Texas institution now equipped with Adobe’s digital literacy tools

The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) has become the latest US institution to join the Adobe Creative Campus programme, an initiative by the software company to promote digital literacy in higher education. 

As an Adobe Creative Campus, creative and persuasive digital communication skills are embedded into university curricula across all disciplines to help learners build their digital fluency, a core competency in the modern workplace.

To facilitate these efforts, students, faculty and staff at the university will receive full access to the Adobe Creative Cloud, a collection of more than 20 desktop and mobile applications for photography, design, video, web and more. Users can download the suite at any time and place, whether at home or while on campus.

“As Texas continues to rise through the ranks as a top market for the tech industry, it’s imperative that students of all majors within the state become digitally literate and fluent early on in their academic careers,” said Adobe director of enterprise sales Jonathan Hammond. 

“Joining the Adobe Creative Campus programme is one of the many ways UTSA provides students with the resources to communicate effectively in multimodal ways, collaborate with diverse teams and ultimately achieve a competitive edge as they prepare to enter today’s job market.”

UTSA is the first four-year public university in Texas to join the programme.

Digital literacy is a critical life and work skill of the 21st century, where the process of communication and access to information primarily takes place using digital technologies.

The Adobe Creative Campus programme was developed to help learning institutions incorporate the right tools and processes into their infrastructure and curricula to ready students for the modern workplace. 

And while it’s true that much of today’s student cohort grew up in the digital era, they remain at a disadvantage if they graduate from colleges that have yet to adapt their courses and teaching practices to modern-day demands.

Without access to updated materials and tools to complete assignments, they would have lost out on the chance to grow their skill sets and creativity.

“For our students to be successful in tomorrow’s workforce they must be digitally fluent. It’s critical that they have the tools to make sense of data and communicate that meaning to others,” said UTSA President Taylor Eighmy. 

“Through the Adobe Creative Campus programme we’re putting the infrastructure into place to teach our students how to tell those stories. The partnership between UTSA and Adobe is not merely transactional—it’s transformational.” 

Also as part of the initiative, UTSA has started the Student Ambassadors programme to provide peer support and promote Creative Campus activities among the student community.

“It’s important for students to understand, regardless of their major or career goals, they can benefit greatly from having an understanding of how digital media is created, perceived and consumed,” said UTSA Adobe Student Ambassadors project lead Marina Madden.

During the launch event, the lecturer in the Department of Communication instructed student ambassadors to create digital creative content using the provided Adobe Creative Cloud software. The content was inspired by the university’s Roadrunner Creed ideal to “support the fearless exploration of dreams and ideas in the advancement of ingenuity, creativity and discovery.”

“These tools give agency to students in their learning. Our Roadrunner students will be able to create robust digital portfolios to support both their classroom- and career-related activities, regardless of their area of study.

“For instance, students studying data science will benefit from the suite’s capabilities for data visualisation, 3D modelling, and more,” said UTSA provost and senior vice president for academic affairs Kimberly Andrews Espy.

Besides promoting digital literacy, Adobe also aims to facilitate collaboration and thought leadership among university faculty and administrators at Adobe Creative Campus schools.

As part of this movement, Espy will be speaking at about UTSA’s motivation for promoting campus-wide digital literacy at Adobe’s worldwide sales conference in Las Vegas next month.

UTSA is one of 26 universities in the US to join the growing Creative Campus programme.