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Program Details


Monday 11.5.12

11:00 a.m.
Registration Opens

1:00 p.m. -2:30 p.m.
Continuing Education: The Pivot Point of Higher Education's Future
Louis Soares, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
Moderator: Robert J. Hansen, Ph.D., CEO, University Professional & Continuing Education Association (UPCEA)

In this session, senior leaders will continue the ongoing conversation about “disruption,” setting the stage for the 2012 Deans Forum by exploring the future of continuing, professional, and online education through two distinct lenses.  The first lens consists of analytical tools pulled from disruptive innovation literature that suggest ways in which learning will be delivered and validated in the future.  The second lens is the public policy environment that is setting the stage for the next decade of federal and state involvement in post-secondary education.  A public policy environment that will continue to demand new measures of quality, affordability and access thus driving education institutions to either innovate or retrench. The session will be highly interactive and more about developing the right questions than definite answers.

2:30-3:00 p.m.
Coffee Break

3:00 p.m. - 4:15 p.m.

Is an Assessment-Based Degree a Viable Option for the Future?
John Ebersole, LP.D., President, Excelsior College
Moderator: Karen Sibley, Ph.D., Dean of Continuing Education, Brown University

In the sea change presented by open educational resources, institutions such as Excelsior College have pioneered success in degree completion. Utilizing a combination of simulations, assessments and Open Educational Resources, Excelsior presents a critical, relevant case study in the next generation of the assessment challenge: online course development paired with a nationally normed competency-based assessment platform. Using this case as a touchstone, explore what a national agenda might look like, from challenges and fears to opportunities and rewards.

4:15 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.
The Catalyst Effect: Professional Education as a Driver of University-wide Innovation
Peter Stokes, Executive Director, Postsecondary Innovation, Northeastern University
Sean Gallagher, Director of Business Development and Analysis, Northeastern University
Moderator: Bea Gonzalez, Dean, University College, Syracuse University

Continuing and professional education units have long been the vanguards for new forms of education and opening new markets — often from their positions at the margins of the institution. As professional education and its audiences have become more central and strategic to many institutions' success, these units can emerge as not only laboratories for new programs and approaches, but as capacity-building internal partners and change agents. Presenters will discuss how lessons from one professional studies college have spawned new institutional strategies – in the online and international arenas, as well as approaches to program development, enrollment management, technology, and the development of presence in regional markets. These activities are transforming and informing institutional capacity for change and moving professional education to a more central place within the academy. Strategies and structures employed and their outcomes will be addressed, providing a case study for engendering and institutionalizing innovation.

5:30-6:00 p.m.
Break

6:00-7:30 p.m.
Reception


Tuesday 11.6.12

7:30 a.m.
Registration Opens

7:30 a.m. - 8:00 a.m.
Deans Forum Breakfast

8:00 a.m. - 9:15 a.m.
The Emerging Open Online Learning Environment
Ray Schroeder, University of Illinois, Springfield
Marie Cini, Ph.D.,University of Maryland, University College
Moderator: Thomas Gibbons, Northwestern University, President, UPCEA

This is the year that open online learning comes of age. With a wide range of open learning start-ups from MIT and Harvard forming edX, Coursera bringing together Princeton, Stanford, Michigan and UPenn, Udacity led by Google's Sebastian Thrun, Open Yale, and a host of other initiatives, the geography of higher education is forever changed. Online badges and certificates abound. What does this mean for our distance learning initiatives? How do we remain competitive in this environment?

9:15-9:45 a.m.
Break

9:45 a.m. - 10:45 a.m.
New Models for Flexible Degrees and Assessment
David Schejbal, Ph.D., Dean, University of Wisconsin-Extension
Moderator: Roxanne Gonzales, Ph.D., Academic Dean, Regis University

Open courseware has the potential to truly revolutionize higher education but not for reasons that most people recognize. Open courseware creates an increasingly ubiquitous learning environment that allows decoupling teaching, learning, and demonstrating mastery, which allows students to purchase and learn what they need when they need it— and demonstrate mastery at institutions of their choosing, and allows institutions can pick the educational pieces that work best for them. Explore these options as pioneered at the system level by the University of Wisconsin, as well as organizational structures designed to maximize quality in this new landscape.

10:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.
Internationalizing Continuing Education: Lessons from the Field
Bradley D. Farnsworth, Director, Center for Internationalization and Global Engagement, American Council on Education (ACE)
Moderator: Joe Shapiro, Ph.D., Dean of Extended Studies, San Diego State University

A recent study by the American Council on Education has shown that U.S. colleges and universities take very diverse approaches to the internationalization of their campuses. For many institutions, however, increasing flows of revenue is the primary reason for venturing overseas. In this session, we will explore the reasons behind successful international expansion in a variety of for-profit industries, and then apply the same principles to higher education. After developing a framework for assessing the opportunities and risks of international expansion, we will examine China as a market for U.S. institutions.

12:15 p.m.
Deans Forum Adjourns




@ 2012 UPCEA