Higher-Ed Administration

I selected EAD805 Higher Education Administration as my first course since the course description matched my curiosity in how a university worked. At the time I was more concerned with developing mental models and social theories that would help me to better grasp what I was already percieving at work. I joined MSU's Virtual University within two years of it's founding. As part of a startup unit at a university that is charged with implementing a new university wide-initiative we had a tendency to move very fast. It was quickly apparent that our measuring of time at 'net speed' was significantly faster than the institutional clock. It was also apparent that some parties at the university were very supportive and ready to try new models, while others were more concerned, or just outright disinterested. Many sensitive issues were dredged into the open during the course of our work such as how learning is assessed, how instructors are judged, and who owns intellectual property that is produced during teaching and learning. It was already apparent to me that the most effective leaders at MSU didn't always have titles, used several political strategies to reach objectives, and avoided entanglements.

I hoped that selecting EAD805 would help me understand how a large organization like MSU functions and how I could learn to perceive and communicate with others in the course of developing my administrative abilities.