Brendan Guenther's Portfolio

MA Curriculum for Degree Completion of the
Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education Program
Michigan State University

When I was considering the program the HALE masters program required successful completion of 30 credit hours as follows:

15 credits of core classes
6 credits of specialized courses
9 elective credits

My career changed directions in November of 2003 when my unit's director reclassified my position to include the responsibilities of an Assistant Director. Up until that point I had been primarily an information technologist, although working for MSU's Virtual University Project had exposed me to a wide variety of issues within the enterprise of higher education. I had been supervising a technical team since 2001 and provided unit-wide technology leadership as the Virtual University's Lead Programmer.

I selected EAD805 Higher Education Administration as my first course since the course description matched my curiosity in how a university worked. At the time I was more concerned with developing mental models and social theories that would help me to better grasp what I was already percieving at work. I joined MSU's Virtual University within two years of it's founding. As part of a startup unit at a university that is charged with implementing a new university wide-initiative we had a tendency to move very fast.