is designed to help first-year students adjust to the university, develop a better understanding of the learning process, and acquire essential academic success skills. The course provides a general orientation to the functions and resources of the university and also provides a support group for students transitioning to college by examining problems common to the first-year experience. Attaining an appropriate balance between personal freedom and social responsibility underlies all University 101 activities.I decided to teach the course as an "overload" course (above my normal teaching load of two per semester) for two reasons. First, so that I would have the opportunity to teach undergraduate students (my department only has graduate programs) and, second, as a means to get to know the university better since I have only been here for a year. Professors tend to get to know their own department and college well but the rest of the university? Not so much.
The course has already helped me learn more about my university specifically and to rethink certain aspects of higher education generally. In part, this is why I started this blog--as a means to "think out loud" about some of these issues.
What else do I teach? This is a list of courses I have taught or am teaching currently:
EDHE 730: Evolution [History] of Higher Education in AmericaIf this seems like it add up to more than two per semester, it is because I taught during the summer. (By way of explanation: "EDHE" simply means "Higher Education" and "EDLP" stands for "Educational Leadership and Policies." The "832" designation is for "special topics" courses. The "campus fiction" course was definitely a "special topics" course while the "comparative and international" course will probably get its own number as part of the curriculum.) I'll talk about these courses in the future.
EDHE 736: Financial Aspects of Higher Education
EDHE 830: Organization, Administration, and Governance of Higher Education
EDHE 831: Internship in Higher Education and Student Affairs
EDHE 832: Campus Fiction
EDHE 832: Comparative and International Higher Education
EDLP 805: Advanced Educational Policy Analysis
The purpose of "University 101" is to introduce students to university life and this blog is to discuss the same kinds of issues, particularly as they relate to being a professor. What curiosities or thoughts do you have about universities, university life, and what professors do? Let me know. I certainly don't have all the answers but your ideas will certainly lead to some interesting conversations in the future.
