Centennial Conversations
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Centennial Conversations essential essays in professional, continuing, and online education O UPCEA 1915–2015 Centennial Conversations essential essays in professional, continuing, and online education O UPCEA 1915–2015 Edited by Daniel W. Shannon University of Chicago Robert Wiltenburg Washington University in St. Louis University Professional and Continuing Education Association Washington, D C © 2015 University Professional and Continuing Education Association. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, modified, distrib- uted, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the express prior written permission of the publisher. University Professional and Continuing Education Association One Dupont Circle, NW, Suite 615 Washington, DC 20036 Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for. ISBN 978-0-9864434-0-4 paperback ISBN 978-0-9864434-1-1 e-book This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). contents Foreword by Robert J. Hansen ix Introduction xi Part I. The Contexts and Aims of Continuing Education A Selective Look at the History and Practice of Continuing Education 3 Daniel W. Shannon Continuing Education and the Research University 15 James Broomall Dimensions of Professionalization of the Adult and Continuing Education Enterprise 25 Richard J. Novak Innovation for a Future of Lifelong Learning: Safeguarding the Next Generation 37 Ann M. Brewer Everything Old Should Be New Again 49 Mary L. Walshok Liberal and Practical Education in the Twenty-First Century 59 Robert Wiltenburg Part II. Online Education Reflections on an Evolution 67 John F. Ebersole From the Margins to the Mainstream: The Shift in Distance Education over the Past Thirty Years 79 Rick L. Shearer When You Reach a Fork in the Road: Critical Moments in Distance Education 87 Jay A. Halfond Online Continuing and Professional Education: Current Varieties and Best Practices 97 Ray Schroeder and Vickie Cook Traditional College Education Meets the Twenty-First Century 107 Karen Sibley Practical Leadership in Online Team Environments: What Really Works 117 Craig Wilson Universal Access and the Technological Imperative: How to Think about Higher Education Today and Tomorrow 127 Gary W. Matkin “Against the Natural Order of Things”: Why E-Learning Refuses to Take Off 141 Jonathan Baldwin Part III. Pathways to Completion The Completion Agenda and the Public Good 157 Jeff Rosen Ensuring More Working Adults Can Pursue Higher Education 175 Kay J. Kohl Competency-Based Education: A Natural Extension of Continuing Education 187 David Schejbal Credible Currencies in the Continuing Education Realm 201 Patricia A. Book Access, Innovation, and Our “Sputnik Moment” in Postsecondary Attainment 215 Cathy A. Sandeen Part IV. Audiences Voluntary Military Education from the Perspective of Continuing Education 231 James P. Pappas Continuing, Professional, and International Education: Converging Skill Sets 241 Geraldine de Berly Immigration and University Continuing Education: Reflections on Our Future Role 251 Judith Potter and Maia Korotkina Older Adult and Lifelong Learning: Programs, History, and Recommendations 265 James M. Shaeffer and Sarah K. MacDonald The Power of Fund-Raising for Continuing Education 273 Mary B. McIntire Partnership Capital and Continuing Education—Can It Be Accrued and Spent for Greater Impact? 285 George Irvine Part V. Metrics and Marketing Measuring the Success of Professional and Continuing Education Units 295 Emily C. Richardson The More Things Change: Reflections on the State of Marketing in Continuing Higher Education 309 James D. Campbell and James L. Narduzzi The Evolution of Enrollment Marketing from Creative Tactics to Integrated Strategic Processes 319 Jim Fong and Noreen Mack Appendix I. UPCEA Presidents 333 Appendix II. UPCEA Member Institutions, Affiliates, and Associates 337 foreword In honor of its 75th anniversary in 1990, what was then called the National University Continuing Education Association published a volume entitled Expanding Access to Knowledge: Continuing Higher Education. The book was highly innovative in its form. In almost Cubist fashion, Expanding Access painted a picture of the origins and evolution of continuing education as a modern social phenomenon by collecting seminal documents and other cultural artifacts: key addresses, congressional testimony, acts of legislation, official reports from regulatory bodies, letters, and critical essays. In short, Expanding Access was, and still is, an indispensable resource for any student of the history of adult and continuing education. As we prepared for the University Professional and Continuing Education Asso- ciation’s centennial year, the question of whether to publish a new book necessarily raised another question: How would a new book complement rather than repeat the same material? Expanding Access speaks for itself as the definitive portrait of the first seventy-five years of continuing educa- tion, so we decided to create for our centennial a bookend volume dedi- cated to tracing developments within the past twenty-five years that have not only changed the face of continuing education but also, in a very real sense, helped to reinvent higher education as we know it. This new collection of essays from the leading thinkers in the field, Centennial Conversations: Essential Essays in Professional, Continuing, and On- line Education, maps the ways in which traditional continuing education has morphed in the past two decades into new forms of practice in on- line education, international education, outreach and engagement, and marketing and enrollment management. The essays, edited by Daniel W. Shannon and Robert Wiltenburg into topical conversations, illustrate how the profession served by UPCEA is at once dynamic and transforma- tional, increasingly professionalized and responsive to the ever-evolving needs of our institutions and the public alike. Why are the conversations in this volume so essential? While many college and university leaders acknowledge the value of serving adult and nontraditional students, it’s fair to say that more often than not doing so continues to be marginal to institutional mission, a noble afterthought ix x centennial conversations to the core enterprise of serving first-time, full-time residential students. Universities must reinvent themselves in order to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century, and UPCEA is ready to help provide the lead- ership and resources necessary to meet the needs of today’s students. Indeed, never before has the mission of UPCEA—advancing adult, pro- fessional, continuing, and online education—mattered more to our in- stitutions, to the regions they serve, and to our national competitiveness. I hope that the conversations found in this volume inspire you to join us as we celebrate a century of expanding access to higher education and work together to build tomorrow’s universities. Robert J. Hansen, Ph.D. Chief Executive Officer, UPCEA Washington, DC 2015 introduction This year marks the 100th anniversary of the University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA)—founded in 1915 as the National University Extension Association (NUEA). As the essays in this volume demonstrate, there has never been a time in which the field has been more vital in itself or more important to higher education and to society. Many factors have come together to make this a particularly excit- ing moment. The changing nature of work means that more people need more education—and more continuing education over the lifespan— than ever before. New technologies make it possible to reach people across the country and around the world—and challenge us to rethink much that we thought we knew about effective teaching and learning. And there is an ever-widening national (and international) commitment to the inclusion of groups—socioeconomic, racial, immigrant, and oth- ers—previously excluded from full educational, economic, social, and civic participation. A heady time indeed! In putting together this volume, we have been delighted to receive the generous and insightful contributions from many colleagues. We have grouped their essays in sections, each of which forms a “conversation” on a key topic, and the diverse viewpoints and treatments often make for interesting and rewarding juxtapositions. The first section, “The Contexts and Aims of Continuing Education,” consists of essays that take broad views of the subject, in national and institutional contexts, examining the individual and social purposes of continuing education. The second section addresses the many aspects— pedagogical, technical, institutional, managerial, and social—of the trans- formative effect online learning has had, and is having, on the profes- sion. The third conversation takes up a pressing contemporary concern, pathways to degree completion, in terms of national priorities involved and some of the programmatic responses—competency-based education prominent among them—that are now being made. The fourth section recognizes the great diversity of audiences—military, international, immi- grant, older adults, donors, and partners, among others—that the con- temporary continuing education unit seeks to engage. The final section xi xii centennial conversations presents three essays on contemporary marketing and metrics—topics