Welcome to my initial effort at blogging. Inspired by the efforts of ACHE's President, Chris Dougherty, I've started this to share thoughts about continuing higher education, about the professional continuing education organizations that I'm involved in, and related topics that may be of limited interest to anyone but me. However, much of what I post will relate to my journey through ACHE as I transition from President Elect to President and beyond. You can visit Chris's blog at
chrisdougherty.blogspot.com/2007/12/resolutions.html.
_____
It's 2008. Had a great fall. The ACHE national conference in Roanoke was wonderful, even though it's a lot of work for the Board and Officers. I was encouraged by the enthusiasm of the first-timers I met, and I hope that they find our organization helpful to their careers. Personal interaction and belonging to professional organizations are more important to my generation than later ones, so we must reinforce our value at every opportunity. As a Boomer, it's my job to find and nurture the talented newcomers to our field so they can further their careers and success.
I stepped outside my usual conferencing in November by attending the North American Association of Summer Sessions. http://www.naass.org/. Our School of Continuing Studies was given responsibility for ETSU's Summer Session this year, and while we were in the process of hiring a director, I thought the conference would be a good opportunity to learn more about summer schools at other institutions. It didn't hurt that the conference was in Maui. The content was excellent, but it was perhaps more valuable to me to attend a conference as a complete outsider (I knew one person at the conference). As my gray hair would indicate, premature as it may be, I've been in continuing education a long time so I always know a lot of folks at the conferences I attend, even if they're held in another state. It made me remember what it felt like to be twenty-something new professional attending his/her first conference. And it's something we shouldn't forget. (It also made me realize that ACHE and TACHE do a fine job of reaching out to first timers at our conferences.) Content-wise, some of the things about summer sessions I learned at the NAASS conference include the following:
- Summer schools are as diverse as the institutions that offer them.
- Some programs have differential tuition. They can charge less in the summer.
- Some can waive out-of-state tuition.
- Some have much tighter control over course offerings.
- Some have trouble getting their faculty interested in teaching in the summer--the time is used for family time and research.
- A trend seems to be offering a Winter Term. Some are looking at a Spring Break term.
- Another trend is eliminating a paper catalog/schedule and posting everything online.
- Some schools package summer school as a credit and non-credit combination.
- Another trend is getting information to home students before Thanksgiving so they can discuss attendance with parents during that break and Christmas break. Getting information out earlier seems a priority--especially if you serve primarily your own students and not visiting students.
- A lot of summer school programs are housed in continuing education. In fact, one person said the percentage is increasing.
- UNC Greensborough looks like how I think ETSU will go: campus enrollments declining, off-campus and online increasing.
Summer school administers and continuing educators have a lot in common. We're outsiders from the normal flow of college and university functions, we're fanatical about enrollments and budgets, we're entrepreneurial, we're nimble, and so forth. The big difference is that it's earier to explain what you do when you work in summer sessions than when you work in continuing education! But even with having so much in common, our conferences are quite different. Here's a quick and dirty analysis that I shared with several members of ACHE upon my return:
- 191 attended the conference—down slightly for NAASS. Their largest attendance is about equal to ACHE's smallest—200 to 220.
- 85 of the 191 had a role in the conference as presenters or presiders/facilitators. They obviously try to have a job for as many attendees as possible to help them make their case for attending.
- 62 attendees belong to continuing education units based on their titles. They could be a resource as presenters for ACHE.
- NAASS uses no keynoters.
- They use a nice “panel discussion” format where there are three speakers on a related topic (i.e. online programs) who each talk for 30 minutes. Time is tightly controlled. These work really well, move fast, and combine the best elements of individual presentations and traditional panel discussions.
- They are stingy on breakfasts and breaks.
- They don’t do a good job of identifying newcomers—no nametag sticker, no sessions, nothing formal. They do have a New Administrators Workshop but it costs an additional $100.
- They overbook activities—the first day of the conference ran from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm with no breakfast or lunch.
- They have sessions called Consultation Corners which work kind of like roundtables. Two people lead the session but it relies on audience participation and questions—no formal presentations. The conference starts with these.
I would hope we could re-open discussions with NAASS and other professional organizations with a continuing education mission to work together on conferences. Even if we just held them at the same time in the same facility, we could enjoy synergy and receive a better deal from the hotel due to increased numbers. At times the membership could meet together (share keynoters for instance) and other times keep separate. Breaks and meals could be shared.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION....
_____
TACHE. The downside of attending the NAASS conference was that I missed the Tennessee Alliance for Continuing Higher Education conference for the first time in 17 years. http://tnache.org/. That's how long I've been around.
