John Casey is manager of the engineering department, physical plant division, at the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia. If you are interested in reviewing a book for The Bookshelf, contact Casey at jcaseype@uga.cc.uga.edu.

If poor planning were music, my last name would have to be Mozart. During the time that I should have made these three books available to APPA members for review, I was frittering away my life working on Engineering Department projects. In order to meet the submission deadline for this issue, I volunteered myself for two reviews, and through a good bit of blarney imposed upon a colleague to do the other one.

The books cover three topics that should be quite familiar to members of the academy, especially readers of this journal: construction project management, higher education history, and information technology in colleges and universities. The latter work was reviewed by Tom Bowen, an active member of the Society for College and University Planning (SCUP) and a planning practitioner at the University of Georgia.

I apologize for any Georgia "spin" put on these reviews, and promise to give other APPA members an opportunity to share their expertise with the readers of the Bookshelf in future issues.
--JMC

Project Scheduling and Management for Construction (second edition), by David R. Pierce Jr. Kingston, Massachusetts: R.S. Means Company, Inc., 1998. 250 pp, hardcover.

All higher education institutions, sooner or later, become involved in construction projects. In fact, some campuses seem to be in a constant state of building and renovating, with projects handled by both in-house personnel and private contractors. All of these construction projects share common problems which are easy to describe in general terms, but very difficult to define and solve successfully; for example, "finish on time and under budget" is easier said than done. Since most construction projects today are very complicated indeed, if they are to be completed successfully they must be carefully planned and managed. Poorly run construction projects often result in facilities which are poorly built, too expensive and, invariably, late in completion. Each APPA member institution needs to avoid these pitfalls, and take appropriate steps to ensure that its construction projects are carefully and professionally managed. Enter R.S. Means Company, which has published another comprehensive reference book for the construction trade which explains and illustrates "today's successful project planning, scheduling, and management techniques." The author, David Pierce, has completely revised and updated his first edition, which features seven components of a successful building construction process:
1) latest computerized scheduling techniques; 2) preconstruction planning; 3) determining activity sequence; 4) tracking and controls; 5) managing resources effectively; 6) submittal data and procurement; and, 7) complete sample project demonstration.

Pierce spends the first three chapters of the book defining project management and describing the pre-construction planning process; by itself, the information presented here is reason enough to buy this book. Chapters four through nine cover the Critical Path Method (CPM), the process used for construction scheduling. The ninth chapter is especially interesting, describing resource management, ensuring that all materials and personnel are available at the right time and in the right place. The last chapter presents appropriate procedures for the management of submittal data and procurement actions. Finally, three appendices cover a sample project estimate, some sample logic diagrams and planning schedules, and suggestions on schedule sequencing.

This reference book is written from the perspective of a general contractor and, because of this, the reader is afforded an inside look at the often private and mysterious processes that take place in a contractor's home office and construction trailer. It was revealing to read how the "buy out" process is described from a general contractor's perspective. The author claims that during the bid process for single contract projects, the scope of work for many subcontractors is not clear, requiring negotiations between the general contractor and the various subcontractors which result in "buy out" agreements. Note that the "buy out" occurs after the preparation of a formal competitive bid and the subsequent award of a contract to the general contractor.

Pierce reports the need for "buy out" procedures is the result of incomplete information and a lack of necessary time to prepare a completely coordinated bid. Unfortunately, "buy out" often changes the dynamics of the relationship between the general contractor and the subcontractor which existed during the bidding phase; this provides an opportunity for general contractors to shop the bids of subcontractors or suppliers, resulting in a loss of value for the owner and a gain of undeserved profit to the general contractor. It would have been refreshing if the author had addressed the serious bid shopping problem from a general contractor's perspective.

In summary, Project Scheduling and Management for Construction is an excellent reference for professionally managing construction projects. While it uses samples from a specific computer-based software package, the author points out that many other commercially available programs can be used to implement the book's recommendations. Every APPA institution with a construction program needs the ability to schedule, or at least monitor, these activities. This book is a recommended resource for managing successful construction scheduling. However, merely buying the book and appropriate software will not a successful program make; institutions must be prepared to invest time and energy to master the scheduling process before reaping the benefits of this excellent reference.

