With our college just off warning status from Middle States, it certainly is good to know that management is not slacking off on their duty to manage the college affairs. The Dean asked for course syllabi in advance of the semester so that she could review them. Unfortunately, she is in the position simply because she does not question the tactics of her good friend and superior, the College Provost. His confusion over time at work vs. cost effective time management leds his Dean down the slippery slope of spending inordinate amounts of time promoting backward causes.

The Dean wants the course outlines in a word processing document. Nearly ten years into a new decade, we are finally solidifying our last decade. Instead of spending time encouraging faculty to put their syllabi on the web, she wants the document in an old-style format so she can "print them out." Course syllabi today contain hyperlinks, photos and videos. Course syllabi should be available on the web for prospective students to peruse. Let them get to know the course. I include a video of myself, working at home on my computer, buying the textbook from amazon.com, so that students can see how easy it is to save money.

The Dean could take the html files and save them on a hard drive. They are available for viewing within a web browser, which is no different than saving them on a hard drive and opening them with a word processor. In this day and age of information storage and retrieval, we need management that will question the old processes. We don't need syllabi in binders high on shelves getting dust. We need a management team that understands the format of the game has changed. The format is html.