The role of technology in the academy is another issue that bears mention. The prospect of distance education raises a question about the role of place in our professional lives. For some, it also raises other troubling issues about the future of the profession, the makeup of the professoriate, the potential for overemphasis on workforce or economic development, the possible dissolution of important face-to-face bonds to name a few. If we assess the role of technology in relationship to its positive and negative contributions to learning, we may define an appropriate "place" for it in our institutional life.

To espouse that we become more self-consciously learning-centered is to advocate that the core of our work is learning, and that learning should be the fulcrum around which issues are considered and resolved. It also is to remind us that learning is what we do best. For many of us, that is a personal observation, shaping our identities and our choice of profession.