Catalog

This book is a compilation of my personal journey in higher education and of what I have seen and learned from 30 years working in that field. To say there has been a sea change in how students perceive and navigate college and in the level of parental involvement since I began working with college students in the early 1990s is an understatement. The changes have been epic. There are four parts to this book. The first part (Chapter 1) is my story where I share my experiences growing up, getting to college, and then getting to graduate school. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 (the second part) include the history of higher education, what it has become and what I think it should be, and the value of the liberal arts. In Chapters 5, 6, and 7 (part three), I share some of the situations I dealt with as a dean and advisor, offer reflections on the pandemic and higher education, and then offer some advice for students. These sections come together at different points and in different ways for the fourth and concluding part of the book—the epilogue.

This guide of resources was developed to support a faculty learning community on inclusive and accessible learning at the University of Virginia. The book is presented in six sections that correspond to the topics of focus of the learning community: Disability as Diversity; Accessibility and Accommodations; Universal Design for Learning; Applying UDL; Student Experiences; and Creating Accessible Course Materials.

This book has been created to provide guided readings to support the University of Virginia’s OER Learning Community.   The text is broken into six sections that align with the learning community’s session topics: Foundations of OER and Why OER Matters; Discoverability and Evaluation of OER; Optimizing OER for All Learners; Open Pedagogy; Licensing and Creative Commons; Next Steps: Planning for an OER/OP Project.  Each chapter is accompanied with learning objectives and most chapters feature interactive elements and opportunities for readers to engage with the text. Although some chapters contain more advanced content, the text is geared towards those who are new to OER and Open Pedagogy.