The Virtual Promised Land: Can Technology (and Budget Cuts) Transform and Redeem Us?

Abstract

Grand claims are being made about the new teaching and learning environment. The rhetoric of innovation-spurred on by political or economic agendas and rarely laced with a necessary irony-is forcing usto rethink our roles as educators, administrators, and information professionals. When words hit ground level, however, the practicalities of the transformation process can be overwhelming. What strategies can we use to ensure that the Promised Land isn't merely virtual? How can we encourage ourselves to remember that information is not knowledge?

Which traditional practices should we forsake, and which ones should we cherish? Coming to an understanding of our own goals is critical because we must identify the problems before finding the solutions. By drawing on experience in the classroom and administration, it's possible to find strategies that work. Some of these are surprising; others necessitate a fundamental shift in the culturalassumptions found in higher education. If we want to live bravely in this new world, we must ask the questions which may not give us the "right" answers; we must be brave enough to make distinctions between real innovation and cosmetic change.

Professor Lucinda Roy is Alumni Distinguished Professor of English at Virginia Tech. She served as Associate Dean for Curriculum, Outreach and Diversity for the College of Arts and Sciences from 1993-1996. During Spring, 1992, she was the visiting Margaret Bundy Scott Professor of English at Williams College in Massachusetts.