Workforce development is an integral piece of many PCO units and for ensuring the economic and social vitality of our communities. But are we always serving the right populations? What if there are people being left behind or ignored in our workforce development efforts?
Jennifer Hernandez (Associate Secretary for Farmworker & Immigrant Services, California Labor & Workforce Development Agency) has been focusing on increasing access to programs and services for immigrants across all departments of the labor agency, including leading new efforts in workforce programming. Jennifer will share the lessons learned working across agencies to better serve immigrants, the need to innovate and challenge our existing delivery systems, and the opportunities that can be created by engaging unlikely partners. She will offer a new framework for how we can redefine our vision for workforce development and servicing vulnerable populations, including immigrants.
Engage in a highly interactive session with a panel of senior leaders on where our dynamic field is headed. Alternative credentials, shifting demographics, and new models are already shaping how institutions serve students. This group of panelists will provide their unique perspectives on organizational and market forces that are emerging, how they are responding at their institutions, and how UPCEA members will lead us into the near-term future (2025!).
Nelson Baker, Dean, Professional EducationDr. Nelson Baker, dean of Professional Education at the Georgia Institute of Technology and associate professor in the university’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, leads a multifaceted operation at Georgia Tech Professional Education. The division is comprised of the Global Learning Center, Georgia Tech-Savannah, the Language Institute, and an extensive program of professional education courses in science, technology, engineering, and math, with online professional master’s degrees, as well as an array of distance learning courses, both credit and noncredit.
Baker particularly seeks to create and assess ways in which technology impacts the learning of engineering students. His award-winning work has generated projects such as multi-lingual web-based intelligent simulations for problem solving; intelligent tutors; student models; an online faculty assistant tool for creating course objectives; and a variety of technology-based assessments and virtual reality interfaces for education.In addition to his role as dean, Baker serves as the U.S. principal investigator for a FIPSE Atlantis programme grant (P116J090074), an international activity exploring quality management and benchmarking of continuing engineering education programs; and also as a co-principal investigator on a five-year NASA project, Electronic Professional Development Network (ePDN), which develops and delivers STEM content to high school teachers.
In February 2012, Baker was appointed by Chancellor Huckaby to serve on the University System of Georgia's (USG) Distance Education Task Force to create a framework to better coordinate and guide the future use of distance education for the 35 colleges and universities within the USG system. He currently serves as the President of the International Association for Continuing Engineering Education, and is past-chair of the Georgia Board of Regents Administrative Committee on Public Service and Continuing Education. Baker is a board member for the University Professional and Continuing Education Association, and is an active member of ASEE and ASCE.
Sandi Pershing has been with the University of Utah since 2000, and has served as Assistant Vice President for Engagement since 2011. Pershing also served as Assistant Dean, and as Dean of Continuing Education from 2004-2016. She has worked as an organizational consultant and trainer in the areas of teamwork, organizational change, strategic planning, leadership, learning transfer, time management, creativity, management, and conflict resolution. Pershing is also the co-author of Organization Theory and Governance for the 21st Century (2014) with Eric Austin, and she co-edited Classic Readings in Organizational Behavior(2008) with J. Steven Ott and Richard Simpson, and Classics in Public Administration (2003) with Jay Shafritz and Albert Hyde.
Moderator:
Bob Hansen, CEODr. Robert J. Hansen was named Chief Executive Officer of the University Professional & Continuing Education Association in September 2010. Under Hansen’s leadership, UPCEA has grown by 125% in the past six years. He established a number of initiatives targeting the association’s unique role in online leadership and management under the umbrella of the National Council for Online Leadership: the Summit for Online Leadership and Administration, the Online Leadership Roundtable for chief online learning officers, and the UPCEA Hallmarks of Excellence in Online Leadership. He also established the UPCEA Hallmarks of Excellence in Professional and Continuing Education, advancing two frameworks to provide a set of standards that reflect the ambitions, potential, and importance of units that serve adult learners.
Hansen previously served as Associate Provost for University Outreach at the University of Southern Maine, a regional public university located in Portland, Maine. Prior to that position, he spent six years at Saint Xavier University of Chicago as Assistant to the President & Secretary of the Corporation, and then as founding Executive Director of Orland Park Campus & Off-Campus Programs. Hansen also previously served as Assistant to the Governor for Education in the administration of former Illinois governor, Jim Edgar. Hansen earned a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Illinois, an M.A. in English Language and Literature from the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Notre Dame.
This presentation by Jim Fong, Chief Research Officer for UPCEA, will focus on how higher education is being shaped by the growing audience of millennials which is quickly becoming the majority of decision-makers, influencers, managers, directors, and organizational leaders.
Jim Fong, Founding DirectorJim Fong is the founding director of UPCEA’s Center for Research and Strategy. In his role, Mr. Fong has analyzed demographic, occupational, technological and societal trends and data to help the higher education community better serve the adult and corporate learner. As the Center’s director, he works closely with dozens of colleges and universities annually in new program development initiatives, enrollment management and marketing process analyses and the review of online and continuing education portfolios.
Prior to joining UPCEA, Mr. Fong worked as a higher education strategic marketing and CRM consultant and researcher for two firms and prior to that was the Director of Marketing, Research and Planning for Penn State Outreach. At Penn State Outreach, he was responsible for strategic marketing, marketing management, research, creative and database teams. Mr. Fong played a major role in the early launch of Penn State’s World Campus by assessing new program needs and the development of marketing strategies and systems.
Jim holds an M.B.A., an M.S. in Applied Statistics and a B.S. in Mathematics, all from The University of Vermont. In 2004, UPCEA awarded him the Adelle Robertson Award as its Continuing Professional Educator for the year. That year, he also received the Mid-Atlantic Region’s Distinguished Service Award.
The professional and continuing education department is the entrepreneur of the professional education sphere. We balance the consideration for excellent educational experiences with financial viability. How do these seemingly contradictory concepts form the decision-making bases for leaders in the field? What unique challenges do leaders face when navigating within the respective institutions?
In this highly-acclaimed session, participants will rotate through three groups as senior leaders in the field speak on a number of key issues. It will be an opportunity to learn about the factors driving decisions in the current environment. It will also be an opportunity to meet senior leaders from institutions around the West Region.
Participating senior leaders include: