Tracks

The 2012 UPCEA Annual Conference is designed to be highly customizable to individual professional development needs and interests. Throughout the conference are six distinct tracks. Five are associated with a specific area of professional practice or expertise. The sixth track focuses on the conference theme: resilience and sustainability.

All six tracks begin on the first day of the conference, Wednesday, March 28, with an in-depth examination of deeply relevant issues to these areas. The tracks then weave throughout the conference, culminating on Friday, March 30, with Colleague Conversations—intensive, reflective concluding sessions designed to ignite discussion and share best practices.

You are welcome to attend just one or two tracks or to move about the tracks in relation to your interests. Please note that the Sustainability Track includes excursions on Thursday afternoon that require pre-registration. (There is no additional cost for the Sustainability Track excursions.)

To learn more about each track, click on the links below. If you have specific questions about the tracks, please contact Amy Claire Heitzman, Chief Learning Officer, at aheitzman@upcea.edu.



TRACK #1:
Marketing and Enrollment Management

Co-Chairs: Michele Moskos (Texas Tech University) and Cheryl Aubuchon (Eastern Michigan University

Given the current economic climate, institutions of higher learning are leaving no stone unturned in their efforts to grow enrollments and retain students. As a result, enrollment management and marketing efforts have grown in significance and now occupy a pivotal role in higher education. Best practice principles have expanded to include metrics that track, measure and deliver proven results for both schools and students.

Enrollment management and marketing practitioners are using tools such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, adword advertising, outreach campaigns, banner ads, and social media to steadily improve the effectiveness of their institution’s ability to reach, recruit, and retain a diverse body of students. Every school needs a unique strategy in order to achieve success. Administrators and support staff must create an integrated organizational approach in order to meet the deliverables and intended outcomes. Keeping up with the latest knowledge-based systems and automation technologies, developing versatile mobile platforms, and streamlining communication synergies are imperative in order to enhance and strengthen the student enrollment funnel.

Concurrent Sessions in this track will address the following topics:

  • Creating effective adword campaigns
  • Communicating online through electronic media
  • Implementing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems
  • Mobile websites and applications
  • Listening to the student
  • Marketing to noncredit customer
  • Internal marketing retention efforts
  • Selling education
  • Forecasting educational needs


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TRACK #2:
Distance Education

Co-Chairs: Rick Shearer (Penn State University) and Elizabeth Meyer (University of California-San Diego)

For many involved in distance education (DE), it is often undeniable that managing the enterprise is like running a business. Whether you subscribe to the business analogy or view distance education through a more traditional academic lens, it is clear that distance education has its own ecosystem. As with all ecosystems, it is a series of interconnected factors that do not easily lend themselves to a reductive, linear cause-and-effect analysis. A change in one variable will, in turn, alter many sub-systems along the way. To complicate matters, the DE ecosystem can sometimes live within a larger ecosystem or be more decentralized in nature.

This year’s track will explore the art of leadership and the science of data mining that help the DE ecosystem remain resilient, vital, and valued. Sessions will examine the various components of the DE ecosystem and the inter-relationships among them: programming, student services, marketing, technical help desks, and how these elements fit within the larger institution. The track will also explore variations between private and public institutions of distance education.

Concurrent Sessions in this track will address the following topics:

  • Quality in DE – Quality in distance education is a multifaceted issue that exists from the course level all the way through to the institutional level. Perceptions of quality may vary depending upon whether one is a student, faculty member, or course designer. Proposals are encouraged that focus on single aspects of quality or on the broader view of quality in DE.

  • Policy and Regulations – The new federal regulations are having a dramatic impact on the distance education landscape. They will likely alter the players in the field and how the major DE providers operate. Compliance to ADA rules/universal design, copyright guidelines, and student authentication has institutional leaders considering the appropriateness of technologies deployed in distance education. Internal institutional policies around revenue sharing and ownership continue to evolve and alter how we approach DE as a system and how we think of digital citizenship. Proposals which focus on any of a number of new regulations which impact distance education are welcome.

  • Marketing of DE – Marketing has become critical for distance education providers and a key component within the distance education ecosystem. While focused marketing is familiar to the privates and for-profit distance education providers, it is a new reality for many traditional institutions. Proposals are welcome that focus on the evolution of distance education marketing, its impact, and ROI to the organizations.

