If you had looked to the West from this hotel, you saw a billboard featuring a quotation from T.S. Eliot's provocative poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." These words on that billboard sum up my objective as your speaker:

Do I dare to disturb the universe? Or, changing one word, "the," to "your;" Do I dare to disturb your universe? -- a universe of tutoring and learning assistance.

I am not speaking to issues of programs and services. Nor am I speaking of learning support center development and management. Instead, I am focusing on us, you and me, as program directors, as program staff. More specifically, on us, you and me, developing our academic leadership potential, our academic respectability, our academic visibility -- both on campus and beyond the campus.

Dare you ask the question: "How am I perceived on my campus, in my community, nationally, internationally." Another question: "How can I change any perception that does not see me as a leader, as an innovator, as a thinker and doer?"

Let's explore five ways to develop, to enhance, to make visible and respectable our images as leaders, as innovators, as thinkers and doers.

First: Be a part of the technological revolution. Learn and experience the power of computers. This knowledge and experience will impact on all your professional activities. Own your own computer. Have your own Internet Service Provider. Master basic computer software: an operating system, word processing, database, internet browsing, and presentation software.

Second: Read and browse to write for publication and to present both on and off campus.

Third: Join associations to serve and to lead.

Fourth: Be a consultant and a trainer both on your campus and in the world of business and industry,

Fifth: Network to mentor others and to be mentored.

At this point, I will stop talking. You have five actions to think about and to discuss with one of your colleagues. Specifically, share with a colleague what tools that we do have that are specific to our profession of learning assistance that can make these five actions operational in our lives.

* * * * * * * * * *

[Speaker stops talking. Each member of the audience shares ideas with a colleague]

* * * * * * * * * *

Let's become an audience again. You have shared some of your thoughts with your colleagues. Now, allow me to reinforce and amplify your dialogue regarding tools for increased leadership, innovation, thinking, and doing.

First: We have and will always have with us professional journals and books. The JDE, CRLA Proceedings, NADE Monographs, Association Newsletters, as well as books on learning and on management.

Second: We have listservs -- over 12,000 to choose from -- that can be emailed to our computer. Listservs like LRNASST, SI-Net, TRIO, FYE-L

Third: We have a web site dedicated exclusively to information and resources of learning support centers in higher education. Its URL, or Universal Resource Locator (web address) is <http//www.pvc.maricopa.edu/~lsche/>.

Other useful web sites from which you can choose are the web sites for CRLA <http://www.dcc.edu/~crla/ >, NADE <http://www.umkc.edu/centers/cad/nade.htm>, ACCTLA < >, etc.

Fourth: We have our own research and scholars library that will be located at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. It will be one place where you can go to find almost everything ever written about learning assistance at the post secondary level. There will be accommodations for visiting researchers and inter-library loan for some of the collection. A web site will keep you informed of the library's holdings and activities.

Fifth: We have opportunities for advanced graduate education. Grambling University in Louisiana, Appalachian State University in North Carolina, Southwest Texas University, National Louis University in Illinois, University of Missouri in Kansas City, and at almost any university that has a graduate higher education emphasis You may want to remember that soon, an on line graduate course, tentatively labeled as HE500, will be available. HE500 is entitled: Introduction to Learning Support Centers in Higher Education.

Sixth: We have had for years our own annual professional institute for learning assistance professionals. These institutes began at UC Berkeley under the leadership of Martha Maxwell, were continued at CSU Long Beach under Frank Christ and Elaine Burns, and have been sponsored for the past ten years by the University of Arizona and Maricopa County District's Paradise Valley College with Sylvia Mioduski, Rick Sheets, and Frank Christ as co-directors. This year, a new tradition begins as the first annual summer technology institute opens at Southwest Texas University, funded in part by CRLA and NADE and led by Dave Caverly and John Hodges of SWTU. In addition, opportunities for technological learning occur at annual SYLLABUS conferences, and at annual association conferences.

Now for a penultimate thought: To be an academically respectable and visible leader, innovator, thinker and doer depends on you, your sacrifices of time, funds, and energy, and your will to use the tools that I have described.

If what I am recommending seems overwhelming, it is. But I believe that what I am recommending is possible. You can do it by using the very strategies that you are recommending and teaching to your students: time management, task organization, efficient and effective reading, proactive listening and notemaking. You can do it with the judicious use of computer technology. You can do it by making your professional development a priority.

My final thought which leads us back to my beginning quotation which was the T.S. Eliot quotation that I noticed on a billboard just outside this hotel:

DO YOU DARE TO DISTURB YOUR UNIVERSE?

Let's continue our collegial dialogue. Email your comments and questions to me at flchris@cox.net