Beginning this week, six faculty at Ohio’s Central State University began talking among themselves about iPods, social media, clouds, Skype and other information technology tools.  

 That’s just the way Dr. Juliette Bell, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Central State, wants them to spend some of their time after attending last weekend’s Interlink Alliance conference that focused on teaching the perpetually wired millennial student.

 “Many faculty still use the old lecture format and many of today’s students are more accustomed to a faster pace technology way of doing things,” she said.  “So getting [students] engaged is really more difficult if you’re using the old lecture format.”

 While bridging the faculty-student technology divide was the focus of the conference held last week at Spelman College in Atlanta, the gathering served as something much larger.

 It was the first conference for the nine-member Alliance, which consists of Ohio University along with historically Black institutions Spelman College, Central State, North Carolina Central, Hampton, Johnson C. Smith, South Carolina State, Wilberforce and Virginia State universities.

 Their main goal is to establish initiatives to promote access to higher education for African-American students.  But they also look to boost faculty advancement, leadership development, research collaborations and African-American male achievement.

 “And one of the things we wanted to do was deal with those issues that we had in common because we could do more together than we can individual institution,” said Dr. Janice Harper, assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs at North Carolina Central University.

 The idea for the Alliance came out of a discussion between three African-American college presidents: Ohio President Roderick J. McDavis, former North Carolina A&T State Chancellor James C. Renick and former South Carolina State President Andrew Hugine Jr.