President to President:
Views on Technology in Higher Education - Volume II
Chapter 1:
Beyond the Board Book: Internet Communication With Trustees
Written by Theodore E. Long, Ph.D. Elizabethtown College
Summary: It was a new trustee who first suggested it. "Let's post all this material electronically so I can work off my laptop instead of lugging this big book of paper around every meeting. It should be pretty simple to do," she said, "and it will be a lot easier to do board work." Six years later, what began as a matter of trustee convenience and saving paper has become a new center for board communication. Our conversion from paper to electronic communication did save trees and made things easier. But what we discovered at Elizabethtown College - and are still learning to exploit - is that internet communication enables our board to work differently, not just more conveniently. This chapter describes those new possibilities, reviews their advantages, and lays out some principles for exploiting this tool successfully.
