Session Details
Wednesday, September 29
Welcome Luncheon and Opening Speaker
The Changing Character of Leadership in University Continuing Education
The focal point for innovative public service outreach, the administrative center for serving corporate clients with contract education, the coordinating enterprise for multi-departmental degree programs for off-campus adult learners, or the respected home to specialized practitioner-based curricula tied to the strengths of their regional economies, university continuing and professional studies structures have diversely important roles. Moreover, they are generally “recognizable” yet highly specific in character and philosophy according to the culture and values of their home institutions. What is universal is that in the resource-constrained and much contested general environment now facing public and private universities, UPCEA members are being required to take on new roles, defend turf, serve the learning needs of multiple constituencies, and of course cut costs and grow revenues — and clarify the central importance of their missions — with ever greater urgency. What are some of the essential characteristics of leadership within our institutions that are likely to assure resilience, adaptability, and the capacity for innovation in face of transformational changes in American society and the globalized economy? Are there existing paradigms in higher education, knowledge-economy industries, or other sectors that provide instructive examples for effective leadership? And what is the force of the spirit of the times, when everyone craves “true leadership” while leaders everywhere have increasingly short periods of support and trust?
Cedar Point, 1913: How Two Lifeguards Worked Together and Forever Changed the Playbook
Dealing with change can happen in four basic ways: you can fight it, you can tolerate it, you can manage it, or you can create it. This presentation will use the example of two
lifeguards who worked at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, in the summer of 1913 and how they are textbook examples of how to create change and fundamentally alter the course of history.
Lessons from their example will be gleaned for the situation facing CE.
Winning the Future: Competing for and Retaining Customers in Continuing and Professional Education
Given the high cost of student acquisition and the intensification of competition in the continuing and professional education market, universities are hard-pressed to develop the support infrastructure necessary to supporting and retaining adult students. Continuing and professional education’s diverse portfolio requires thinking about retention beyond degree programs and seeing students enrolled in single courses or short-turnaround certificates as potential “repeat customers” as their careers progress. This session provides an overview of best practices for adult student retention and engagement; possible tactics include using proactive retention coaches, developing flexible student services, demonstrating career ROI to both students and their employers, creating outreach mechanisms for stop-outs and withdrawals, and installing milestone-based advising interventions.
The Practice of Servant Leadership Panel Discussion
This panel session will focus on the theory and practice of Servant Leadership. Ms. Una Martone, president of Leadership Harrisburg Area, will offer an overview of the theory of Servant Leadership — what is it and how it works. Dr. James Mike, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Shippensburg University, who practices Servant Leadership on a daily basis, will share the challenges and opportunities that arise when living this leadership style. Mr. Kenneth Karamichael, senior program coordinator, NJAES Office on Continuing Professional Education at Rutgers University will wrap up the session with a real life example of Servant Leadership through civic engagement in a program titled T.E.E.M. (Transitional Education and Employment Management) Gateway. This program recently won the UCEA Diversity Leadership Award at the National Conference in San Francisco. The program was developed as a core part of a twenty-year initiative of the NJAES Office of Continuing Professional Education to serve urban at-risk youth.
Growing Your Programs: Best Practices in Relationship Management
Building lifelong learning relationships with students is a widely touted strategy in higher education, and continuing and professional education is no exception. The vision is to better understand and connect with prospects, students, and alumni, driving improved conversion, retention, affinity, and loyalty. The context behind this is well-known: in recent years, and going forward, continuing and professional education divisions face a heady mix of trends, including strong consumer and policy demand for re-training and advanced education, competition from universities and colleges focused on adult learners, and Internet technologies that promise new, powerful ways to reach and serve customers, and build loyalty with them. Best practices include knowing who your students/customers are, but also managing and maintaining every touch point they have with the school and asking the right questions that enable universities to effectively grow their programs and communicate in context with their learners. It’s not just about how they can find you online and enroll, but how schools can build intelligence based on those touch points and rapidly respond to student needs. This session will outline some key macro trends facing continuing and professional education divisions, identify common customer service challenges, and discuss proven solutions.
Serving Those Who Serve Our Country: Best Practices for the Recruitment and Retention of Military and Veteran Students
Military and veteran students are a rapidly expanding market for continuing educators across the country. These adult learners tend to be highly motivated and mature students with money to pay for college. This expert panel presentation will focus on best practices in the areas of: recruitment, admissions, veteran’s affairs, financial aid, and student services.
Making Social Media Marketing a Worthwhile Investment
Social Marketing requires time and resources that can be tough to justify in a world where many CE departments are already stretched thin. The first half of this session will address tactics, best practices, and tricks to limit the amount of time you invest while maximizing your impact. The second half of this session will cover setting goals, key performance indicators, and will explore tools and techniques that can be implemented to measure your success.
Living the Strategic Plan
The purpose of this session is to provide session participants with an integrated model for sustaining strategic planning initiatives. Shifts in the landscape of American higher education increasingly elevate strategic planning efforts to high levels of importance, and continuing education professionals can benefit from planning models that integrate mission and vision-based initiatives with practice and continuous assessment. The presenters will provide a model designed to move beyond the traditional strategic planning processes by aligning strategic planning initiatives with continuing higher education practice, employee performance, and outcomes assessment.
