What will higher education look like in five years? What will Rutgers look like then?
What trends are reshaping our functions, responsibilities, and organizations? How will we make the transitions required?
What must we do to build the leading university and academic library of the future?

Join us as we consider these and other vital questions at -

The Rutgers University Libraries Envisioning The Future Symposium

Keynote Speaker Dr. Clara Lovett, president of the American Association for Higher Education, will discuss how the convergence of three major trends is reshaping the role of higher education and changing the expectations of students and other stakeholders. These trends are: broad democratization of knowledge, increasingly sophisticated information and communication technologies, and pervasive diversity and globalization. In exploring these powerful social trends, Dr. Lovett will point to the components needed to build a successful university and a thriving academic library in the years to come.

Dr. Lovett is president emerita of Northern Arizona University and former chief of the European Division of the Library of Congress. She is a frequent contributor to Change magazine, The Chronicle of Higher Education and other education publications. She is also a columnist for The Arizona Republic, the leading daily newspaper in Arizona. Symposium attendees are encouraged to read Dr. Lovett's April 2003 article "Focusing on What Matters Most," in Change magazine. This article is available at: http://www.aahe.org/Lovett%20Change%20Magazine%20April%202003.pdf

Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Philip Furmanski will address the challenges and strategic direction for Rutgers University.

University Librarian Marianne Gaunt will speak about the context for research libraries as we plan for our next five years.

Symposium participants will have an opportunity to interact with each speaker, and address the issues raised, in small group breakout sessions in the afternoon.