Learning Resources

Abstract: Responding to the need for reduced energy consumption, administrators at Worcester Polytechnic Institute have dscovered since 1973 that "common sense and good management techniques," and the cooperation of an involved campus community, could lead to significant savings without disruption of college routines. A 27 percent saving over a two-year period has led to special recognition by the Federal Energy Commission and the state of Massachusetts.

Abstract: This is the 12th in a series of profiles documenting experiences with the use of instructional technology at two dozen colleges and universities. A look at what has been learned at these places may benefit others considering new ways to teach. This report describes how one institution has traversed successive waves of enthusiasm for various forms of instructional technology and how, in today's trouble waters, its use of technology is frankly focused toward driving down tuition and thereby attracting students.

Abstract: This paper was delivered at SCUP's 10th Annual International Conference in June 1975 in Minneapolis and was the basis of an essay titled "If I Were a University Trustee," which appears currently in Change magazine. To be sufficient, says the author, regents must be no less than "conscious agents of history and posterity." They must determine, and contribute in full democratic chorus, their particular visions of the universities' role in developing the kinds of people and policies needed to sustain life and "the western tradition of free thought" in our complex world. For it is the regent's vision that shapes the administrator's range and the professor's scope in preserving, for present and future generations, the university as a nurturing "country for the city of the mind."

Abstract: Public, coordinated faculty participation in the planning process can ensure that administrators allocating funds will be informed and guided by the wisdom of the faculty in areas of curriculum, instructional design, and performance measurement. A challenge to both administration and faculty, cooperation between them can result in stronger, more flexible academic programs and in budget decisions attentive to specific departmental objectives. This article has been adapted from the author's remarks at the SCUP Academic Planning Workshop, held in April 1975 in Boston.

Abstract: Enrollment projection is a key part of higher education planning. Up until now, however, projection methods have been generally inaccessible to the executive administrators most involved in final planning decisions. In this article, the author describes the facility with which a computer interactive approach to student flow modeling allowed administrators to participate directly in the dynamic planning required for a fluctuating student population at a medium-sized urban institution.

Abstract: This article likens the territory of the chief executive in higher education to the physical science "field of forces"--an area "in constant change, laden with uncertainty and abmiguity" that seems, therefore, intensely, "human." Thus, in the sketch of "Professor X" in this article, we see contained in one university president's modus operandi an awareness that the job requires certainty "as much art as science or technology." This article was presented at the SCUP Academic Planning Workshop in Princeton on April 1975.

Abstract: This is the 14th in a series of profiles documenting experiences with the use of instructional technology at two dozen colleges and universities. A look at what has been learned at these places may benefit others considering new ways to teach. This article is a sequel to a story in the previous issue of Planning for Higher Education titled "Games? They're a Serious Approach to Learning," which dealt with the value of gaming as an instructional technique, with classroom uses of simulation games and with "street corner" suggestions on how to introduce them into your own institution. In this continuation, the way an entire course can be shaped around a single game is described. Projects established to promote and support gaming, and sources for more information on the subject, are also presented.

Abstract: This is the 13th in a series of profiles documenting experiences with the use of instructional technology at two dozen colleges and universities. A look at what has been learned at these places may benefit others considering new ways to teach. This article describes how computer usage has come to be routine activity among the students and faculty of a liberal arts institution, Dartmouth College, where the presence of computer terminals all over the campus reflects Dartmouth's view that computer literacy is essential to the education of everyone, regardless of his or her special interest.

Abstract: As higher education institutions shift from a growth orientation to one of redistributing existing resources, budgeting can play a major innovative role. The author describes a dynamic budgeting approach in which he isolates a number of roles in the budgetary process, shows how these roles interact, and suggests how a budget can be redesigned, according to specific need, without complete reorganization from the top. The article has been adapted from his presentation at SCUP's 10th Annual International Conference, held July 1975 in Minneapolis.

Abstract: This is the ninth in a series of profiles documenting the experiences of two dozen colleges and universities with the use of instructional technology. A look at what has been learned at these places may benefit others considering new ways to teach. This profile differs from the others in this group, in that its subject is a conference, "Designing Diversity '75," the Second National Conference on Open Learning and Nontraditional Study, held in Washington in June 1975. Much of the conference's business focused on serving adult learners through technology-based learning systems. With fewer institutions in these tight-money days that can pick up the tab for conference-going, we thought it would be useful to review the ideas, the options, and the trends that emerged.