The Shaping of American Higher Education: Emergence and Growth of the Contemporary System, by Arthur M. Cohen. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1998. 440 pp, hardcover.

Anyone familiar with automotive engineering knows the name Harry Ricardo. Sir Harry was the premier internal combustion engine designer of this century, starting with tank engines for World War I. His book on high-speed engines describes most, if not all, basic design parameters still used today. When I worked in an automotive research laboratory as an engineering student, I discovered, like every other designer before me, that practically all the brilliant and fresh ideas had been tried and tested long ago by Ricardo and his peers. Due in large measure to the experience and work of these pioneers, the automotive profession was able to evolve successfully in the twentieth century. A similar statement can be made about those people who developed the academy and allowed higher education to flourish in the United States, and that story is captured in The Shaping of American Higher Education.

This book is a complete history of the academy in the United States from the founding of Harvard in 1636 to the present. Professor Cohen proposes, and most would agree, that it is impossible to improve or reform higher education without knowing about and understanding the past. The author, who teaches a History of Higher Education course at UCLA and is the director of the ERIC Clearinghouse for Community Colleges, suggests that reading such history will convey a sense of "appreciation for the power of tradition," and reveal that "practically every aspect of contemporary higher education can be traced to the formation of universities in the latter part of the nineteenth century and to the colleges of the Colonial Era."

Shaping is developed along the UCLA course outline, and divides the time into five eras: Colonial, 1636-1789; Emergent Nation, 1790-1869; University Transformation, 1870-1944; Mass Higher Education, 1945-75; and Contemporary, 1976-98. During each era, eight topics are discussed, and while there is some overlapping in the focus of each topic, these eight areas of inquiry appear to cover most of the important information and trends: 1) societal context; 2) institutions; 3) students; 4) faculty; 5) curriculum and instruction; 6) governance and administration; 7) finance; and 8) research and outcomes. After devoting a chapter to each era, the author concludes with Trends and Issues for the Future featuring the same eight topics.

While I am an admitted higher education history junkie, I am not a trained historian, and I will not attempt to comment on the book's outline or research methods. However, four observations seem appropriate, based on my involvement with higher education both as a student and practitioner.

First, I felt that the author's emphases on certain topics in the last two eras, covering the period of 1945 to the present, were uneven. For example, I would have spent more time discussing the value of associations, or the duty of the members of the academy to be accountable to the public, rather than emphasizing deconstructionism in the curriculum. I suspect that this difference of opinion stems from the inherent problem of writing contemporary history; the recollection of events that are within the living memory of both the author and many of the readers often produces a mixture of opinion and reality, and results in different interpretations of these events. A second comment involves the physical expansion of higher education in the past 20 years. The author indicates that such expansion has been curbed; while it is true that the number of institutions has leveled off in the 1990s, the total square footage of the academy's facilities continues to rise sharply.

A third item which caught my attention regarded deferred maintenance; Cohen suggested that during the end of the Mass Higher Education Era many institutions redirected maintenance money to other uses, but that the extent of this practice was unknown. Unfortunately, he never acknowledged the subsequent findings of The Decaying American Campus, APPA's seminal work published in 1989, regarding this matter. Finally, the author does little to acknowledge the important role of facilities in the development of the academy. In fact, facilities demonstrate and epitomize the traditions that he claims are so powerful in higher education, are necessary to support the teaching, research, and public service goals of each institution, and consume about 10 percent of all the money spent in the academy.

The Shaping of American Higher Education is a book which attempts to organize and systematize the chaos of the academy's past. Because of the width and breadth of this history, developing the book was an enormous task. As a product of a higher education program, I can appreciate the time and effort that went into this book; I applaud the author for producing a reference that is very informative and leads the reader through the five eras with relative ease. Both as a textbook for a college course and as a reference guide, Shaping scores high marks. I recommend that APPA members consider purchasing this book to expand their knowledge of our profession.

Dancing With the Devil: Information Technology and the New Competition in Higher Education, by Richard N. Katz and Associates. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999, 144 pp, softcover.