Improving Access and Quality in Teaching and Learning
The open education movement has established a new paradigm of free and open access to high-quality educational resources. Today, Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative (OLI) is at the forefront of this movement, which seeks to truly improve teaching and learning for a larger and more diverse population. Using intelligent tutoring systems, virtual laboratories, simulations, and frequent feedback, OLI applies the best current research from the learning and cognitive sciences to build open and free learning environments that support continuous improvement in teaching and learning. This session will provide an overview of the Open Learning Initiative’s approach, the resources it makes available to all institutions, and opportunities to participate in this effort.
Thursday, September 30
Distance Education Leadership Panel
It’s Not about Distance Anymore: The Landscape of the Future
Two- and four-year institutions in the US are responding to the goals set forth in President Obama’s American Graduation Initiative to have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. Distance education is a mission mandate for many institutions, considered key to being able to meet this goal by providing adult learners with opportunities to learn anywhere, anytime, and any place.
Although physical distance remains a constant, technologies and the mainstreaming of online pedagogies have minimized the psychological distance in distance education and have allowed institutions to focus on the delivery of instruction in various modalities to address the needs of adult learners. The economy, the need to provide access to courses and training, and the focus on learner success and quality are forces that will shape the direction of elearning in higher education. The panel will address these issues and explore, with feedback from the audience, their thoughts and ideas related to these topics.
Dynamic Forces in Workforce Education: Solutions for Supporting Individuals, Employers, Government Initiatives, and Your Institution
Continuing education program managers know that the economic and workforce landscape is ever-changing. Finding ways to stay nimble and responsive to those changes is a critical key to building successful programs that are relevant to employers and students, while also supporting your institution’s goals. This session will explore some approaches and examples that reflect how higher education, workforce development and governmental entities, and companies can work together on initiatives that respond to the current and future economic landscape. Additionally, we’ll look at challenges that inhibit our ability to be responsive and timely, and discuss ways to overcome these obstacles. The session will present insights and best practices that will enhance your ability to respond to opportunities faster, in a more coordinated way, and in support of identified employer needs.
Budget Models that Support the Business Case for Schools of Continuing and Professional Studies
Across the last three years, the business model for higher education has been called seriously into question. As institutional budgets tighten and shrink, student demands and needs expand, access to credit remains difficult and competition from the for-profit sector increases, higher education institutions must question how best they will allocate resources, recover costs and incentivize behaviors to ensure the fulfillment of their missions. This session will focus on the business case for schools of continuing studies and how that business case can inform the creation, implementation and operating budgets. The session will address full cost recovery models that incentivize innovation and growth, present data on returns on investment for programming across the lifecycle (infant to growth to maturity), and engage the audience in a discussion around the pros and cons of budget models utilized at UCEA institutions.
Moving from Proving to Improving: A Conversation on Assessment and Accountability
Renewed concerns about student learning and higher education quality have heightened expectations for assessment and driven conversations about accountability at the national, regional, and local levels. Continuing education professionals face competing demands and particular challenges in developing sustainable models for ongoing assessment and quality assurance. The presenters will share their respective institutional contexts, assessment opportunities and challenges, and models for planning and implementing assessment strategies tailored to the continuing education community.
Calling All Leaders: "Why NOW Is the Time for New Market Leaders"
Sean takes us on a fast-paced look at how history, technology and social media are creating an opportunity for new leaders to emerge, especially in niche, specialty, and vertical markets. We’ll hear and see an energetic, enthusiastic view at what's happening and what it means for those with the courage to move now. This highly interactive presentation includes quick examples of organization that are doing it, one mini-case study, and “Eight Reasons to Act Now.”
Friday, October 1
Keynote Address
Navigating the Terrible Two(thousands): Hard Facts About the New Economy and How It Is Affecting Your Work
Change minds, change lives: change plans. New and sobering projections for state and local governments as well as “traditional” adult student audiences challenge us as never before. From the bright boom of the 2000s, few would have predicted today’s bust economy. Continuing educators have weathered recession and economic downturns before, but this one is different. As president of a consulting firm whose clients span the globe and Executive Education Professor of Strategic Leadership for The Smeal College of Business Administration at Penn State, Dr. Albert Vicere has a deep research base and sharp insight into the economic trends, employment trends, and resulting social issues that could decimate our student ranks and weaken our impact. Do not miss this session; from very sobering projections comes a strategy.
Emerging Classroom Technologies Showcase
Are you interested in getting up-close and personal with emerging classroom technologies? Participants will have the opportunity to review a variety of new technological tools that can be employed in their continuing education units. This session will offer a “2-minute overview” of a variety of new Web 2.0 tolls as well as provide for a hands-on experience using a select number, including YouTube, Jing, and VoiceThread.
Resilience and Thriving Amidst Change in the Workplace
This presentation will discuss change, the potential responses to change, and the concepts of resilience and thriving from the perspective of a professional educator. Implications and strategies for thriving and career longevity will be will be explored.
