Inaugural Post and Introduction

If you are reading this, I hit "Publish" and have officially launched the

Tech and Care of Business in Higher Ed

online adjunct faculty development blog. Yay! Happy New Year! 

This blog is a loose exercise in personal online adjunct faculty development. I offer it free to all who enter.

Here I will curate, store, and share the helpful web resources, educational activities, strategies, theories, conversations, and research I find in my work as an online Communication adjunct, as well as in my explorations as a Higher Education Administration Ph.D. student. I will also practice using the new advice, tips, and tools, and discuss the various experiences with you. In addition, I will provide you with immersion links, teaching tools, research questions, and service opportunities.

For the next year we will explore the definition of the ideal e-educator in the 21st century, as well as provide a curated collection of resources. Materials provided will be open source, fair use, free, and available for redistribution with proper attribution where necessary or requested. I hope you find instructional tools you can incorporate easily, effectively and efficiently, invaluable web resources, and assistance with constructing engaging learning experiences, establishing relationships in the web environment, and building your personal learning network (PLN). In exchange, I hope you will enjoy participating in the discussions, surveys, and activities.

The idea for this blog came to me in November when an article on the Harvard Business Review website, "From the Knowledge Economy to the Human Economy," spurred my thoughts regarding the importance of developing and maintaining consistent instructor quality and adjunct faculty development within the American higher educational system.

It occurred to me that if the nation is moving toward a human economy, and "heart" is what really matters within "human operating systems," then it is imperative that universities devise a way to produce virtuous educators who can communicate "heart" through the computer keyboard to help students learn and grow. Then came the question:

What does a virtuous educator look like in 21st century online higher education?

To construct an answer, various aspects of this question will be considered throughout 2015 in an effort to flesh out an operational best-practices development guide for new and seasoned e-learning educators. It seems that for the unaffiliated adjunct the Internet is full of a la carte resources, but does not contain any compendiums or comprehensive how-to guides, even for online teaching basics.


Purity, Appreciation, Strength, Faith, Courtesy, Respect, Happiness, Perseverance, Wisdom, Courage, Goodness, and Compassion

These twelve categories of virtue are found in M. Scott Peck's (2000) Abounding Grace: An Anthology of Wisdom, and shall serve as the loose operational definitions of virtue for our year-long investigation of modern online instruction in 2015.

One virtue will be explored each month in relation to its contribution toward online adjunct success. Each week is constructed around adjunct needs on a theme related to the monthly virtue. For instance...

                    January's Virtue is Purity
                              Week 1 = Virtues in higher education/Developing a teaching philosophy
                              Week 2 = The nuts and bolts of online adjunct job responsibilities
                              Week 3 = Maintaining academic rigor & standards/Clarity in communication
                              Week 4 = Academic Integrity/Primary Sources/Attribution/Fair Use                

In constructing this blog, I also considered an additional definition of virtue:

To bring forth and preserve, to produce without possessing, to act without hope of reward, to expand without waste, this is supreme virtue. ~ Lao-Tzu

It is in this spirit that I begin this exercise in research, scholarship, exploration, application, and sharing.

This exploration is a learning process for me as my first blog, and as a side project to my doctoral research. So, I thought I would share the journey with you. This blog will not be perfect, but I intend for it to be thought-provoking and I am looking forward to the interaction. Please contact me any time you have a question, concern, challenge, difficulty, or idea concerning the information presented here.

Thank you for joining me in thought and conversation on this new path.

Find me on Twitter @Melynda_Conner and LinkedIn, www.linkedin.com/in/melyndaconner, or email me, melyndaconner@gmail.com.