Alumnus, parent and trustee Tim Baxter ’83 – president of Samsung Electronics America – chats with President Farish about this fall’s Samsung/RWU partnership

Clark, Brian E.

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Roger Williams UniversityDOCS@RWUFeatured News Story The Week at Roger11-19-2012Off the Script: Leading-Edge Technology on theRWU CampusBrian E. ClarkRoger Williams UniversityFollow this and additional works at: https://docs.rwu.edu/weekatroger_featured_newsPart of the Higher Education CommonsThis News Article is brought to you for free and open access by the The Week at Roger at DOCS@RWU. It has been accepted for inclusion in FeaturedNews Story by an authorized administrator of DOCS@RWU. For more information, please contact mwu@rwu.edu.Recommended CitationClark, Brian E., "Off the Script: Leading-Edge Technology on the RWU Campus" (2012). Featured News Story. 48.https://docs.rwu.edu/weekatroger_featured_news/48 News ArchiveO  the Script: Leading-Edge Technology onthe RWU CampusAlumnus, parent and trustee Tim Baxter ’83 – president of Samsung ElectronicsAmerica – chats with President Farish about this fall’s Samsung/RWU partnershipNovember 19, 2012 Brian E. ClarkThis fall, alumnus, parent and trustee Tim Baxter ’83 – president of Samsung Electronics America –launched a partnership and case study that allowed RWU to roll out a cloud computing platformusing state-of-the-art Samsung displays. Among other bene ts, the solution saves money forstudents, frees classrooms and creates an even more collaborative academic environment. Baxtershares thoughts with Don Farish.Donald Farish:Tim, let me start by thanking you a great deal for the wonderful consequences of this partnershipbetween Roger Williams and Samsung. I talked with Steve White – dean of our architecture school –the other day, and he is just rhapsodic because he is seeing his expectations exceeded. Not only isthe cloud computing approach working well in terms of hardware and so ware, but they are nowcalculating how much money this will save for the average student. This feeds right into ourA ordable Excellence initiative, and it turns us into a leading-edge campus on this technology. Wecouldn’t ask much for much more!Tim Baxter:That’s excellent news – this is really exciting. In September, we hosted about 100 alumni for an eventin Manhattan with Dean White where we showcased this partnership. It’s a wonderfuldemonstration of what can be done in the context of the A ordable Excellence strategy – and it’sbeing done in a way that supports initiatives that Samsung, my company, has as well.Farish:Let me ask you about your own motivation. How it is that you feel, as both an alumnus and a trustee,in terms of helping your alma mater become an even stronger institution?Baxter:First of all, to me – as an alumnus, as the parent of a student who just graduated, as the vicepresident of the Alumni Association, and as a trustee – I’m very committed to the enhanced successof the university. Number two, this is a university that took a chance on me as a student, o ered mean opportunity and then gave me the post-graduation con dence I needed to be successful. And Ibelieve I have some responsibility to  nd ways to give back. This opportunity really was borne out ofthe combination of your A ordable Excellence strategy, a very real business need at a university(de ned and limited space, and the need to optimize it), coupled with a B-to-B strategy forSamsung in the education sector. This has been an opportunity to bring those things together inmeaningful ways for us both.Farish:It’s great when it works on so many levels. You took it upon yourself to look for opportunities, whilecertainly being responsible to your business, but to help your alma mater in the process. This isexactly the kind of thought process that we would hope to see on the part of many of our alumni –you become a great exemplar by virtue of what you’re doing. Generosity such as yours makes itpossible for us to bring real meaning to the A ordable Excellence initiative. I mentioned the dollarssaved for students in architecture – we can certainly see this being broadened on campus to areassuch as engineering, for example.Other side bene ts aren’t even as immediately obvious – for instance, being able to recapturespace that was previously devoted to computer labs. If we were to implement this campus-wide, itwould free classrooms to the equivalent of constructing a brand new building. When you thinkabout the cost of a new classroom building, it might well be some $20 million! That’s an enormousamount of money that the university saves and that it doesn’t have to obtain by raising tuition. This isexactly the kind of project that shows how technology can save money and improve the outcome ofstudent work.Baxter:This touched a chord with people at the New York alumni chapter event. You have the  nancialbene ts that you just described, but then you have the educational experience, too. How manytimes are students challenged during exam weeks or near the end of a semester, in trying to securecomputer time in a lab? To use a cloud solution takes that burden away – you saw the heads shakingfrom everybody in the audience, whether they were architecture, business or engineering alumni.Farish:I suppose we’ll have fewer students sleeping at their work stations now in order to preserve theirplace in line!The challenge for the university – any university – has been, how much do we devote in terms ofresources to the acquisition of how many high-end machines? And then how much space do wehave to dedicate for their use, to provide a balance for students that doesn’t require lines out thedoor, but at the same time keeps the total cost under control. It’s such a balancing act and there’snever a right answer – the more you spend, the more product you have, but that comes at its owncost.In this case, to be able to create what amounts to a virtual high-end machine by using the cloud,we’re  nally seeing the fruits of all these years of exploration in this area. And the students areindicating to us already what a di erence it’s making in terms of the quality of their projects, the timeit takes to get them done and the capacity to collaborate in ways they haven’t been able topreviously. It’s quite phenomenal.Baxter:This also adds value for graduating students, many of whom will be coming into corporations, largeand small, with a view toward the bene ts of the cloud – the cutting edge of computing right now.They will be able to say: “I understand the bene ts, I’ve experienced it  rsthand and now I amlearning di erent ways to apply that education to di erent form factors instead of the traditionaloperating system or desktop computer. I’m collaborating on large screens, understanding thebene ts of touch and di erent input devices and user interfaces to demonstrate my work and toshow how I can explore, create and navigate.” That adds great value, and it gives students a newconversation for interviews with prospective employers. It’s a point of di erentiation, and in this jobmarket, it is all about how you di erentiate yourself from