Hello and welcome! My name is Brian Johnston and I'm the guy who's been
emailing you and talking with you, whether it be a text message or through
various different mediums. I want to welcome you all to the
global support leadership program. This is going to be your first introduction
and we're going to go through some basic things and get you ready for
what's about to happen, because things are going to move fast. Three years seems
like a long time, but it's really going to go by very quickly and we're going to
try to keep you focused and moving right along. So, now that you're in the program
and things are about to start, what do you do now? Well the first thing we need to
do is register for classes. The way you register for classes is not the way that I
did. Believe it or not, this picture you see was exactly how I registered at ETSU.
We progressed from standing in line, to using the phone, to the computer and
now you're actually going to use goldlink.
So, for each of you to register for class, you're going to go to goldlink.etsu.edu
and you'll be able to follow the prompts to register for classes on
this website and you'll use your ETSU username and password to get in.
Once you get into goldlink, you'll see that is how you'll manage everything from
paying your bill to looking at other financials
that you need, looking up classes, registering for classes, if you want
to know your progress towards your degree, etc. That's a very helpful website.
You can get on there and play around. The next thing you have to do is
get books. For many of you, we're going to talk about this later, it's
going to be a little bit different. We don't have books stored in the
library for this program, because most of you aren't here. So, you're going to
have the opportunity to get that book from somewhere online. Maybe you want to
get it as a hardcopy and order it or maybe you want to have it electronic. You can
look at these on your phone, you can look at them on your iPad, you can just use
your computer. It's kind of up to you with whatever you feel comfortable doing, but
the big thing that I can tell you is throughout this entire program the most
important thing that you can do is to not look ahead. This is because you want to get
through the classes you're in and then move on to the next ones, because if you
start looking ahead, you'll start missing assignments and you'll start missing
opportunities because you're thinking too far down the road. So with that being
said, let's go right into what you're going to do this fall. So the
first two classes are GSLD 6000 and 6100. You're going to have Leadership
in Global Sport with Dr. Sanders and you're going to have Strategic Planning
and Thinking with Dr. Haff. These will be two great classes. We've had two years of
teaching these now and we feel like they're a very good introduction to the
program. It gives you a great opportunity to get an idea of the instructors, what
to expect, and what kind of assignment you're going to do. The entire time
you're in this semester you're going to have the temptation to look
ahead, but don't do that, because once you're ready you're going to get right
into winter session in the spring. So winter session goes from December until
January, so you will be taking classes through the Christmas break. The
past two years it just kind of worked out that way that assignments were due
on Christmas Day and New Year's Day, but keep in mind that just because the
assignments due Christmas Day doesn't mean you have to wait till Christmas Eve
to do it. So, then we move on into spring semester and we have leading external
function and then research methods. So this first year, your traditional year
anyways is pretty good. I think you're going to get a lot of things that you
want and also some new things. I think the interpersonal relationships class in
the winter will be a fun class. There's a lot of reading. Then when we get into
the spring, for those of you who are in a more external focus, you're really going
to enjoy it. To be quite honest with you, probably none of you are going to be
looking forward to the research class. We're going to do what we can to make it
as enjoyable as possible and help you learn what you need to do to move
forward. Then we get into May and this is where it gets fun, because May is when we're
going to go on our trip. I'm sure that there are a million questions that
you have about the trip and I've got a million answers, but we don't want to
give them to you right now, because you have to get through the first few
classes before we get to May. Be very patient, because I'm going to get you
that information as soon as I can. There's plenty of time for you to buy
airline tickets, look ahead and look at the cities. We're
going to give you lots of information. We've got two great trips. We
flew into Milan and out of Barcelona this past year. In the first
year we flew into Munich and out of Amsterdam. Both experiences were
absolutely amazing. Before we leave to go on this trip I'm going to have some of
the former students and recent graduates call you and let you know exactly what
to expect. Now looking into summer, we have
two classes. We have global governing bodies and we have sport and society. So
we'll come back from that trip and you'll have about a week and then we'll
jump right into summer school. Summer school will go for 10 weeks, just
so you know. You need to be prepared for that. It will go and this is pretty
concentrated for those first two years so you're going to go hardcore.
We're not going to talk about the second year, because you haven't really started
the first year yet. So, as you look at the program, make sure that you understand
what you're doing now and when we get near the end of the fall semester that's when
we'll talk about winter. When we get near the winter, we'll talk about spring. Again,
as we get close to the trip, we'll let you know. If you start looking ahead,
you'll get ahead of yourself and you'll start missing assignments.
