Blog - Post University

Learning from the past: The Post family history comes to life

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Samph, Ph.D.) — Thu, 24 May 2012 10:43:03 PDT

Since joining Post University in 2004, I've had the good fortune to get to know Gary Post, grandson of Post University founder Harold C. Post and President of the Post College Foundation. Gary and his family are the reason Post University exists today, and listening to Gary speak about the University's 122-year history is as enjoyable as it is inspiring. As we plan for the future, a look back at the past is a welcome reminder of where we've been and where we hope to go. After all, our history is the foundation for our future.

In a recent audio interview recorded on our Waterbury campus, Gary discussed the University's growth from a one-building school in downtown Waterbury to our current-day, 58-acre campus in one of the city's loveliest neighborhoods. He shared personal stories of time spent on both campuses as a child, and later as a young adult. As I listened to the interview, I was surprised at how many parallels I discovered between the Post of the past and the Post of the present.

We have a rich history of embracing change, and finding new and better ways to meet the needs of students and the businesses that hire them. We are passionate about the power of higher education to change people's lives. We believe in growth -- both intellectual and economic growth because that is what makes our nation strong. And we believe in giving back to those who serve. For more than 60 years we have been offering unique educational opportunities to members of the military and their families.

I invite you to set time aside to listen to this wonderful interview detailing some of our 122-year-old institution's growth and history. From where I'm standing, our past, our present and our future hold many lessons on how innovative thinking and a commitment to excellence remain cornerstones of institutional longevity.

You can listen to the podcast here.

If you're interested in seeing a short visual history of the University, we have a short photo story.

CEO tells what it was like to earn his MBA degree online after 30 years in business

noreply@blogger.com (Donald Mroz, Ph.D.) — Wed, 23 May 2012 14:33:24 PDT

LEARNER FOR LIFE: Paul Caliendo
says it's a "privilege" to earn his MBA

Paul Caliendo is similar to many MBA students in that he began earning his degree after working and getting some business experience under his belt. But while most MBA students bring about three to 10 years of experience to their education, Paul brings 30.

And not just any 30 years of experience -- 30 years serving as president and CEO of six companies in the health care industry. His current position is President and CEO of a company he started called Preferred Medical Claim Solutions in Scottsdale, Ariz.

So you're probably wondering why an already accomplished entrepreneur, business owner, and executive decided to earn his MBA. Well, when he chose Post University's Online MBA Degree Program, so did we! We recently interviewed Paul, and we got his unvarnished perspective on

The value of an MBA
Why earning his MBA made sense even after decades of business success
The #1 benefit of choosing an online MBA degree program

Hit play to listen to our podcast with Paul, or scroll down to read the transcript.

Thanks for joining us, Paul.

Paul Caliendo's Entrepreneurial Background

Janelle: Greetings, everyone. Janelle Kozyra here for a Post University podcast. Today I am joined by an MBA student from Post University. His name is Paul Caliendo. Paul, it's great to have you with us.

Paul: Thanks very much for the invite.

Janelle: So, Paul, for everyone out there, is the president and CEO of Preferred Medical Claims Solutions which is located in Scottsdale, Arizona. He has spent the past 30 years serving in that same role -- president and CEO of six companies in the healthcare industry. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in business finance from San Diego University and, like we said, he's now working toward earning his MBA from Post.

So, Paul, first off our listeners are probably most interested in knowing why someone with so much experience already in leading businesses is now earning his MBA? But before I get to that, let's learn a little bit more about your background and what you do. So give us a nutshell of what Preferred Medical Claims Solutions does, what you do there and what you've done previously.

Paul: Well, the company -- Preferred Medical Claims Solutions, we call it PMCS -- has been in business 14 years and it's in the health care delivery system. What that means is that we deal with large employers throughout the United States with large insurance companies, the largest in the United States, and our website, which offers up some of the names, would be the United Healthcare, the Aetnas. We actually work with the DOD, which is the Department of Defense, and clients such as Homeland Security, the FBI, CIA, and then approximately 408 different municipalities.

And medical claims are submitted to us from the plan sponsor, which I have already indicated their names, on behalf of their patients to make sure that the services provided were correctly in accordance with the plan design. I don't want to drill down too deeply, but what we do is we save our clients money. And by saving them money, we're able then to reduce the cost of healthcare for the plan design and for the plan participants which is you and I, Janelle, the same.

And the medical necessities are going to occur at all times, so our company has grown. The cost of healthcare clients each year, and the cost of healthcare in the last ten years, has literally doubled, so we grow organically. And prior to creating PMCS I had created, like you had said, five other organizations all within the healthcare delivery programs. Therefore we do not underwrite healthcare, but we help in reducing the cost of healthcare for the plan design, the plan participants, and we assist medical providers in receiving their required accounts receivable on an accelerated basis.

Janelle: So you have founded all the companies that you've served as president and CEO for over the years?

