Message From David Schejbal

From September 8, 2011


Mark your calendars! The UPCEA 2012 Annual Conference will be an event you will not want to miss.

Conference dates: March 28-30, 2012
Location: Portland, OR
Conference Title: Resilience.

The format, theme, and approach to this conference will be a bit different from UPCEA conferences in years past. The changes are directly related to what conference participants told us they want.

  • Conference costs will be all-inclusive and will not be higher than last year's average fees.
  • The schedule will run Wednesday afternoon through Friday afternoon, and the Annual Banquet will be held Thursday evening.
  • Keynote speakers Carl Safina and Bill Richardson will share their expertise on the broader themes of sustainability and public policy.
  • Dynamic conference tracks (see sidebar) align with key areas of practice within modern CE units.
  • The New and Aspiring Leaders Institute (second cohort of a program which debuted in Toronto) will be held Wednesday morning. This day-long program is free to participants, but space is limited. Stay tuned for more details.
  • A trip to the Willamette Valley wine country will be available to participants and their families Saturday for a nominal cost.

Wednesday morning begins with the New and Aspiring Leaders Institute. This is the second cohort of a program that debuted in Toronto. This day-long program is free to participants, but space is limited. More information about registering for this program will be forthcoming.

The Conference formally begins Wednesday afternoon, March 28, with a series of intensive workshops aligned with areas of practice, plus a special seminar devoted to sustainability that will continue as an excursion on Thursday afternoon.

Intensive workshops devoted to areas of practice include:

  • Distance Learning.
  • Enrollment Management and Marketing.
  • Outreach & Engagement/Career & Economic Development
  • Program Development and Management.
  • Leadership and Strategy.
Carl Safina
Thursday morning begins with a keynote presentation from Carl Safina, a prominent ecologist and marine conservationist and president of Blue Ocean Institute. A winner of the prestigious Pew Fellowship, MacArthur Fellowship and Guggenheim Fellowship, Safina has written five books—Song for the Blue Ocean: Encounters Along the World’s Coasts and Beneath the Seas; Eye of the Albatross: Visions of Hope and Survival; Voyage of the Turtle: In Pursuit of the Earth’s Last Dinosaur; Nina Delmar: The Great Whale Rescue; The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World, and due out in April of 2012, A Sea in Flames: The Deepwater Horizon Oil Blowout. Safina’s new TV series, Saving the Ocean, premiered on PBS in April 2011.

After the keynote presentation, concurrent sessions begin for each track aligned with areas of practice. The sustainability track will include an afternoon field trip to explore how social, environmental, and economic systems really work. The trip will use our location in Portland and the Pacific Northwest as the backdrop for the topic.

The Annual Banquet will take place Thursday evening.

Concurrent sessions resume after the morning keynote, and the conference adjourns late afternoon. For those interested in staying into the weekend, a trip to the Willamette Valley wine country will be available to participants and their families on Saturday. (There will be a nominal cost for this post-conference excursion.)

The Call for Proposals is now open. Visit this page to learn more about the conference tracks and guidelines and to submit your proposal electronically.

And please hold the dates on the calendar!



Best regards,

David Schejbal, Dean
Continuing Education, Outreach and E-Learning
University of Wisconsin-Extension