Wednesday March 14th | 4:15 - 5:15PM
Portraits of Diverse Adult Learners: Successful Models on an HBCU Campus That Matter
Level: Applied || Location: Laurel CD
The adult learner referred to as the nontraditional student 24 or older is rapidly becoming the new "norm" on college campuses across the United States. According to several reports, enrollment rates for nontraditional students are steadily increasing while enrollment rates for traditional students are on the decline. With the current economic and workforce demands, there is a critical need to recruit and prepare adult students with the necessary skills and competencies to assume leadership roles in the 21st century and beyond. This session will discuss successful strategies to attract, retain, and graduate adult students with successful examples from an HBCU campus.
Fireside Chat: The Challenges of Re-Orienting a Traditional Institution Toward the Modern Student
Level: Strategic || Location: GB 3-4
The "traditional" students of old have given way to a much more diverse and distributed student body, but many of our institutions haven't kept pace. So, how can we help our institutions re-orient themselves toward the modern student and provide the type of credentials, supports, and experience these students need? Join us for a fireside chat with Rovy Branon, Vice Provost, and Risa deGorgue, Senior Director of Marketing & Enrollment at University of Washington Continuum College, as they describe the transformation their institution is undergoing, the lessons they've learned and the outcomes they've seen. Through a lively, interactive discussion, attendees will gain insights on everything from executive decision-making and organizational change management to program selection and the effective use of outside partners. For anyone looking to support their institution in keeping pace with changing student demographics, this session is a must.
Moderator: Chris Nicholson, University of Denver
An Insider's Guide to [Planning for the Inevitable] Generation Z and Higher Education
Level: Foundational || Location: Essex
Whether your target markets are Millennials or Generation X, or corporate or international, Generation Z is going to quickly reshape expectations for education. They will reshape programmatic demand, credentialing, delivery and marketing among other functions. This session goes under the microscope and links behavioral preferences to higher education operations and planning.
Thursday March 15th | 8:00 - 9:00AM
Increasing Marketing Efficiency With Market Data
Level: Applied || Location: GB 3-4
To address the increasingly crowded marketing landscape in higher education, see how two universities use various metrics of data to drive their marketing efforts from initial program ideation to implementation. Specific topics include the use of labor market data to keep a pulse on regional economic activity directly affecting job concentration, employer demand, and talent supply, as well as a deep dive into a launch process that engages in market research, audience profiling, and budgeting conducted prior to launching any program marketing.
Moderator/Presenter: Eric McGee, JMH Consulting
We Planned an Orientation but Built a Shopping Cart: Transforming Orientation Into a Customizable Student Resource
Level: Applied || Tag: Unlimited; Best in Show: Central || Location: Dover AB
IU Online developed a comprehensive orientation program for fully online undergraduate students, but utilization patterns quickly refocused development. Evidence from Student Success Coaches and LMS access data revealed that students were using the orientation in an unexpected way. In moving away from a linear orientation of pre-programmed modules, IU Online’s student onboarding becomes a flexible experience: a one-stop shop for resources, information, and actual human support. Onboarding allows students to find relevant information at key moments of their experience with online learning, connect with other tailored services like online math and writing support, and explore the LMS while preparing for classes to start. Beyond sharing the portal, we will discuss the design process, lessons learned, and how we collaborated with admissions to leverage onboarding to address melt. Finally, we will talk about how we are sharing our work across the institution, including an initial pilot for online graduate students.
Thursday March 15th | 9:30 - 10:30AM
Building the Disability Personas: A University Collaboration to Revolutionize Inclusive Practices
Level: Applied || Tag: Unlimited; Best in Show: Mid-Atlantic || Location: Dover AB
Join the Penn State Outreach and Online Education Disability Persona Team in an engaging conversation about how we use personas to start the conversation on building an inclusive and empathetic learning environment. We use these personas to help others engage in conversations, challenge their perspectives, and show how a university collaboration can make a difference in training, practices, and procedures.
Moderator: Brandon Boulter, Johns Hopkins
How to Create a Guerrilla Video Team In-House
Level: Foundational || Location: Laurel AB
We’ve all seen the buzz around video marketing – increases email click through rates by 200-300 percent, increases conversion up to 80% when embedded in landing pages, and 90 percent of consumers report that video helps them with purchasing decisions. Now that you are convinced that video is a “must have” in your marketing mix, visit our session to learn how to create a cost effective, agile guerrilla video team in-house. We’ll help you answer common questions like: How do I find the right people? How much should I budget for equipment? What equipment should I get? What kind of projects should I undertake for the most effect, and how do I successfully tell my story?