Paul: Yes, I have. For some reason I believe I have an entrepreneur spirit. My concentration with the Post University MBA classes is with entrepreneurship as my concentration. And the reason why I selected entrepreneurship is because it involves having innovation, which is a concentration. You must have skill sets in accounting, HR, management.

I believe anyone that's a CEO that has a good ethical background would be considered a leader. And the courses that I've taken through university have really emphasized the ethical needs of a CEO, they have emphasized the leadership, they've emphasized organizational creativity, dynamics. Each of the professors that I've worked with have done an excellent job in, I guess you could say, managing the criteria.

And you asked what I had done before - PMCS, and really the best way to share with you is, I invent companies and I invent companies that fit into a market niche that gives us a competitive edge. And so that's why I really enjoyed taking the courses, Janelle, I think that's probably the best way to describe it.

Janelle: Why is entrepreneurship important to you, Paul?

Paul: Well, entrepreneurship is a multi-faceted concentration. Someone said, "Why should you have a dual MBA?" I believe MBA is a master's -- and picture that term -- the master's in business administration is a lovely term, but it's a master's in business. And business is not finance. Business is not accounting. Business is made up of multiple disciplines.

When you're a CEO -- and I apologize, I chuckle sometimes -- but when you're a CEO, you must have an excellent team. You have to have an outstanding CIO which stands for chief information officer. We have to have an excellent chief financial officer. We have to have a wonderful operations officer. We need a CMO, which is the chief marketing officer, and then you need someone to oversee those department heads, and that's what the chief executive officer's position is.

Some would say, "What about the president?" Yes, I'm the chief CEO and I am the president, but on some companies I'm strictly the CEO. And what that means is, take the vision that you have and share it with your entire team. That's very, very valuable.

There was a conversation with JFK, the President of the United States went down to the Kennedy Space Center and a gentleman was sweeping the floor in the hallways and the president approached him and said, "May I ask, what do you do here at the Space Center?" And he looked up at the President of the United States and said, "We send man to the moon." What do you mean you send man to the moon? The point was is that the theme resonated among even the man sweeping the floor. He did not say, Mr. President, I only sweep floors. He says we send man into space or man to the moon.

That's the way I like to create companies. Create a vision and get the entire team working on the mission so that when you're in our office, Janelle, and you would be in accounting and I ask what do you do at the firm, please don't start out by saying I just work in accounting. There's no such thing as just working in accounting. You work in accounting, you work as a team in order to reduce the cost of health care for Americans.

We have 34 million Americans that are using our system to reduce the cost of health care for them. And that's what I like to do is I like to pollinate ideas. And Lee Iacocca in his book, "Talking Straight," in 1988 said, "Find the best you can afford and get out of the way." And I believe in that. I believe that what you need to do is find the people that can really help you grow, and by me enrolling at Post I was able to use your education tools online 24/7.

Now, I stated once before, for the audience and for yourself, that I have four different companies that as CEO takes up a great deal of time. But I do not believe, Janelle, that we can exhaust our brain. You can become physically exhausted working manual work, you can become physically exhausted, you can have watched this TV show undercover Boss and it shows this lady working in an assembly line for 26 years and all she said, "Wouldn't it be nice if we had a big fan to cool us off?"

That's another family show I think some young -- I apologize if it's the wrong term -- but some young students, young kids that are going to college with us, I believe they need to look beyond the MBA experience. Some of them have said, boy, when I finish my MBA I'll be ready for anything. And that's not so. It really is not.

You really need a lot of time on the job to develop skills and to find mentors. I know I haven't given you much time to ask secondary questions, but when you get to the mentorship that MBA and Post has provided for us, it's over the top. I've spoken to Dr. Goldman about this, I've spoken to Dr. Mueller, I've spoken to Dr. Brown. I emphasized how valuable your mentorship is for the capstone program. So I'll pause and let you ask another question.

Why an Accomplished Entrepreneur Decided to Earn His MBA Degree Now

Janelle: Sure. Thanks, Paul. So then how does the MBA degree fit into this? And why now is really what I want to get at. Why now after four years of being a professional and having so much experience launching and running companies did you decide that now is the right time to earn your MBA?

Paul: I think there's a lot to do with -- it would be very personal. I could share some of it with you and that is, I have time and I believe I've always had the skill sets to have a higher education. And why now is because time has permitted me to do so.

When you raise four children and they no longer live in your household and you have some time in the evening or -- if I may share with you -- I travel over 100,000 miles by air each year. For the last five years I think I've exceeded 135,000 air miles traveling to our clients, visiting, having client dinners, having client appreciation, presenting our products of services to other companies, and then board the plane and fly another five hours from coast-to-coast.

So, Janelle, you can picture yourself sitting up in an airplane wondering what am I going to do for five hours and I'm personally not going to watch a movie. Therefore, what I did before joining Post is I studied languages. I learned to speak Spanish, I learned to speak Italian, I learned to speak Japanese. And I did that because of my colleagues that are from Argentina and from Italy and from Japan. And so therefore I decided to study languages and I enjoyed that. I've not traveled to those countries other than Mexico.

