General Sessions

Instructional Technology: The Misfit of Expectations and Achievements

Monday, December 03, 2001
9:30 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. GS02

David Ward, President, American Council on Education (ACE)

Information and instructional technology have long offered the potential for higher education to improve quality, expand access, and become more efficient. These improvements, however, are connected to a moving target of rising expectations and high start-up costs. The result has been great gains in communication systems and information retrieval, but uneven and modest gains in learning experiences. The full deployment of the educational gains of new learning technologies will depend on parallel changes in the organizational culture of higher education.

Presidents' Panel: Matching Visions with Reality

Tuesday, December 04, 2001
9:30 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. GS01

Arnold R. Oliver, Distinguished Professor of English and Chancellor Emeritus, Eastern Shore Community College

David P. Roselle, President Emeritus, University of Delaware

G. William Troxler, President, Capitol College

Since the theme of this conference is "Visions, Expectations, and Reality," this panel will explore the reality dimension. Three higher education chief executive officers (CEOs) who have been leaders in encouraging the use of information technology to support the mission of their institutions will present a discussion. As CEOs, they must ask hard questions that other proponents of IT in the organization might not have to ask: What are the competing demands for resources, how strategic to the organization is IT, are we getting return on our IT investments, and what are the budgetary constraints regarding just how much an institution can afford to invest in a support service such as IT?