www.utm.edu<\/a>).\u00a0 We are very much like hundreds of other universities around the country… trying to do more, with less, and keep attracting students at the same time.\u00a0 We also understand that if we don’t offer a product that is attractive to today’s students, who are more and more increasingly tech-savvy, that our days are numbered.\u00a0 So that means we have to make sure that our faculty are prepared and ready for this challenge.\u00a0 And that is a problem.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because so many of today’s faculty aren’t interested in changing the way they are doing things.\u00a0 Of course, not all of them are like that.\u00a0 But too many of them are.\u00a0 So one of my tasks is to find ways to get them excited about learning new things and helping them add to or enhance what they are doing in and out of the classroom.<\/p>\nThis is a common theme among the sessions that I participate in every year at this conference, or that conference.\u00a0 As I said before, the session titles change but the topic is the same… what the heck are we supposed to do?\u00a0 And this year I had an epiphany… a moment of clarity and the same time… of stark fear.\u00a0 There is no answer.\u00a0 There is no magic bullet.\u00a0 I don’t care how successful that this university or that university has been.\u00a0 You can listen to their wonderful story about they transformed their campus, but it ain’t gonna work for you.\u00a0 Or, at least, it probably won’t.<\/p>\n
I have come to the realization that every campus of higher education is a living, breathing organism that is similar, yet wholly different from others.\u00a0 Why it took me this long to have this wonderful epiphany is beyond me, but I did.\u00a0 Each campus is made up of individuals with different motivations, desires, and needs.\u00a0 Every campus has its own culture that fits the mix of backgrounds and personalities of the people that live on that campus, and the sometimes political environment that is in place.\u00a0 It really is utter madness to think that all faculty are the same, are motivated by the same thing, or will respond to the same incentives.\u00a0 Just like today’s society in most respects, in most areas of our lives, is moving toward ‘mass-customization’ for everything.\u00a0 Where everyone wants a customized view… a customized product… a customized service… made especially just for them.\u00a0 Higher education is no different.<\/p>\n
So if I want to be effective at motivating my faculty to try new things… to enhance what they know… to provide things for students that they want… then I have to figure out a special recipe of initiatives and incentives that the faculty on my campus will respond to.\u00a0 No cookie-cutter approach will do.\u00a0 No sir.<\/p>\n
It truly is liberating to have finally, after 10 years in this world that I work in, come to the realization that I am on this ocean of technological maelstrom in a ship that has no port.\u00a0 I must always be moving, always be changing course to get where I want to go.\u00a0 It forces me to stay sharp.\u00a0 It forces me to pay attention to where I am going.\u00a0 And it makes me appreciate the successes that I do sometimes experience when the waves aren’t so big.\u00a0 And I am getting used it to.\u00a0 And I’m ok with that.<\/p>\n