So what I can share with you is that after studying those languages I thought, "You know what? Maybe I should go ahead and try something else." What if we try going back to college? And I researched different schools. I don't have the luxury in my business career to sit on campus. I believe that campuses with class attendance is -- it's not a dinosaur, but it should be some of the past. Today companies can be virtual companies setting up offices within the residence, setting up offices at satellite places, have an executive in one state and have other executives in other states and communicate very effectively.

And of corporations who are spending hundreds of million dollars and generating hundreds of million dollars can do it online, why can we not have education online? I think it would be an honor to meet Dr. Goldman, Dr. Mueller, Dr. Brown and some of the other professors, Kenneth Wade. It would be an honor to meet them. But you know what? We've established a pretty good rapport over the telephone the same way as you and I have. We communicated maybe three times by email and now we're speaking today.

So I don't think there's a great deal of need for these big expensive campuses when I have achieved an MBA very effectively by dealing online, studying any time of the day I like, traveling in the air doing my assignments for each of the classes, reading the periodicals and the texts you're given. And then when I land, I go online and post my results.

Janelle: So why did you decide that Post University and their online MBA program was the right program for you?

Paul: I spoke to three different universities and one of the things that triggered it for me -- and I apologize, don't remember the young lady, she has moved up to another division -- but I dealt with a young man by the name of Keith Hudson in the student counseling department, and when you folks told me that as a military representative for the Marine Corps and any other branches were able to receive a 10 percent discount on our tuition, the financial cost of this was not a burden to me or to my family.

Then you also said, you know, Paul, as a military veteran you receive free textbooks. And that seemed to be quite a privilege. I can tell you that earning $137 a month in the Marine Corps didn't seem to be a great deal of money and, you know, therefore by getting something back from you folks seemed to be wonderful. I called others and they said, no, they did not offer it. And I thought that means that they don't have the culture to embrace what the military has done.

So maybe that's one of the triggering points that convinced me. Regardless of the financial reward of you waiving some of the cost, I'd like to share with you that just your staff and faculty have been outstanding. And therefore that confirms that I made the right decision and I would recommend Post to others.

Benefits of Post University's Approach to Online Education

Janelle: What do you like about Post's approach to online education? Because as you're talking, you were saying that these physical campuses, you don't see the need for them and that you can accomplish these educational objectives very well online. So what is it about Post's approach or the instructors or what combination, what qualities has cemented in your mind that this is and was the right program for you?

Paul: Well, that's a good point. I'd have to say structure. You know, when you run companies you need a great deal of structure. I don't mean browbeating. I mean formulating structure Monday through Friday, Saturday and Sunday. For whatever the company needs, you need to create a structure and Post has defined structure. The lead professor -- is it pronounced Mroz?

Janelle: Oh, Dr. Mroz.

Paul: Dr. Mroz? I have not spoken to the gentleman, but he probably has a great deal to do with the structure of this. The professors do not deviate from it. Some excel. When I spoke about Kenneth Wade and I spoke about Dr. Mueller, for me they excelled in the way they presented the syllabus, but just the keyword syllabus alone -- permitting you to look at what your class is all about, where's it's headed for an entire semester. Then they force themselves -- if I may use that term, they force themselves not to deviate from that, which helps me plan out my day.

I wish I could de-emphasize how much time I spend at the office, but I spend 70 hours a week working. And then I put in 20 hours -- between 12 and 20 hours a week at the Post. Capstone has required me to bump that up to about 36 hours. But that's just because I'm finishing the capstone. The key reason for using your system was the structure, the support of the faculty and staff, and the fact that they did not deviate from the curriculum that was presented.

I looked all the way down. I was considering taking three or four courses at a time until I realized how much writing would be required, how much extensive reading, and then looked back and said -- you know what? -- I still need my private time. So you permitted me to maintain time to play with the grandchildren, time to socialize with my wife and friends, have my social time, have my education, and still put in 60 and 70 hours a week at my corporations.

How Post University's Instructors Help Adult Learners Apply What They Learn in the Classroom to Their Careers

Janelle: Now, Paul, as someone with a great deal of business experience, would you say that the Post instructors curricula is on-target with helping adult learners hone their business skills and really use what they learn in the classroom in their jobs and careers?

Paul: I would say yes with an asterisk. And what I mean by that is, I believe some of them did not personalize the courses as much as they could have. Some gave us very current reading. You know, if you want to talk about Enron, we can. It's now become a historical. We could talk about current events. Dr. Mueller did a wonderful job on that. Dr. Goldman has permitted individuals in capsule to deviate from what they recommended.

Well, why did I take the MBA personally? I'd like to make a checkmark, Janelle, that I have an MBA. But I'm very enthused about the opportunity of having -- let me use the right word -- the privilege of earning an MBA. The fact is that there are certain things we need to do. We need to challenge ourselves, and Post is pushing the student to challenge themselves -- and I don't know if this interview provides for constructive criticism -- but I think sometimes they don't reinforce that the student did not challenge themselves.

