October 11, 2004 Faculty, Administration and Staff: The Faculty Senate sponsors an annual lecture with a major speaker for the University and the mid-South academic community. This year the speaker is Dr. Alan Guskin who is the Director and principle scholar for the Future of Higher Education Project. I have had the privilege of hearing Dr. Guskin speak before and believe he has a message that every person who is or wishes to be either a higher education faculty member or administrator at any level needs to hear. The following quotation from a recent publication by Dr. Guskin sets the stage for his presentation. Higher education in this new century faces the difficult paradox of being more critical than ever to society’s future, but under severe pressure to prove its worth in educating students and to justify its use of financial resources. Expectations of and pressures on colleges and universities are high. In the next decade or so, increasingly severe financial and accountability pressures may well disrupt the educational and administrative practices of our nation's colleges and universities and, especially, undermine the quality of faculty work-life and student learning. The key to overcoming the severity of these potential problems will be the creation of fundamental reforms in how colleges and universities educate students, especially undergraduates. Leverage for such change will require joining together the professional interests of faculty with institutional needs to respond to pressures for significant reform. To accomplish this, faculty and administrators will need to challenge their basic assumptions about teaching and learning. Join us on Monday, October 25 at 2:00pm in the Faulkner Lounge of the University Center to hear Dr. Guskin’s insightful presentation, "Facing the Future: Creating a Vital University in a Climate of Restricted Resources." Cordially, James Penrod Professor, Higher & Adult Education Leadership College of Education, The University of Memphis 311 Browning Hall, Memphis, TN 38152-3340 AT&T Fellow, Advanced Learning Center, FedEx Institute of Technology (901.678.5957) Senior Fellow, EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research Office: 901.678.5598