  • Student Support/Services – It has often been noted that it is the level of student support and services that differentiates one DE provider from the other. Distance education students are “customers,” and they expect and demand a different level of service than traditional on-campus students. The evolution of the Internet over the past 15 years has increased expectations. Some students demand closer ties to the institutions and options for social media experiences. Proposals which delve into the new realities of student services and support, including both internal services and those outsourced to vendors are welcome.

  • The DE Classroom of the Future – technology has a profound impact on how we design and develop distance education courses, and on the services we can provide the DE learner. What will our courses and DE institutions look like in the next five to ten years? Proposals which look at course level impact of technology, or the broader systems view are encouraged.

  • Theory, Practice, and Data Analytics – the distance education ecosystem needs to rely on solid data from research and practice to evolve and remain relevant. Proposals are welcome that look at current research in the field, DE as a system, best practices, and how the new focus on data analytics may change or reinvigorate old practices from earlier DE models and delivery systems.

  • Managing Growth of the DE Enterprise – Distance education is one of the fastest growing areas of higher education. How institutions approach DE, as a centralized or decentralized model, will have dramatic impacts on how DE evolves or does not evolve at an institution. Proposals which look at the growth management of DE and how that growth fits into the ecosystems in which it is situated are welcome.


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TRACK #3:
Program Development and Management

Co-Chairs: Reed Scull (University of Wyoming) and Ed Donovan (Chatham University)

Program development and management are the backbone functions of continuing higher education. Without pertinent, convenient, world-class programs appropriate to the needs of our constituencies, we offer nothing that cannot already be found within the academy or elsewhere. Without sound program management, even our best efforts can come to naught. The most successful continuing education programs occur at the nexus of academic and institutional strength, societal need, and fiscal opportunity. This track will provide people with both global and organizational perspectives, but will also provide best practices that administrators can immediately implement in their daily practice.

Concurrent Sessions in this track will address the following topics:

  • Innovation—Successful leaders must build core competencies that lead to holistic approaches to program development and management. How do we build a culture that encourages and sustains innovation both as an organization and in individual practice?

  • Faculty Collaboration—CE units must develop their own capacity to innovate, but faculty must also engage in processes of innovation. How do we secure faculty who are collaborators, not subcontractors?

  • Academic Integrity—CE leaders must engage faculty in balancing concerns of academic rigor with needs of academic marketplace. How do we build programs that meet both traditional academic requirements and the needs of today’s adult learners?

  • Program Evaluation and Scaling—How do we motivate those who review and approve our program proposals to respond quickly? Do processes and protocols exist that lead to program development and system building?

  • Sustainable Program Foundations—Programs can fail for a variety of reasons. How do we build program sustainability into our foundation?

  • CE Units as Models of Innovation—Top academic leaders often fail to recognize a CE unit’s natural role as agile and flexible “first-responders” to market sensitivities. How do we demonstrate our unique value as program innovators to our institutions, beyond the additional revenue and enrollments we generate?

  • Retaining Relevancy—Many CE programs begin with talent from a multiplicity of sources far beyond the traditional campus-based instructor corps. So what is the role of continuing education in maintaining and growing faculty capacity? How might we assure that this capacity leads to the continued currency and relevance of curriculum?

  • Marketing and Finance—Marketing and financial considerations inevitably factor in programming development and management decisions. What are the appropriate roles for marketing, financial, and community development people?

  • Lifelong Learning—Many within and outside of continuing and professional education recognize that learning must occur in a variety of contexts across one’s entire lifespan. If this is so, what are the best practices for encouraging and supporting the involvement of all learners, particularly seniors, in non-credit, such as Osher Institutes, as well as credit-based continuing and professional education programs?


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TRACK #4:
Leadership and Strategy

Co-Chairs: Linda Glessner (University of Texas-Austin) and Dawn Gaymer (Western Michigan University)

Today, challenges in higher education have become the new normal. As communities wrestle with global market expansion, financial setbacks, and demographic shifts, institutions of higher education are re-envisioning themselves for a more solvent and sustainable decade to come. In this transformative process, social, economic and environmental factors converge to inform the strategic lens by which institutional leaders’ responsiveness to change will be evaluated. As leaders of professional and continuing education we are uniquely qualified to innovate in changing global markets, integrate technological advances, and act as the laboratory for ubiquitous learning that is no longer limited by time or distance. We are the strategic experts at finding the gaps in learning and filling them with timely, relevant, and results-oriented solutions that change lives. This track will focus on leadership and strategic drivers as problem solving tools for a transforming organization.