I believe there are certain times that the University could say to the student, "You've missed what I was asking you. Your answer does not apply to the question." And I saw that a lot because we're not on campus at the water coolers talking. We have to only talk through postings. And so I saw a lot of the students, Janelle, they just don't even use the spell check that you've provided for them. How simple.

So if we take ourselves and raise ourselves to those standards, we will work very hard to make sure all of the information submitted on posting and all of the information submitted to the professors were at a higher standard, in my opinion. I'd like to see Post reinforce that. Just don't pass out grades. Make them work for it.

Janelle: Paul, do you have any thoughts on how Post could improve that aspect and increase those standards?

Paul: I do. Yes, I do. I was overwhelmed, though. Dr. Goldman asked us to put down some "aha" moments. I don't really like that advertisement on the TV -- aha -- but I'm catching on to what that means. And that means what -- just when did the light go off? And one was the online education. That was my first aha moment.

Number two was it's 24/7. Number three, you have qualified professors teaching the courses. And there's a few that I've mentioned on this call, whether it was Kenneth Wade or whether it was Dr. Mueller or Dr. Brown, do you know that they personalized what they do during the day in their career with the students? Others did not take those liberties and I believe that you've asked a very good question, What did I learn?

What I learned, Janelle, I share with my staff at my offices. What I learned I implemented if it had applicability to my daily activities at the corporation. So, therefore, yes, I applied them while I was learning them, but more importantly what if -- I sound a little arrogant and instead I just state it as a fact -- what if I didn't learn from certain courses? What I would tell you is that the courses you provided, some of them were 30 years of business, was that it validated what we're doing is correct.

You have a term called a SWOT analysis. It was in one of our courses, probably organizational studies. A SWOT analysis is describing your strengths, your weaknesses, your opportunities, and your threats. And it's really worth doing in a corporation. Do you know we were doing these in the mid 80s? And sometimes, Janelle, you would call it just pros and cons. Take a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle, put the pros on the right side, put the cons on the left.

Pros and cons are SWOT analysis. But we looked back at some of the documents that I've written for my firm, and in the mid 80s we were doing SWOT analysis and yet you're teaching them today. Which, I guess, if I'm answering this for you correctly, it validated what we're doing at our corporations are really pretty darn good. We're following good academic practices, applying them on a daily basis.

If you want to know what I gained, what I gained academically from you folks is something that resonates and confirms that what we've been doing in the office is -- in the corporations we built are correct. They're academically sound and they're proven to be good business models. That's the best way to summarize the point.

Benefits of Post University's Online MBA Degree Program

Janelle: What would you say is the biggest benefit of Post's online MBA program?

Paul: Until the mentorship, I think I've stated that maybe three or four times, and that is have an accessibility 24/7/365. Celebrate your own religious holidays, celebrate your own personal birthdays and anniversaries and go on vacation. But, my gosh, I was in Mexico for eight different weeks over the last 12 months -- maybe 16 weeks -- on business, some on pleasure, and I didn't miss the beat whatsoever. I went online, did my homework, submitted my assignments, and I'm in sunny Mexico.

I then went to Canada, I've been to Florida. I've traveled to 82 different cities in 2011. I traveled 135,000 miles to 82 different cities and I stayed online keeping pace with each of the assignments, speaking to the professors, doing the Webinars, sending in the assignments, and received a 95 or greater on my course. And that's really the best part of the whole program.

Janelle: Now, Paul, you mentioned earlier that you plan to get your doctorate after this. So tell us more about your next steps after earning your MBA.

Paul: When I complete this, the first opportunity to apply is after you give us our grades, which I understand doesn't come out until August, and that is a pretty quick window. But the first classes start in September at one university and start in October in the other. So they pre-qualified me with an MBA to go.

I was considering getting a doctorate in business in lieu of a PhD in business because PhDs, Janelle, are based on theories and a doctorate in business, which is a DBA, is based on practicality. It's actually using the tools you learn and you make it more of a functionality rather than a theory. Some will say, well, it sure seems like a shortcut. It's not a shortcut. It's going to be a great deal of work. It's going to take three and a half years instead of five. But I don't think that I would need a PhD because I do not see myself as a teacher.

I'm on five different boards, maybe six -- I apologize -- some I have to fly to attend. And being a board member was based on my 30 years of experience in healthcare. It's not a board member because I have an MBA or a doctorate. But I think what I've learned from you folks is how you've introduced me to higher education and I find it intriguing. I find it rewarding. I don't mean to diminish my time at Post, but I find it just as rewarding as running the 400 miles training for the marathon. And when you ask me how did I do, the answer is I finished. And that's what I'd like to say about Post.

This June I will have finished my MBA. I don't know what to say except that it's a personal achievement, it's been rewarding, and for the $20,000 or $25,000 it costs to achieve an MBA, I think more people should do so. And they should do it online so that you can spend time with your family. If you have grandchildren, spend time with your grandchildren, spend time with your holidays, with your colleagues, play around and golf and dedicate a couple of hours a day.

