Requirements: This course requires students to read, write, and participate. Universities are places of reading, writing, and participation; they are consensus driven and highly political organizations. To manage these enterprises, academics require the ability to analyze, report, and communicate with their colleagues and friends. In this class we will do all three. Students must have a personal email account and address in their own name. All students, faculty, and staff at UMass Amherst have a free personal email account through the Office of Information Technology UMail program.

Also, students need access to an Internet browser. Most people use Mozilla Firefox or Microsoft's Internet Explorer, available free from the Internet. In addition, everyone needs an email client program, free from Mozilla as Thunderbird or part of the Microsoft operating system as Outlook Express, or they need experience using a webmail program (UMail at UMass Amherst or free with many dialup and broadband services). Internet access with a browser and email are essential for this class. The required reading is available on the Internet, visible with one of the browsers and the class discussion requires email access.  In addition, all students must have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader available on their computers to read documents in the .pdf format.  The essays appear online in this format as do many of the readings.

In addition, please note that the instructor has other university responsibilities that may require him to miss a class or re-schedule some of the assignments. If adapting to such changes in the course schedule during the semester is a problem, please do not take this class.

Reading: This course provides a core set of readings. The required reading uses a variety of materials published in locations accessible through the Internet. The Schedule on the Main Contents page provides a guide to the class. Each week has an introduction by the instructor and a set of readings. Everyone should have read these materials by the time the class meets, and this information serves as support for the class discussion during the week. The comments you make in class, your on-line discussion, and the essays you write should reflect the substance of your readings. The Eclectic Bibliography links to a file that contains materials of interest for this course, and the link to Internet Resources provides an annotated list of websites useful for students of university management and other higher education topics. For weeks 3 through 12, the members of the class will contribute essays on the week's topics. The essays will be posted Monday night before the Tuesday class, and everyone will need to read these during the week and find occasion to comment on our colleagues' work.

Writing: Each member of the class writes 6 essays based on 6 different themes (using chapters, articles, and other materials in the readings or acquired elsewhere). Each essay will be 500-1000 words submitted electronically in a file saved in Microsoft Word document format (file extension .doc) for posting to the class websit. A roster with the schedule of presentations is available in the private section of the course website.

The essays will be appear on line exactly as you write them, so please include a title, your name, and a date.  Although this is not a writing class, please make an effort to write clearly, to use spell check, and to include references to the reading or other materials as appropriate to your topic. Most of us benefit from the Microsoft Word grammar checker as well.  The easiest way to transmit these files is to email them as attachments to me at lombardi@umass.edu.  I post these essays on the class web site in the password protected, private pages for review by all members of the class. Essays are due on Monday at 5 p.m. each week beginning with week 2 and ending with week 13.  Half the class submits essays each week.

[Note] There will be no live class on Tuesday, 3/13, because of a Board of Trustees meeting. Students will send in and I will post the essays. We will carry on the discussion online during that week as if the class took place. I write an essay via email that is mostly I would have said in class, although I'll follow up in the subsequent week. And we can post messages to each other and do the online conversation as if we had a live class.

Participation: This class meets for three hours a week. We have about two hours of live in-person class. We all participate the equivalent of one hour, asynchronously, on the Internet through the email discussion list. Everyone should participate in the conversations in class and on-line in the email discussion list. Minimum participation is approximately three email posts to the list per week. More postings are better than fewer. Quality contributions are better than uninformed comments. Email posts that use and reference materials from the reading are especially valuable.

Grades: The essays count 40%, Class participation counts 25%, and the Internet discussion list participation counts 35%.

The Internet: This class requires everyone to use the Internet and email. Individuals who cannot use these technologies should not take this course. While I have live office hours by appointment, much consultation between students and instructor uses email. The Internet requires a browser such as Internet Explorer or Mozilla/Firefox. Email requires an email client of which there are many. Windows comes with Outlook Express and Mozilla offers a free client in Thunderbird. You will use the Internet to find resources on higher education. The Internet (or the Web) is a highly undisciplined collection of information. As a result, it is sometimes difficult to use effectively, but rich beyond compare in data, access to information sources, and communications. More information and a mini-glossary of terms appears in the item on The Internet in our syllabus.

The Internet is not an end in itself, it is not the subject of this class, and it is not a total answer to any research issue. Instead, the Internet is a tool with great capacity but in a rapidly transforming and immature condition. Those with an interest in the future of higher education need the Internet and its resources, and they need to learn what the Internet can and cannot do. The Internet will not solve our problems, it will not end the university as we know it, it will not eliminate the need for teachers and students, but it will enhance, enable, and enrich what we do. We use the Internet and the library interchangeably and with equal facility. The following items provide some historical perspective on the Internet:

• Lombardi, Academic Libraries in a Digital Age, 2000.
• Lombardi, The Net, the Universities, and the Market, 1998
• Lombardi, Killer Applications, the Net and the Wild Wild West 1995.
• Lombardi, A Reality Check on Cyberspace: Projecting the University into the Network 1993.

Class Format: This class functions in two connected dimensions. The first takes place in real time once a week in a regular classroom setting. The instructor presents the topic, offers some insights, and provokes some discussion. This conversation may include materials shared with the class (tables, charts, diagrams, organizational schemes, and the like). The second takes place every day of the week at any time through the on-line, asynchronous email discussion list. An asynchronous discussion list does not require us to be in conversation at the same time and place, only that we check our email frequently, read each other's comments on the topic of the week, and email back to the list with insight, suggestions, commentary, new information, and web sites of interest. We engage in these discussions on a week by week basis. Each week, the discussion, engaged and guided when necessary by the instructor, addresses primarily a new set of issues and topics. See The Internet for topics related to discussion list managers and other Internet issues.

Each week begins with the live class discussion and takes as its base the material in the readings and the student essays posted for that week. The discussion list is an Internet email tool that prolongs, extends, and improves the quality of the live classroom discussion. The live discussion sets the tone for the on-line discussion list and helps us personalize our comments to the class. This mode of conversation and discussion becomes more and more important for managing institutions like universities because it permits a flattened organizational structure with less hierarchy and more shared information. It reduces rumor propagation and improves response time for administrative questions and answers. It has its dangers and difficulties, but it is also powerful.

This is a class about managing universities, not about managing any particular university.  Its purpose is to understand the structure and operation of America's research universities, although we often look at other types of higher education institutions for perspective. Everyone brings their personal perspectives and experiences in various institutions of higher education to the conversation, and that varied background provides an important dimension to the class discussions.  At the same time, because in this class we are all participants in higher education, the pursuit of objectivity is challenge and its achievement a desirable accomplishment.

Pictures:  At the end of the second class, I take everyone's picture and post it on our protected webpage for pictures. Because we spend so much of our interaction time on line, it sometimes helps to have a picture to put an email with the colleague we see in class but whose name we may not remember. The pictures also help me remember who you are when I have the opportunity to write a letter of recommendation for you some years from now. If anyone does not want their picture posted online, they only need send me a private email to lombardi@umass.edu and your picture will not appear or will disappear. I'll also bring the camera on the third week in case you don't like the picture I took and we can try again.

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