Concurrent Sessions in this track will address the following topics:

  • Resiliency and the transforming leader
  • Actionable research – measures of outcome effectiveness
  • Market forecasting and trend analysis
  • Reflective practice – building on personal strengths
  • Team building in changing times
  • Organizational structures – redefining for optimal performance
  • Strategic drivers and enterprise scorecard matrices
  • Execution for success
  • Relationship building and stakeholder needs
  • Program management
  • Measuring leadership competencies
  • Sustainable financial models that net results in a changing global market


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TRACK #5:
Outreach and Engagement/Career and Economic Development

Co-Chairs: Patricia Malone (State University of New York—Stony Brook) and Birgit Green (Texas Tech University)

Outreach, Career, and Economic Development are driven by engaging and collaborating with education and training providers, employers, workers, policy makers, systems, and society. In our global economy, successful people, businesses and organizations will be those that have gained the knowledge and skills that enhance human capital and spur innovation. Continuing Education units are ideally positioned to be conduits for economic development. By partnering institutional knowledge and resources with those of the public and private sectors, they enrich scholarship, research, training, and technology transfer. This track will focus on how continuing educators help spur commercial activity, develop the workforce, and create jobs.

Concurrent Sessions in this track will address the following topics:

  • Assessing the economic impact of workforce development programs—Institutions of higher education have traditionally engaged in outcomes assessment that focus on enrollments, number of credit and non-credit hours, faculty to student ratios, and more. The more difficult aspect of the evaluation process, however, is the measuring of the impact that institutional workforce development programs and activities have on the regional economy in terms of jobs creation and retention. How do we measure the impact of our programs on the local and regional economy? What ROI do we use? What measures let us know when to continue, change or discontinue programs?

  • Creating effective partnerships with institutional and community partners—Existing, new and developing partnership models and synergistic programming venues are important to our work. How do we identify the proper partners for existing and new type of programming? What do we look for in a successful partnership? What are the benefits and what are the drawbacks? How do we engage with the community college? How do we involve K-12 partners? Which public/private partnerships have worked? Which ones have not?

  • American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) lessons and pitfalls—ARRA funding presented the opportunity to develop new programs, expand existing programs, service new populations and connect research and workforce such as in Smart Grid Demonstration Projects and specialized healthcare programs. What has worked and what has not? What would you do differently? What impact did this funding have on your unit? How are you moving forward now that the funding is no longer there?

  • Closing the job gap—How is your institution and unit addressing growing unemployment and skill misalignment? What demographic issues are central to your region and how are regional partners addressing these? Who is at your table in tackling this area?
    What partners are you including in identifying solutions?

  • Innovation and education—Connecting with the greater community; regional economic development models; new initiatives or partnerships, public/private, funded, philanthropic or otherwise have set the stage for new educational and training models?

  • New funding sources—In these times of decreasing state funding support for higher education institutions, it has become critical for institutions to look for additional funding elsewhere. How do you identify new funding sources and know which ones to pursue? How do you tap into local or state resources? How do you work with federal agencies such as Department of Education, National Science Foundation, or the Economic Development Administration? What successes and failures have you had? What pitfalls would you avoid the next time?

  • Credentials in a new economy—How do you go about identifying the credentials needed for new and emerging industries? How do you scan the environment and discern the context? How are credentials, certifications and academic program intersecting? What opportunities and threats do you see as industry credentials are becoming more and more relevant?

  • “Green” jobs—What is the current status of “green” jobs? What areas are thriving and which are diminishing? How is the greening of our economy affecting your programming and the populations you are serving?

  • Sector development and enhancement for regional economies—What is the current status of “green” jobs? What areas are thriving and which are diminishing? How is the greening of our economy affecting your programming and the populations you are serving?



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TRACK #6:
Sustainability

Chair: David Schejbal, University of Wisconsin-Extension

On July 30, 2009, Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn testified before the U.S. Senate about the connections between climate change and national security. In his testimony, he stated that “in 2007, after a year-long study, the CNA Military Advisory Board produced a report called ‘National Security and the Threat of Climate Change’ which concluded that climate change poses a ‘serious threat to America's national security’, acting as a ‘threat multiplier for instability’ in some of the world's most volatile regions, adding tension to stable regions, worsening terrorism and likely dragging the United States into conflicts over water and other critical resource shortages. On the most basic level, climate change has the potential to create sustained natural and humanitarian disasters on a scale and at a frequency far beyond those we see today. The consequences of these disasters will likely foster political instability where societal demands for the essentials of life exceed the capacity of governments to cope.”