Janelle: Well, thank you, Paul for joining us today. Appreciate you sharing your story.

Paul: Well, I appreciate it very much as well and it's an honor that you've asked me.

Higher education innovation cannot happen in a vacuum

noreply@blogger.com (Jane Bailey, Ed.D.) — Mon, 21 May 2012 14:07:18 PDT

No institution knows everything there is to know about the best ways to improve online higher education. Nor does any institution have every last bit of technology, staffing, and other resources to develop and implement every improvement needed to better meet students' needs.

That's not a criticism of our institutions and systems. On the contrary, it's why organizations specialize in certain areas and develop deep expertise in particular approaches, models, and infrastructures. It enables us as an industry to then combine our knowledge, experience, and resources through strategic alliances and partnerships, and create a rich, powerful nucleus to fuel positive change.

This was the major concept that panelists talked about during one of our Online Learning Conference 2012 sessions, entitled Shaping Collaboration, Alliances and Partnerships in Online Higher Education. Our panelists engaged in a great dialogue about the ways we can use partnerships and alliances to improve and implement online and hybrid learning models that are driven by student needs.

Their ideas are worth looking over, and shed light on some of the challenges and opportunities of working together through partnerships and alliances. If you missed the session, here's the video of the complete discussion.

You'll hear from all of our panelists, which included:

Frank Mulgrew, President of the Online Education Institute of Post University
D.R. Widder, Executive Director of Innovation at Philadelphia University
Brian Joyner, Vice President of Marketing from Cengage Learning
Ronald Black, Academic Program Manager for Higher Education at Post University

Or, you can read on for the transcript of the session. Here's a breakdown of the major topics covered, which we denoted with subheads to make it easier for you to read:

Introductions
The Roles Alliances, Partnerships, and Governance Are Playing in Higher Education
Best Practices When Forming Strategic Alliances and Partnerships in Education
How Partnerships Impact Educational Institutions' Organizational Cultures
How Alliances, Partnerships, and Governance Can Enhance Academics
How Educational Partnerships Can Help Us Meet Technological Adoption Demands

Introductions

Peter Chepya: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We're here for the closing session of the Performance Arts Center sessions. This session is entitled Shaping Collaborations, Alliances and Partnerships in Online Higher Education.

Higher education is rapidly evolving as online and hybrid or blended learning models meld with traditional delivery models. Textbooks and technology are also merging in new ways to transform the way content is delivered to students.

This panel of experts will provide varied perspectives on new ways that collaborations, alliances, and partnerships can enhance innovative opportunities for online higher education, and discuss the challenges these alliances bring to today's online teaching and learning climate.

Specific examples of different types of collaborative partnerships and their benefits will be provided during the session. Our panelists are Frank Mulgrew, President, Online Education Institute of Post University; Brian Joyner, VP of Marketing, Cengage Learning; D.R. Widder, Executive Director of Innovation, Philadelphia University; and Dr. Ronald Black, Academic Program Manager for Higher Education, Post University. With this I'll turn it over to Dr. Black.

Ronald Black: Thank you, Peter. Welcome to the -- I don't like the word closing, I don't like the word tenure, I don't like the word terminal degree, but this is the last session and we've had a number of tremendous sessions all day long. A lot them focused on technology and how to technology use in the classroom. This session is going to be a little bit different but still with a little bit of technology.

I have over 30 years in higher education, and I've been in technology and a chief information officer for all 30 of those years until I transitioned into academics. So technology is in my blood. So we're going to talk a little bit about technology.

But the focus today is about strategic alliances, partnerships, and collaborations, and how do we use those kind of tools to make our students more successful and to make our academic programs better than they are today. We have a tremendous panel and I'm going to let them introduce themselves. Once we have finished with the introductions, we'll get started.

Frank Mulgrew: I guess I'll start. Everyone can hear me? It's funny, I haven't been in a classroom for a long time, but I see most of the people here are educators and we always hate when people sit in the back of the room, but everybody sat in the back of the room. So you don't have to, but I would invite people up closer because it will feel a lot more intimate and a lot easier for us to have a conversation, which I hope we do have a conversation with you.

I'm Frank Mulgrew, President of the Online Education Institute of Post University. I have both a business role and what I would call an artful role or creative role at the institution. My role is to grow online programs, #1 role. Grow enrollments, grow in credibility, grow on quality, improve the quality. And also a creative role in trying to spark the creativity of the staff, the faculty, everyone that works at Post that supports online innovation, online programs.

And as our panelists will know and the rest of our sponsors out in the crowd know, I tend to push things a bit on wanting to innovate quicker than many of us are ready to innovate. But I do see that innovation can only come really with collaboration, because at the end of the day you only know you've been innovative if you've actually done something and it's worked. So with that, I'll pass off to Brian, here.