others.Farish:If you think historically, universities were places where people studied on their own and becameindividually adept at a particular area of study. We have generally discouraged joint projectsbecause we used to think of that as cheating – we need to grade you on your work, and how canwe tell what you’ve done if you’ve done it with somebody else?Of course today, that’s so non-re ective of the reality of what these students will be doing once theygraduate. The old notion of an o ce full of cubicles… companies are tearing those cubicles downand converting them into bullpens, places where there can be a free exchange of ideas. It’s theSkunk Works approach to things. The notion that our students are graduating already used tothinking in terms of collaborating with others, bouncing ideas o  of people and using the collectiveresources of a team to come up with outcomes that none of them could do on their own – we’regetting all of that now embedded in the education of these students.As you say, Tim, they are working at the cutting edge of where technology is these days. It’s hard toimagine that our graduates won’t be impressive people when they sit down with an HR director andsay: “Here’s what I know, and here’s what I can do – because I’ve done it.”Baxter:For Samsung, this also allows us to show how our technology is providing those bene ts tostudents and to the university. We are nearly a $200 billion company that’s gone through rapidgrowth, yet we’re also known very much as a consumer company. We have put great e orts intoexpanding our presence in the enterprise and B-to-B space, and we have aligned ourselves aroundfour key vertical markets where we can both add and extract value. One of those markets iseducation. In both K-12 and higher education, we are looking to create smart school solutions and nd ways to leverage our leadership in displays, tied into cloud experiences like this one at RogerWilliams.Clearly, because the cloud is the new frontier, a lot of companies are wrestling with how and whento get into this space. You really can’t just put a toe in the water – I think the university recognizesthat and is learning more and more about the bene ts. For Samsung, it gives us a very tangible casestudy of a university, a business, an entity that is making that move forward. That’s where the casestudy comes in – we will be able to share that with other universities and give them the opportunityto learn and bene t, in a way that also bene ts Samsung.Farish:What’s lovely is that this is a two-way arrangement. Roger Williams may bene t more than Samsung,but by the same token I hope we are providing a proof of concept that this solution works well atuniversities. We would obviously be delighted to speak to people at other universities (in duecourse) about how this really can be a game changer. We’re happy to be the guinea pigs in theprocess – obviously this saves us money, but in the end, hopefully it turns out to be a very goodeconomic investment on the part of Samsung.Baxter:This technology deployment is a relatively new frontier, and we’re both out on the edge. We aredoing this together, and we’ll be learning along the way – at Samsung, we believe in the bene tsassociated with that. It is no di erent than being out in front of the curve on the need for theUniversity to embrace this strategy outlined under A ordable Excellence. The University has beenmoving forward on these issues for the last year, and only now do we hear the president of the U.S.beginning to talk about it. We really are out in front with this strategy. We’re embracing the need forchange. For both entities, that’s about leadership, right? It’s about anticipating what’s happening –good, bad or indi erent – and trying to create something new out of it.Farish:That’s an interesting point. There was an article that appeared recently that featured a well knownindividual at the University of Pennsylvania. He argued that the solutions to the crises facing highereducation right now will not come from the leading institutions, because they are the ones leastimpacted by everything that’s going on. The University of Pennsylvania is not about to go out ofbusiness or have problems recruiting a freshman class. They are part of the elite, so they don’t seethe need to change. Instead, the change has to come from institutions in the second tier. But thechallenge is that the corporate world generally wants to work with the top-tier institutions.What’s special about this relationship, Tim, is that Samsung is part of it. You saw the opportunity thatwould present itself by working directly with your alma mater, and you believed that we werecapable of doing this work. You didn’t have to test it at an Ivy League university to show that itwould work. You had faith in us, and Samsung had faith in us – I’m sure that Samsung’s faith had alot to do with your intersession on our behalf!But the outcome is that we are demonstrating a lot of things simultaneously – the impact of thecloud and the way in which we can save students money and expand the quality of the educationalexperience. It was going to be a university like Roger Williams that would do this, just because wewere feeling the need to do it more than the top-tier institutions. Making that happen is di cult –and the catalyst here was the fact that you were in the corporate position that you’re in and at thesame time an alumnus of this institution. We’re doing some really important work here at a timewhen the country is looking rather desperately for solutions.And when we have a partner with the international credibility of Samsung, right away the questioncomes up: “Why would Samsung be involved with little old Roger Williams University in RhodeIsland? There must be something really signi cant going on there.” Credibility is the operativeword. I’m sure this partnership is going to register pretty strongly on the minds of prospectivestudents and their parents over the next year. That excitement becomes contagious, which raisesthe image of this university, entirely as a consequence of our association with a world-classinstitution like Samsung.So, Tim, thank you once again for the very signi cant contribution that you have made to the qualityof education for today’s students at your alma mater. It means a lot to me personally, but even moreto the students who are the bene ciaries.Baxter:It means a lot to me, too. I think it’s a great way to give back to the university, and we all can do thatin di erent ways. I’m thrilled to be a part of this.This conversation served as the basis for “O  the Script” on Page 3 of the Fall 2013 issue of RWUMagazine.Share This: REQUEST INFO VISIT CAMPUS APPLY MAKE A GIFTMap & DirectionsContact UsDirectoryNewsEventsAthleticsrwu.eduUndergraduate SiteGraduate SiteSchool of LawSchool of Continuing Studies    © 2018 Roger Williams University. 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Off the Script: Leading-Edge Technology on the RWU Campus

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Off the Script: Leading-Edge Technology on the RWU Campus

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