When you go to register for classes the one thing that has to happen, because
this program is very unique, no one can get into these classes but you. They're
not going to fill up and the only way you get in is if I issue you a permit.
In order to do that, we'll issue these permits all around the same time.
Some of you have already gotten into classes. We've issued permits early for
financial reasons and that's great, that's fine if your employer's really
willing to pay for part of your education. Normally what we'll do is
I'll send this out and there will be 40 students that will send permits
for their specific classes. So don't worry. You're not going to not be able to
get in the class. We'll get that worked out, don't worry. Now let's talk about
books again. Hardcopy versus electronic: it's going to be personal preference. In
this program, I have both. I have hard copies for some and I have electronic copies
for others. I spend more time with the electronic copies, because if
I'm on the airline, if I'm on the plane, if I'm in the airport, if I'm on vacation,
it's easy to pull it up from my phone or pull it up on an iPad, so you have it in
multiple access points. Traditional versus popular: you're going to see in
this program that we use some traditional textbooks, but we also pull in other
books. We pull in other textbooks, popular books that are going to
drive home specific points and to be honest with you, it's really helped.
We've taken a theory out of a textbook and put it into a popular book
that drives it home and makes it real for you and you can apply what's going
on in that popular book into your life and your work environment.
We're going to use journal articles, we're going to use magazine articles and
newspaper articles. Again, all those sources are to help you take the theory and the
concepts in a textbook and make them real for things that you know what's
happening in the world today. Bottom line is you're going to be reading a lot over
the next two years, so if you're not a very competent reader or if
reading is not something that's fun to you then you're either going to
learn to love it or you're going to just learn to hate it even more. We're
going to do it. We're going to do a lot of reading and that's really one of the
great characteristics of leaders is they're always looking to find what
other people are doing and how they can take another concept that someone else
has been successful with and apply it to their area. Now I'm going to take this
time now to recommend a book for you as we get started. The first year we had
this included in the curriculum and we've taken it out, because we
just had too much. So for any of you, I would encourage to get The Last Lecture. You
can watch the video, if you want and it's about an 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes.
The book has a lot more information than the video does and there's a lot more
chapters. The chapters, I think there's 60 chapters and most of them are
just a page, so it's not a really thick book. You could probably read the whole thing
at once, but there's a lot of great things said. Randy Pausch was a very
intelligent man..I'll let you read his story. There's a lot of what he does that
has influenced me and a lot of what he said I've influenced me over the years.
Usually if I draw your name at Christmas, this is what you're going to
get as a copy of this book. I highly recommend it and it's good to kind of
get into the swing of things. Now desire2learn (D2L) that's the platform
that we use for all of our instruction. So when you get into your classes,
you're going to log into elearn.etsu.edu and when you get there you'll log in to
D2L. D2L is pretty user friendly. You're going to be using it for the next
three years. You're going to be able to find everything pretty easy and if
you can't just let me know and we can help you. The one thing that you're always
going to want to keep abreast of and it's going to be on the right-hand side
of your screen, is your submission deadlines. Make sure that you check in
the discussion board, the assessments and the Dropbox, because all that information
is going to be right there on your calendar and you need to make sure that
you hit those submission deadlines in order to get full credit for your
assignment. Now from a faculty standpoint, you have a
great variety of faculty that are going to be working with you and their goal is
to teach you and push you, but they're going to help you. They all want
you to be successful and every one of you in this program are all type-a and
there's nothing better as an instructor than to deal with a
bunch of people who want to make an A. So again, go to our website etsu.edu/globalsport
and you can look at the profiles of all our instructors and
their contact information is there so feel free to contact them at any time
that you'd like. One thing I will say is if you have a question about a
class you can email me and ask me, but if I'm not teaching that class the first
thing I'm going to say is email your teacher first, the instructor of record.
I'll do what I can, but let them know because they need to know if there's an
issue with the class or if you have a question.They may have an answer
that is different than what I may have. Now, wrapping this up...
congratulations on being here in this program, because you're here and there's
a lot of people that want these slots. We don't just take anybody. I look
forward to working with each of you. If you have any questions, please don't
hesitate to contact me. I'll be sending out my personal cell phone, as well as my
email. So, feel free to call me whenever and I look forward to working with each
of you. Thank you.