No abstract

High school teachers are being bombarded continually with prophecies of doom and gloom: asbestos in the schools should be removed, drug abuse is on the rise, and standardized test scores continue to decline. In all those negative reports one stone remains unturned: insuring the safety of students in school science labs. Each year over 5,000 accidents occur in school science labs, and the number is likely to increase (7). Many schools are sitting on a ticking time bomb because of antiquated equipment, poor facilities, and unknowledgeable educators that add up to potentially fatal accidents (2). Safety in the school is the responsibility of the building level administrator, school board members, district-level administrators, students, and, probably most of all, teachers. All also should be made aware of their responsibility and potential liability in this problem. Legal ImplicationsNow, more than ever, there is a critical need for school systems to be aware of their legal responsibilities relative to high school science laboratories (3). In recent years, li-

No abstract

The combinations of global networking and digital delivery have intense repercussions for higher education administrators who confront a magnitude of opportunities and challenges as the result of the digital revolution. Much of the reaction to technological change comes from those with a vested interest in either wholesale change or maintaining the status quo. Taking the resilience metaphor from ecology, the authors propose a framework for analyzing an institution's ability to adapt to digital challenges. To compete in today's economic environment, higher education institutions must become more adaptive, responding more quickly to changing expectations from society, politicians and customers. The non-linear approach to problem-solving evident in higher education and society in general, reflects a need to be more flexible, adaptive to alternative techniques and willing to invest in a new culture designed to acquire knowledge rather than specific solutions. This level of organizational flexibility and responsiveness fuels university performance. In the globally competitive and commercialized start to the 21st Century there has been a considerable increase in the demands for higher education institutions to provide additional global access, and increase opportunities while simultaneously reducing budgets. Globalization and technology have introduced critical alterations to higher education institutions. The context of education has become dynamic, energetic, and economically driven. The emerging technologies have rapidly turned knowledge to power. In this context knowledge is viewed as a commodity that can be managed (bought and sold) while being a vibrant source of social activity and learning.

Global higher education leaders face the most explosive political environment in the history of higher education in the world due to decreased financial resources coupled with increased accountability. As revenues become scarcer, calls for accountability continually increase the five often-competing forces driving change in global higher education. In order to gain a more holistic view of accountability, the authors focus on five major shifts in global higher education: 1) Supply: financing; move from state-supported to state-assisted; 2) Demand: students; by 2020 minority students will be the majority; 3) Delivery: competition; faculty, f2f, online, technology, etc.; 4) Structure: new structures in different locations, internationalization, no longer brick and mortar, brick and click; 5) Productivity: management by objectives and results orientation.