Brian Joyner: Hello. My name is Brian Joyner. I'm Vice President of Marketing with Cengage Learning. I can confirm as a sponsor here that Frank did, in fact, shove me earlier today. So he takes what he says very seriously about working with his partners to push them in a forward direction.

As a member of Cengage Learning, we are an educational solutions provider from the K-12 and then primarily in the two- and four-year markets, both print, digital solutions, and a series of services. We're very excited to be a part of this panel because we talk about partnerships with institutions, the publishing model is certainly changing from, I think, the perceived notion of textbooks and supplements to very much a digital, forward direction aligned with services, different types of business models, partnerships, etc., and so we're excited to be here today and part of this dialogue.

D.R. Widder: Hi. I'm D.R. Widder. I'm the Extensive Director of Innovation at Philadelphia University. We are a non-profit university founded in 1884 -- six years before Post -- so it's nice to see the new kids on the block doing so well. We're about 3,200 students across a variety of programs.

We are on the spectrum of higher ed, I think very entrepreneurial thinking. It's a self-reported metric, but we take an entrepreneurial approach. Our president is an entrepreneur. I have an entrepreneurial background. A lot of our executive team has an entrepreneur background.

And partnership for us is the way we see being able to grow and being able to expand in an environment of less-than-infinite resources. We look for partners to bring in core competencies that we cannot develop ourselves, especially in the context of online.

Also we are about three years into our strategic plan. We are traditionally a teaching college preparing people for industry. In fact, we were founded by industrialists, basically, to create a workforce for industry, and we still use industry as, really, our feedback. And so we are, in our strategic plan, reforming how we deliver education and trying to be the model for professional education for the 21st century.

A big part of our model, as we call "nexus learning" or "real-world engaged learning" is a very project-based approach that involves a lot of partnerships with industry, basically working in industry problems and opportunities. So that partnership is very much a part of what we're doing.

So the keynote speaker this morning really is brilliant and inspiring and really resonated a lot of the themes that we've used, really, to model our university. One thing we say is we're preparing our students for jobs that don't exist yet, and that was echoed this morning. And I'm sitting here as Extensive Director of Innovation, a position that did not exist in higher ed two years go, so I believe it. So thank you for having us.

Ronald: Great. Great. Thank you. And I am Ron Black and I'm the Academic Program Chair for Higher Education here at Post University. And my background is over 30 years, I'd say almost 40 years, in higher education.

But as an administrator I've spent a good number of years as a senior administrator and working with the universities that I work for to collaborate and partner on academic programs, and at the same time working with technology vendors to bring technology to the workplace and to the classroom.

I've been fortunate to be involved with a number of strategic alliances and partnerships in that career going way back to the early 1980s, where I formed a partnership in a strategic alliance with Wang Laboratories, who at that time was really a vendor just starting off in the technology world, but was really up and coming.

And I was working at a brand-new -- we just started a culinary division of our university, and starting off the culinary school, I said, well, we need to do something. We can't just teach cooking. We need to bring technology into that and work with that.

And so I met with Dr. Ann Wang who then was the CEO of Wang Laboratories and even the founder of Wang Laboratories, and we sat down and we talked about, how can we bring your technology into our program? So we talked and we talked and we talked, and finally we came up with a plan.

And that plan didn't involve us buying anything. It didn't involve us doing anything except working together and using the resources of both institutions to bring that into the program. Today that culinary program is the largest culinary program in the world with over 18,000 students in that one program, still using the technology that we brought in.

So through the 80s and through the 90s, I got involved with what partnerships were all about. I got involved with partnerships and really involved. Without my doctorate I said, well, wait a minute, I'm going to do something. I've really got to go out and get my doctorate.

So I focused my doctorate around the concept of strategic alliances and partnerships in higher ed, and I wrote my doctorate centered around a partnership in an alliance with IBM, with three K-12 school districts, and an instructional technology vendor at the time.

And we worked out an alliance that was a seven-point alliance that basically brought us together -- without a contract, without monies transferring between each other -- to enhance academics. The seven-point alliance dealt with -- #1 -- creating a new academic program, an executive MBA program that focused around those resources from IBM and others. We did a student mobile community computing contract, once again, with IBM. And we re-engineered information infrastructure together without, once again, without spending a lot of money.

And we did research together and then we collaborated with the school districts to bring technology into the school districts. So that's there. This is my dissertation. Published six times, it's always out there. So we're going to talk about that today.

And this is an open forum. You don't have to -- there's no lecturing going to go on here. It's a basically open forum and you can ask questions at any time as we go along. But the teacher in me says I've got to say something. All right? So here's a quote that I picked up a long time ago and it's just stuck with me and stuck with me and stuck with me. It's talking about togetherness in partnerships.

"So togetherness for me means teamwork that makes us reflect how completely dependent we are upon one another in our social and commercial life. The more diversified our labors and interests have become in the modern world, and the more surely we need to integrate our efforts to justify ourselves in our civilization." And that quote was from Walt Disney.

