UNT to offer PBS' Small Business School online

UNT students are adding to what they are learning in the classroom by viewing a Public Broadcasting System television program via their computers.

Through an agreement with the program, Small Business School, students view its 30-minute episodes as streaming video, made possible by a server installed in UNT's Computing and Information Technology Center.

Airing on PBS stations since 1994, Small Business School focuses on founders of U.S. companies that are ranked by peers in their industries as some of the best in the nation. Entrepreneurs who have been spotlighted on Small Business School include Anne Beiler, founder of Auntie Anne's Pretzels; Ebby Halliday, head of the Ebby Halliday Real Estate Co. in Dallas; the Lancate family, proprietors of Joe T. Garcia's Mexican Restaurant in Fort Worth; and Glen Walser, owner of Automated Food Systems in Duncanville, which is the largest producer of corn dogs in the nation.

Roy Busby, Regents Professor of journalism, says students in his advertising and integrated communications classes will be required to view Small Business School programs. He says the episodes will give students an opportunity to observe the strategic thinking, or lack of it, that went into the business owners' decisions.

"Students can learn how those decisions affected the many communication decisions that these owners made, such as what type of advertising to use," he says. "Also, since so many students today want to do some kind of business on their own, these real-case examples will help to guide them."

Small Business School airs at 9:30 p.m. Wednesdays on KDTN-TV/Channel 2, one of two PBS affiliates in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. However, students can now view the program at any time because it is online, Busby says.

He says UNT alumni will also benefit by having Small Business School online.

"The programs are great reference material for calls I get all the time from former students wanting help with what they are doing in today's business world," he says.

Maurice Leatherbury, UNT executive director of information technology and academic computing, says that by hosting media such as Small Business School, the Computing and Information Technology Center "supports UNT's mission as well as provides a public service to PBS viewers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and around the world."

To view Small Business School, go to smallbusinessschool.org/unt.

BY NANCY KOLSTI nkolsti@unt.edu

Other featured articles in this issue

• UNT aims to recruit, retain first-generation college students with $30,000 grant
• John R. Todd named interim associate VP
• Spring 2004 enrollment up 341 students over Spring '03
• UNT to celebrate Black History Month
• UNT to help sponsor Association of Teacher Educators national conference in Dallas
• UNT offers career counseling
• Survivor makes for family fun at Elm Fork
• Funds increase for UNT study abroad scholarships
• UNT assistant professor of English national Creative Writing Fellowship

homepage