Managing information technology advances in higher education today seems much like the dilemma the camper faced when he confronted a huge bear in the backwoods. Although frightened, the camper manages quickly to evaluate his options: 1) run as fast as possible for as long as possible in the opposite direction knowing that the bear will catch him eventually; 2) stand frozen in place and hope the bear will pass by without provocation; or, 3) fight the bear and hope to survive long enough for help to arrive or for the bear to lose interest and leave. Similarly, colleges and universities seem to be sorting out options to cope with the bear they face, information technology.

In Dancing with the Devil, Richard Katz, vice president of EDUCAUSE (a new association recently created from a merger of EDUCOM and CAUSE), has assembled an impressive cast of authors who offer sage advice on how to cope with information technology's effect on higher education. Katz describes common themes that flow through this compendium of monographs authored by former and present university presidents and practicing consultants, many of whom are former higher education officials.

First, higher education must decide to respond to change in a proactive or reactive manner as a result of the information technology bear. Second, private sector advances in information technology and specific educational training will jeopardize "colleges' and universities' unique economic standing as quasi monopolies." Despite this threat, the authors express "unwavering" confidence that higher education can retain and strengthen its mission by adapting its programs to fully utilize technology as well as its private sector competitors.

James J. Duderstadt, president emeritus of the University of Michigan, sets the tenor of the book in the opening chapter, asking the question "Can colleges and universities survive the Information Age?" He describes the forces driving change in higher education and how they affect specific academic program initiatives and higher education as a profession. Duderstadt suggests higher education consider "restructuring" itself, parsing and packaging programs and services to other sources, much like the health care industry has experienced recently. He stresses the importance of experimentation, and provides examples of experimental projects begun at the University of Michigan. Duderstadt concludes by urging higher education to aspire to a "culture of learning" rather than an "age of knowledge."

The opening chapter clearly sets the tone of the book, much like a keynote address sets the tone of a conference. Chapters two and three, Competitive Strategies for Higher Education in the Information Age by Richard Katz, and Assessing the New Competitive Landscape by Harvey Blustain, Philip Goldstein, and Gregory Lozier, offer prescriptions on how higher education should deal with threats of outside competition and marketplace changes. Both essays reinforce the strategy that higher education should move boldly and aggressively to adapt to new technology and the new markets that exist.

Gregory Farrington, president of Lehigh University, assesses the opportunities and challenges to residential undergraduate education in chapter four. Farrington's practical, intuitive assessment is that technology should not replace, but enhance, the residential undergraduate experience.

Farrington makes what may be the most important assertion in the book stating that "the challenge for education in ten or twenty years will be the same as it is today; to educate real people, not computers, and to stimulate them to learn, not to entertain them." He reminds us that, regardless of technological advances, "learning will remain hard work, requiring not only information, but interaction, practice, and discipline." Farrington's keen insight and engaging style of commentary emphasizes learning through the total undergraduate residential experience, while he draws clear distinctions between curriculum course models designed for the traditional college-age students and the growing population of non-traditional college students. He views the latter group as benefiting most from the new web-based, electronic course delivery systems.

William H. Graves closes the writings with Developing and Using Technology as a Strategic Asset, an essay that prescribes how colleges and universities can achieve maximum investment potential from information technology. Graves outlines principles and provides a life cycle model in four stages: experimentation, incubation, commercialization, and commoditization. Finally, he provides advice on how to organize campus agencies to reach full potential of their information technology resources and offers suggestions on how to manage instructional technology.

Essays in a collection often stand alone better than they coalesce as a single concept or theme. That is the case with this book. The sixth and final chapter, Tying Things Together, attempts to merge the concepts and arguments of each essay into a collection of salient advice for the practitioner. Compared to previous chapters, the final chapter lacks substance. The six suggestions offered engage the campus in a vision, develop the capacity for change, devise strategies, develop the faculty, manage information technology as a strategic campus asset, and focus on the assessment of student outcomes convey trite expressions with little supporting commentary. Nevertheless, the essays in this book offer substantial benefits to anyone connected to higher education or information technology.

Higher education cannot afford to dance with the devil or confront the bear without thoroughly examining the options, including the respective benefits and consequences related to each. This book will help colleges and universities identify the issues, examine the options, and select reasonable approaches to survive confronting the information technology bear.