Climate change is real and happening now. The natural resources that drove the industrial revolution and globalization are diminishing. The challenges to adapt are severe; not just for governments and civil society, but for the business sector as well.

Consider the following:

  • The Arctic holds around 15% of the world’s undiscovered oil reserves and 30% of those of natural gas. Hence a growing polar enthusiasm among energy companies—as witnessed last month in an Arctic tie-up between Exxon Mobil, and Rosneft, Russia’s state-controlled oil giant. Recent plankton blooms suggest a warmer Arctic will provide a boost to fisheries there, too. And the vanishing ice has begun to allow a trickle of shipping across the Arctic’s generally frozen north-west and north-east passages, thus linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. (The Economist, Sept. 24, 2011)

  • Global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning jumped by the largest amount on record in 2010 (New York Times, Dec. 4, 2011) with the first decade of the 21st Century the warmest decade on record. (NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies, Jan. 21, 2010).

  • Global warming is expected to cause the sea level along the northeastern U.S. coast to rise almost twice as fast as global sea levels during this century, putting New York City at greater risk for damage from hurricanes and winter storm surge. (Science Daily, March 15, 2009)

  • When carbon dioxide (CO2) is absorbed by seawater, chemical reactions occur that reduce seawater pH…. Studies have shown that a more acidic environment has a dramatic effect on some calcifying species, including oysters, clams, sea urchins, shallow water corals, deep sea corals, and calcareous plankton. When shelled organisms are at risk, the entire food web may also be at risk. Today, more than a billion people worldwide rely on food from the ocean as their primary source of protein. Many jobs and economies in the U.S. and around the world depend on the fish and shellfish in our oceans. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

As Thomas Friedman and others point out, we have moved from talking about slowing or reversing climate change to strategizing about how to adapt to it. Higher education has a foundational role to play in this process, but so far, responses have been spotty at best. A number of schools have established environmental and sustainability programs, but most of those programs are aimed at traditional undergraduates interested specifically in those topics. We must broaden the conversation and include the issues in the curriculum as a whole. This is especially important for continuing educators, because most of our students are working and trying to adapt to new markets, new economic measures, and new perspectives—nearly all of which are impacted by issues of sustainability and resilience.

The keynote speakers will address the issues of sustainability and resilience. If you want to know more information beyond the keynoters, the sustainability track is for you. We will begin the track on Wednesday afternoon, the first day of the conference, with an in-depth dialogue with Drs. Brian and Mary Nattrass. They are international consultants and strategists on sustainability having worked with NASA, U.S. Army, US General Services Administration, Nike, Starbucks, Hyatt, North Face, Target, Vancouver 2010 Olympics and many others. They are the authors of Dancing with the Tiger: Learning Sustainability Step by Natural Step; The Natural Step for Business: Wealth, Ecology, The Evolutionary Corporation; and other books. Brian and Mary’s depth of knowledge about real-world sustainability efforts will help us better understand how businesses and the government view sustainability, and where opportunities lie for continuing education.

The sustainability track continues on Thursday morning when keynote speaker Carl Safina joins a panel of distinguished experts, including UCSD sociologist Mary Walshock, Portland Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder, and Intertwine Alliance board member Mike Wetter to discuss issues pertaining to sustainability and to engage the audience in a thoughtful dialogue.

On Thursday afternoon, we will take advantage of our location in Portland to experience sustainability in practice. Because cities face unique challenges, we have partnered with First Stop Portland to help us understand first-hand how Portland has built tools for central city vitality, multi-modal transportation, resource land protection, and true community involvement. These excursions will enable you to experience the process of sustainability.

On Friday morning, the sustainability track will engage our second keynote speaker Michael Horn in a panel discussion immediately after his lecture. The panel will include Portland State environmental economist Sheila Martin, executive director of the Portland Audubon Society Meryl Redisch, and Illinois architect and urban planning professor Brian Deal.

The sustainability track will conclude on Friday afternoon with a “dialogue with colleagues.” Brian and Mary Nattrass will be on hand, as will Dave Szatmary from the University of Washington and Greg Trudeau from the University of Wisconsin-Extension. This final conversation will focus on applying the information learned during the UPCEA conference and applying it to programs once we return to our home institutions.

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