Moderator: Erica Lane, Harvard University
Thursday March 15th | 1:45 - 2:45PM
Enrolling To Retain: Five Strategies to Improve Online Student Growth and Persistence
Level: Foundational || Tag: Best in Show: South || Location: Dover AB
Engaging a potential online learner who will persist to graduation requires a strategic approach to the enrollment process. In this session, learn five strategies for developing and implementing a successful process focusing on enrolling students geared toward graduating.
Moderator: Liz Fillman, Virginia Commonwealth University
Spatial Thinking and Strategic Decision-Making in Continuing Ed
Level: Foundational || Tag: Emerging Leaders || Location: GB 3-4
Spatial thinking harnesses the ability to use space to analyze demographic data for assisting in strategic planning, locating potential collaborations, and rethinking marketing strategies. To think spatially with regard to marketing continuing education programs is to consider location, distribution, associations, and networks. It is to question why people and institutions are located where they are and to visualize relationships that may or may not be obvious. Using ESRI’s ArcGIS, Google Earth, internal and external data, the Continuing Education Program at Temple University now performs software-based queries and analysis of the spatial distributions of our constituencies to visualize participant distributions, dispersion, and proximity, all of which can be used in planning. This interactive session will offer participants thought-provoking spatial-thinking activities, demonstrate both proprietary and free software for GIS and related inquiries, and discuss the results, to date, of our work in the office of Continuing Education at Temple.
Moderator: Joellen Shendy, University of Maryland, University College
Exponential Growth: Executive Ed At JHU's Carey Business School
Level: Strategic || Location: Laurel CD
With exponential growth, Johns Hopkins University’s Carey Business School has grown executive education exponentially over the past two years with no signs of slowing down. Learn how Carey achieved this growth and continues to innovate to meet market demand. As one of the fastest growing areas in higher education today, executive ed offers new opportunities for students and is highly aligned with employer demand. In this session, we will also share nationwide trends for professional and executive ed including where we see greatest demand, the impact exec ed can have on the university’s bottom line, examples of the top players both in and outside of higher ed, as well as some of the unique challenges that come with pioneering new models of education.
Moderator: James Novak, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical UniversityMarketing, Enrollment & Student Services
Thursday March 15th | 4:30 - 5:30PM
Analyze This! How To Transform Data Into Insights
Level: Applied || Location: GB 3-4
Evidence-driven decision making is recognized as an effective approach in strategic and operational planning. Despite the hype surrounding data analytics, institutional data remains underutilized. Ryerson University has an established reputation of being a progressive urban institution delivering learning that is aligned to labour market needs. With extensive use of analytics, the institution proactively responds to emerging societal, economic and industry needs and pedagogical innovations to maintain an advantage in a competitive landscape. This session will share a range of strategies in utilizing institutional data, and showcase successful practices for collecting business intelligence. The presentation will illustrate that evidence-driven outcomes enable iterative improvements, replicability, enhanced accountability, and just-in-time interventions to optimize programming. The presenters will take the audience through a spectrum of data applications, and highlight primary and secondary research methodologies used to inform program development. Through a variety of examples, common challenges and strategies for addressing them will be provided.
Friday March 16th | 9:45 - 10:45AM
Guiding Student Success: One Course At a Time
Level: Applied || Location: Laurel AB
Adult students who enroll in Penfield College of Mercer University have faced significant barriers that prevented them from completing their educational goals. In fall of 2015, as part of its retention program, the College began requiring all new adult learners to enroll in a newly redesigned student success course, “The Culture of the University.” This 3 credit hour course was designed to help adults transition smoothly to Mercer and to foster their academic success and professional growth. The course is taught by carefully selected faculty and offered to students in face-to-face, hybrid, and online delivery formats. Presenters will share lessons learned, strategies used to gain faculty and student services support, instructional approaches used to achieve the course’s learning objectives, and feedback from students and faculty regarding their perception of the value of the course. Presenters will also share data on the course’s impact on student success and retention.
Moderator: Antonio Quarterman, University of Pittsburgh