Howdy to all Foundations of Leadership students from your ole "Professor" Gary,

Welcome to my class. Because students are still being added to a new section, and the fact that I am revising the online material from BlackBoard, to WebCT, to my own online site, it’s possible that you could receive this letter twice. (Maybe 10 or 15 times) If so, just disregard. 

You will discover that all of the tools that you will need are on my web site. You will discover that the “Work Schedule” calendar on my web has all the due dates and links to all the assignments so it will be easier for you to work down through the Units of work on work schedule on my web site. I will be linking all the activities to the Work Schedule page as quickly as possible. If you have any questions at all just call me at 918-343-7800, or email me at:
 rutledge@garyrutledge.com

 The course is self-paced, in the sense that you can work ahead, as long as you complete each unit on time. Do not just take quizzes or do any one activity by itself for several units. Complete each unit of work before moving on to the next. Follow the calendar on the work schedule page of my Web Site for all due dates. THIS IS THE BIBLE! EVERYTHING YOU NEED ABOUT WHAT AND WHEN IS ON THE WORK SCHEDULE of my web. Open each unit of work on or before the due date on the calendar and click on each one, and doing the reading, quizzes, threaded discussions, and writing assignments. I have opened up all of the assignments so that you may look ahead and even submit work ahead of time if your desire. Always do the reading assignment for each unit, before proceeding to the other activities.

You may want to "Bookmark" or place a link to my website on your desktop so that you can go directly to it during this semester if you have a question about when an assignment is due or anything else. Spend as much time as you can bang around on my site until you have a good idea where everything is, especially the Work Schedule and all its due dates.

You will be hearing from me a lot, especially at first, so keep an eye peeled for my e-mails. We need to make sure that we can communicate with each other via the Internet, so please send me a "howdy" message as soon as you can.  Tell me about yourself in about 50 words (never a penalty for writing too much). Tell me about your goals, experiences, likes, or dislikes? Tell me about your family or anything you want to talk about.

Use: (rutledge@garyrutledge.com)

So we will know that we can at least communicate by email. I will respond to all emails, so if you don't get an email back from me within 48 hours try again. (Usually must quicker) For emergencies, phone me at 918-343-7800. If you live close to the Claremore campus, you are always welcome to come by my office. (303 Prep Hall) If you have difficulty communicating through normal channels, try another e-mail system. (rutledge@garyrutledge.com is by far the best way to contact me, not the RSU faculty email address) I will be sending all email to your RSU email account so check this account often to make sure to get all messages from me.

As for me, I have a beautiful wife with whom I spend most of my time. We are raising our 18-year-old granddaughter, and we have 5 year old grandson that visits several times a week. You might hear about my family from time to time because I am at that age where I bore people to death with endless personal stories. I fly my old Mooney airplane, ride an old Harley Softail, ski behind an old boat, and drive an old Vette Stingray. (Everything is old like me, but still going strong) I have had three separate careers; Computers, jet aircraft, and now higher education. I just can’t seem to make up my mind what I want to do with my life. I have degrees from TCC, OSU, OU, TU, and my doctorate is from OSU, so I just root for everyone at games

We have a lot of work to do in this course, and I hope you don't get discouraged in the beginning. It gets much easier as we go along. I will not pay too much attention to the due dates of assignments during the first week or so because there is a lot of stuff I want you to read (like this rambling letter) and it may throw you behind a little.

The web assignment system and the Internet are pretty reliable, but some times bad stuff happens. Keep a back up of all written work on your computer just in case something unexpected happens. (Like ice storms and power outages) I will back up everything on my end too.

I will e-mail you a personal ID Number, ZAP Number, Password, and username for use with quizzes, writing assignments, threaded discussions right away, so be watching and save it for the duration of the course. You will also need your ID Number to identify your grades which may be found on my web site under the “Grades” button on the home page. I will publish grades on my website every 24 hours (except for the threaded discussions which take a little longer) in order for you to see how you stand at any given time. You can go to the grade page on my web and find a summary of your grades with a letter grade representing the work that you have done up to that point. Be aware that different assignments have different values, so the average grade in the far right column is a little misleading. Your grades will be found next to the personal pen number that I send you. At the top of each column is an abbreviated description of that item. Grades will appear on the grade page pretty much in the order that they were assigned. (Pretty simple Huh) If you do not wish to have your grades on my personal website, you may let me know and I will not make them available on an Internet basis. Speaking of grades, this course tends to have pretty high grades for those that do all the assignments, and pretty low grades for those that don’t. It’s easy to get behind and this causes all kinds of bad things begin to happen, so follow the work schedule page and its due dates as your bible. I hope you will quickly get into the routine of this course and give it your all. Those that finish, tend to have better outcomes than in my traditional in-classroom classes. Test scores also indicate that they learn more too.

You can (and probably should) still prepare your assignments with your word processor and copy and paste them into the web writing assignment text box just as if you were copying them into the text of an e-mail. I know this will mess up your pretty margins and formatting, but that's ok for the stuff you will be sending to me. I am much more interested in the content than anything else. Make sure that your original document has the required number of pages for each web assignment, (at least 2 pages, double spaced, 1 inch margins) Don't be concerned with how small it becomes when you copy and paste it to the web assignment pages. And, you don't need to email me and tell me that your document looked so much bigger before it was converted to HTML. I know! I know! Sorry. The final paper is the only one that will be printed out and turned in as hard copy.

All quizzes are all linked just like other written assignments.The work schedule pages should allow you to simply click on a link, bring up the appropriate assignment page with a subject question to write about in the text box, or bring up an online exam for you to take and submit to me for that unit. If a grade does not appear within a day or two, e-mail me at:

rutledge@garyrutledge.com

Use this address for all communications with me. Send no email with an attachment. No email with an attachment will be opened. (Too dangerous) By the way, you need an RSU email account to take my course. Sorry! Communications that I originate will go to this address, so check it often. As far as the email address you use to send work and messages to me, other personal addresses are fine. You can submit work and messages to me from any computer. It does not matter if you use several different computers or servers, when I respond to your emails; I just hit "REPLY" and send my response to whatever address your message came from. If we have any difficulty communicating, the first thing to, is to check your RSU email account. (for quick response, email me at the rutledge@garyrutledge.com address.

By the way, have you noticed? No proctored exams or testing centers. Everything is on-line and you can do assignments and take quizzes on your own schedule. (as long as you meet the due dates) Just submit the stuff into the web assignment links, Take the online quizzes, and post to the threaded discussion forum and you are done.

Well that should get us going. Don't have a heart attack at the reading assignments, web assignments, threads, and quizzes. Once you get into the rhythm of the course, it really becomes easy. Don't forget! I am as close as your e-mail. I usually check my mail several times a day.

Send me that "Howdy" e-mail and tell me a little about you. Sit back and get ready to learn a bunch of stuff and have fun at the same time. This is going to go by so fast you won't believe it.

Have a super semester, Gary R.