So that kind of sticks with me in everything I do in working together with people. The focus today is going to be on three topics: what alliances, partnerships, and governance really is, how do we govern working together and how do we do that? How do we enhance academics through our partnerships? And then what do we do about this technology thing and how can we come together and work together to bring technology in there? So we'll quickly go through that.

And quickly some definitions written by Ron Black. Alliances are strategic, not tactical. They look to the future. They don't care about today. Let's look beyond today and go there. Focus on long-range educational benefit. Feature tight linkages among the partners or at the highest levels of each organization. An emphasis on communication, cooperation, and collaboration. That's called the three Cs, and I wrote two or three articles on that topic there.

Definition of partnerships is the relationship between individuals or groups characterized by mutual cooperation or responsibility and to achieve a specific goal. Similar to alliances but really a little bit structured a little bit more.

And then, finally, collaboration is one or more individuals or groups working together for a joint intellectual effort to achieve a specific task. It could be faculty and students. It could be faculty administrators. It could be school-to-school and so forth.

The Roles Alliances, Partnerships, and Governance Are Playing in Higher Education

Ronald: So let's begin our conversation with alliances and partnerships and governance. Higher education strategic alliances, partnerships, or collaboration involve two partners that remain legally independent after the alliance is formed, share benefits and managerial control over the performance of tasks, and make continuing contributions in one or more academic areas.

So my question for our experts -- including myself -- how do you see the governance of strategic alliance being formed between your organization and the university or between your university and our university? That's the teacher in me. Ask the questions.

Frank: I'll take it from the different approach of what -- since we're the university you're talking about, if I could do a precursor to the question and hand off the question to you guys because you have more of the perspective from this angle that the question.

D.R. and I have had many conversations about what a partnership means, and it's important to be aligned in what any type of partnership. A partnership fundamentally for our perspective is that the two entities, independent as they are, succeed or fail together. There's a distribution of risk and rewards for both entities.

If it is a zero sum game for one, it's no longer a partnership -- it's a vendor relationship and people mix up vendor relationships with partnerships. Strategic partnerships are that next level. What's the difference in my view? Strategic partnerships are partnerships that are backed by the vision and mission of the institution itself.

You can potentially partner because it's good for a particular entity, because it has tactical gains, but a real strategic partnership is about some future goal that benefits both parties or the multiple parties involved. So -- and at the end of the day is as much judged not by the start of it, but by what happens while it's happening and what the results are, critically important. So I'll hand it off with that.

D.R.: Well, I certainly echo the sentiment. I see with partnerships I've been involved with the direct correlation with how aligned incentives are between the different parties. The closer they are aligned, the more people naturally will do things even in their self interests that's in mutual interest.

The way we think about partnerships is we think about delivering the best student experience possible, the best educational outcomes possible, and if there's sort of a value chain for delivering that, how do we partner to deliver that better than we could ourselves?

And we don't have to own the entire value chain. In fact, it's in our best interests not to. Really pick our core competencies and pick partners with complementary core competencies to deliver the best outcomes.

There's this -- in entrepreneurship there's this notion of maximize and own. That one approach is own everything, control everything, invest everything, and such, and that in some ways is easier but doesn't create the same value as partnering where you have control points and work together and basically have a smaller piece of a larger pie, so to speak.

In terms of governance, I do think about the control points from the university perspective, which is the perspective I'm coming from. We have a brand, we have educational outcomes, we answer to the higher power of the accreditors and the accreditation, and so we want to have governance to maintain control of those things that matter, but yet do not exert control over the operations and core competencies of the partner because that would actually be counter productive because they're better at those aspects than we are. So that's kind of how we think about governance.

Brian: And from the educational solutions provider side of this, I think the opportunity for us from a partnership standpoint is often a perception that it's about, we've developed something or have some content, maybe developed and perceived in a vacuum over here by the side, and we're looking for angles to get that utilized or have it incorporated in a classroom environment. I think it's a dated model.

I think the partnership side as we think about it now, as really working with institutions, not necessarily to shout and play the trumpets from the mountaintop, so to speak, but to make sure that we're developing content that meets the emerging needs that the institutions have and not just assuming that because we have institutional knowledge and work with every institution in the country and globally that just internally we know and have all the answers.

So we've increased our partnership level on a variety of fronts, both from just communicating on a more regular basis, even in an informal manner with our customer population, but also looking at ways now to be much more open-minded, to enter content development partnerships. What type of content does a specific institution need to have developed to meet their specific needs or outcomes? Do they just need to take what we have off the shelf?

I would argue many times, no, we need to work together to make sure this is the type of, not only content, but functional solutions, whether it's a platform, whether it's a game, whether it's interactive content that is working in a manner than an institution needs. And if they can help educate us and we can partner on that together, that's great.

