WHEN I
LEFT the
president's office at Ursinus in 1995, a fledgling consortium of
colleges and universities invited me to
consult with it. At the start, it was
incorporated as The Center for Agile
Pennsylvania Education. Some 24 institutions
made up the membership.
The original
objective was to get federal funds to pay for
new learning technology, specifically digital
videoconferencing equipment . More than 100
institutions joined the original
group. CAPE's mission, symbolized by its name
change to A Community of Agile Partners in
Education, became much more than to be a
magnet for federal funds. It fostered
alliances and relationships among
institutions in a technologically mediated
environment. Through conferences on-line and
face-to-face, it helped members
rethink organizational behavior so that they
could deal successfully with the new external
conditions.
CAPE wanted me as
a consultant because I knew the way colleges
traditionally operated but had an interest in
the paradigmatic changes under way, enabled
by the emergence of a new electronic
environment.
I wanted
to get involved because CAPE was fostering
transformation in the way teaching and
learning occur; and it wanted to help
colleges move toward a new model of
inter-institutional relationships in an
"electronic neighborhood." As I
left the presidency, such an agenda seemed to
offer me fresh experience and continued
contact with education at its cutting edge.
My
consulting service with CAPE indeed provided
that and more, including a new set of
congenial colleagues excited about the future
of education.
In July 2001, I ended my
obligations as an active consultant. The
original Executive Director, Dr. Galen Godbey, moved on.
The institutional membership list changed, and the
strategic vision of the organization came under review.
I no longer have any
working relationship with CAPE. But I maintain the
link to its website as a marker of a productive and pleasant
period in my work.
