step and begin to share syllabi and papers, getting the most innovative ideas out there and into use. The development team has delivered an extraordinary product -- and it is our turn as a faculty community to expand its base of supporting materials and really bring the simulation model to maturation."

"Virtual Update" will be freely available via email subscription from the Virtual U Web site (www.virtual-u.org).

What is Virtual U?
Virtual U is designed to foster better understanding of management practices in American colleges and universities. It provides students, teachers, and parents the unique opportunity to step into the decision-making shoes of a university president. Players are responsible for establishing and monitoring all the major components of an institution, including everything from faculty salaries to campus parking. As players move around the Virtual U campus, they gather information needed to make decisions such as decreasing faculty teaching time or increasing athletic scholarships. However, as in a real college or university, the complexity and potential effects of each decision must be carefully considered. And the Virtual U Board of Trustees is monitoring every move.

Virtual U models the attitudes and behaviors of the academic community in five major areas of higher education management:

Spending and income decisions such as operating budget, new hires, incoming donations, and management of the endowment;
Faculty, course, and student scheduling issues;
Admissions standards, university prestige, and student enrollment;
Student housing, classrooms, and all other facilities; and
Performance indicators.

Virtual U players select an institution type and strive for continuous improvement by setting, monitoring, and modifying a variety of institutional parameters and policies. Players are challenged to manage and improve their institution of higher education through techniques such as creative resource allocation, minority enrollment policies, and policies for promoting faculty, among others. The program measures the passage of time at a rate selected by players, allowing them to watch as the results of their decisions unfold. Players receive a letter of review from Virtual U's board every "year," informing them of their progress.

The Creation of Virtual U
The development of Virtual U was made possible through a partnership that includes the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the Jackson Hole Higher Education Group, the Forum for the Future of Higher Education, the University of Pennsylvania's Institute for Research on Higher Education, and Enlight Software. The program's creation was motivated by the desire of Virtual U designer William Massy and Ausubel to help a range of college and university stakeholders better understand their institutions as dynamic systems through the use of a comprehensive simulator like those found in many computer games.

Virtual U was made available for free download on the Internet on March 18, at www.virtual-u.org or for CD orders by calling 1-888-286-3540. The boxed version, which provides the game on CD-ROM as well as printed game materials, is available for $40.

Press Advisory
Media members can request a full copy of Virtual U 2.0 and a press kit for review or feature articles by contacting Beth Bryant of Digitalmill at (207) 773 3700.

* Some adopters are also available for independent interview. If you are interested in interviewing conference participants, please contact Ben Sawyer of Digitalmill at (207) 773 3700.