Leading with a vision

Eighteen years ago, Macbook Pros and iPads weren't around. But rest assured, Steve Jobs was putting products on the market and Richland was right there, serving as a pioneer school for Macintosh training.

From 1990 to 1993 Richland's Macintosh training program took off. By 1993, Richland was the place to go for courses housing state-of-the-art equipment.

Dr. Clive Siegle, now a history professor, was a student in the Mac labs in 1993.

 "The Mac labs were the place. Like Macintosh, the instructors were very innovative," Siegle said. "It was a very dynamic place."

There were two sets of labs available at the time. One had DOS-based IBM computers and the other had Macs.

Like Siegle, many students in the classes were looking to retrain and refresh their Macintosh knowledge.

Students were immersed into hands-on teaching. They were taught everything from graphic design with early Adobe Illustrator to hardware maintenance.

Six students of Richland's new advanced electronic publishing certificate program created a course catalog using the Macintosh systems to advertise the classes.

The catalog was created completely using Macintosh software and featured bright colors and original artwork on the cover.

This catalog represented the only student-produced publication of its type in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. It led designers to create the larger course catalog, while now online only, used to be available in print.

Some of the courses listed in the catalog included Desktop Publishing and graphic arts, courses that were just beginning to become more widely known.

The emphasis of the program was to build workplace competencies. Many of the students went on to use their skills in higher level careers.

Three of the students, including Siegle, went on to create a safari magazine that won awards.

Having the right people was the key to making Macintosh on campus successful.

"The professors were good at what they did and farseeing," Siegle said. "They put it together and got the administration to buy the machines and to write the check for all of this."

Vernon Hawking, now vice president at Brookhaven, was one of the innovators who worked with several instructors to get the Mac deal in motion.

 He worked to fill an entire lab with Macs and get the latest and most advanced software.

"You have to have people with a vision. You have the administration that's waiting for the idea and you have the instructors with the vision. If you're missing one, nothing will happen. But when you have both, it happens. It's a metaphor for this place," Siegle said. "That's why we are who we are. That's why if the Macs were to happen anyplace, they happened right here."

Today, Macs can be found all around campus.

Multimedia labs, music labs and the newsroom have the technical pioneers of 1993 to thank for the technology we have today.

In fact, you probably wouldn't be reading this article without it (the newspaper is designed on Macs).

"In a way, it's kind of a legacy," Siegle said.

While Siegle doesn't sit and dwell on the loss of Steve Jobs, he does recognize the impact Jobs has on today's technological society and the status of the campus today.

"When you look at the legacy that [Jobs] had and you look at his own psychological culture, in a way this is a manifestation of that," Siegle said. "Right here is where it should have happened and right here is where it did happen."