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.

Also, students need access to an Internet browser. Most people use Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome, or Microsoft's Internet Explorer, all available free online. In addition, everyone needs an email program, free from Mozilla as Thunderbird or part of the Microsoft or Apple operating systems, or they need a webmail program (included on most campuses and with broadband services, or part of services such as Gmail). Internet access with a browser and email are essential for this class. The required reading is available online through our class website, 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 most of the readings.

Reading: This course provides a core set of readings. The required reading uses a variety of materials published in locations accessible through the Internet. Many of the readings are collected in our password protected online site. We will send you the username/password for the collected reading site at the beginning of the course. The Schedule on the Main Contents page provides a guide to the class. Each week is defined by an introduction and a set of readings. Everyone should have read the introduction and begun reading the materials for the week by the time the class meets. This information serves as the basis for the in-class presentation and discussion and the email discussion during the week. The comments you make in class, your online discussion, and the essays you write reflect the substance of your readings. The link to Internet Resources provides an annotated list of websites useful for students of university management and other higher education topics. For weeks 2 through 13, the members of the class will contribute essays on the week's topics. The essays will be posted the night before the regular class meeting, and everyone will need to read these during the week and find occasion to comment on our colleagues' work.

Writing: Beginning with Week 2, each member of the class writes 6 essays, one every other week, 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 or .docx) or Adobe Acrobat format (.pdf) for posting to the class website. A roster with the schedule of presentations is available in the private section of the course website. The essay should focus on issues and materials related to the current week's topics. For example if an essay is due for week 4 it should address issues related to teaching and students. This means that your essay posted on the night before the class of week 4 should explore topics related to the readings and the introduction collected for week 4 on Teaching.

The essays will appear online exactly as you write them, so please include a title, your name, and a date. Although this is not a writing class, please write clearly, use spell-check, and 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 jlombardi@library.umass.edu. We will 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 the day before class at 5 pm each week beginning with week 2 and ending with week 13. Half the class submits essays each week.

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 at least one hour on the Internet through the email discussion list. Everyone should participate in the conversations in class and 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 because they demonstrate that we have actually read the material!.

Grades: The essays count 40%, Class participation counts 25%, and the email discussion list participation counts 35%. Note that in this course there is no final paper as the six essays serve that function. In addition, there are no examinations on the readings. Instead, the email discussion provides an opportunity to demonstrate that you have read many of these materials, can comment on them effectively, and reference their contributions in your own email posts.

The Internet: This class requires everyone to use online resources and email. While we have live office hours by appointment, much consultation between students and instructors uses email. You will find many resources on higher education online. The Internet, as everyone now knows, is a highly undisciplined collection of information and tools. 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 common terms appears in the item on The Internet in our syllabus.

The Internet and its many resources are not the subject of this class, and the information online rarely provides a complete resource for every research issue. Instead, the information and tools available online represent a continuously transforming and still often immature collection of information, materials, and tools. Those with an interest in the future of higher education need to understand what is valuable, useful, and unreliable online. 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 much of its content will enhance, enable, and enrich what we do. We use information online and in the library interchangeably and with equal facility.

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 instructors present the topic, offer some insights, and provoke some discussion. The second takes place every day of the week at any time through the online email discussion list. A discussion list does not require us to be in conversation at the same time and place; it only requires us to 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 Internet 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 instructors, addresses primarily a new set of issues and topics.

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 interactions. The live class session sets the tone for the online discussion list and helps us personalize our comments to the class. This mode of conversation and discussion has become essential for managing 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 how universities work, not about any particular university. Its purpose is to understand the structure and operation of America's universities with an emphasis on research universities, although we often look at other types of higher education institutions for perspective. Everyone brings their personal experiences in various institutions of higher education to the conversation, and that varied background provides an important dimension to the class discussions. In this class we are all participants in higher education, and the pursuit of objectivity is sometimes a challenge and its achievement a desirable accomplishment.

Pictures: At the end of the second class, we take everyone's photograph and post it on our protected webpage for pictures. Because we spend so much of our interaction time online, it sometimes helps to have a picture to place an email with the colleague we see in class but whose name we may not remember. The pictures also help us remember who you are when we 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 a private email to jlombardi@library.umass.edu and your picture will not appear or will disappear. In case you don't like the picture we took, we can try again on the third week.

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