And we'll talk more about that from a services side, I think, and other elements as we move forward. But it's really a field of opportunity, I think, from a content provider standpoint to work on an innovation side and to work with institutions in general to say, hey, let's try something. Let's try something together and see if this is something that might benefit both parties and if it does, great. If not, we learn from the experience. But it doesn't have to be on the simplistic terms to have a book adopted three months later. And I think that's how we're evolving in that sense.

Frank: I can add one more thing to governance -- a comment that our keynote speaker made about culture. It's so easy, it is a blending of cultures. For those of you who may not know or may not know the details of, D.R. and I are working very closely on our two institutions coming together with a partnership.

It's very easy and it can derail partnerships very quickly if either partner has a view towards one being the right way to do things and the other way being the wrong way to do things when they really are -- it's interesting, subtle difference between cultures and histories that have to somehow magically merge together and accept each other for each other's strengths.

And, again, we don't look at it as what we're supplying something for your weaknesses, but taking their strengths and combining them with our strengths, we can do something really great. And, I might add, for Cengage or Pearson, Blackboard, McGraw-Hill, Tutor.com, and there's a lot of other companies that I could say that we are now changing that relationship from the vendor to the partner relationship, is very, very different.

You think in terms of different kinds of structures and how each party wins. You talk about MOUs more than you talk about contracts, although contracts certainly have to be part of it. But when you're talking about governance, memorandums of understanding, having stage gates, moving in a direction, understanding that nothing is so fixed that it couldn't change because things could change between the two partners or to one partner or the other.

Brian: I also think about the maturity or how well developed something you're trying to do together is, and the more developed it is, the more it's been done before, the more you can have sort of a fixed vendor-type partnership and you can spell everything out in advance.

But in innovation and open innovation and those principles, you don't know fully what you're going to end up with and you definitely have to approach it as a more partnership model. You can't define everything in advance because you're trying to do something truly new and truly innovative.

And as things accelerate as the keynote was talking about today and technology change and all that, there's probably going to be more and more kind of open innovation and the more the alliance -- your word, a strategic relationship -- where every detail is not worked out, I think that's probably going to evolve with the acceleration of technology.

Ronald: Yeah, a terrific point. All of those key points of innovation and branding and working together is all part of bringing together that alliance for the good of all the institutions and all the partners involved.

And one of the things that it is suggested in all the literature is create a memorandum of understanding -- not a contract -- a memorandum of understanding of how all those things are going to take place and how we're going to bring together all of our resources and all of our expertise and all of our intellectual capital to achieve that task.

And there's a terrific article that was written way back in 1999 called "Collaborating with Your Competitors -- and Win," because you can collaborate and partner with your competitors for the common good -- not to be better than them or not for them to better than you, but to bring together everything that you want to do as you go along. That article was written by Gary Hamel and published in Harvard Business Review.

So when we talk about innovation and we talk about branding and we talk about governance, governance in a partnership is really, really free, but you have to understand how you're going to work together and how you bring it all together.

When I went and met with the CEO of IBM at the time, who was Lou Girstner, and we sat down and I said, well, how are we going to work together and how are we going to do these things without a contract and without exchanging money, and what are some of the ways that we can teach our programs and do research with IBM and at the same time have IBM teach with us and do research with us and bring it all together? And that memorandum of understanding just brings it all together as you go along.

So governance really is not a rule that this is the way it's going to be, but it's an understanding and as you go along. So if you're thinking about an alliance or a partnership with a vendor or another university or others, think about how we're going to work together and how we're going to govern that.

In the case of the IBM alliance, we created a committee of people from both organizations and they basically did the things that was built into the alliance and working with both institutions at the same time. So any questions about governance? Yes, sir.

Best Practices When Forming Strategic Alliances and Partnerships in Education

[Question from audience]

Frank: Yes. I mean, it's partly humorous, but the answer is all of it. I mean, you have discussions along the way, pieces. I'll tell you in a very concrete manner, I mean, D. R. and I can comment both on this, but you get concerned, especially when you're between universities you have government regulations associated with things and one party or the other party often are the bearer of that regulatory weight.

And so along the way you have to think in terms of, OK, who is going to own this policy throughout? But as far as going in there with a preconceived notion of how the governance is going to be set up, I can tell you on our part we generally try to stick away from that and let the partnership grow to where we're all feeling good and our cultures are melding in a way that really the roles are clearer, but we're not so worried about the specific, thorny points of governance.

D.R.: Yeah, I completely agree. Try to anticipate what you can, but things evolve and come up over time and so the governance model, also as you evolve in a partnership from initial discussions to kind of an MOU level to a contractual level, you obviously have to get more specifically defined how things are going to work and especially around those thorny issues that are like regulation and some of the financial issues that can be a great source of viability.

Brian: I agree it needs to be a conversation on the table at the outset. It doesn't necessarily have to be black and white, but it's a very formal hearty handshake at the outset and you evolve and have checkpoints as things move through, the concern being if you do too much at the outset and try to defer, you might never get out of the starting box, so to speak. So at some point you want to take it on faith.

Ronald: Yeah, I agree with that. It takes a life of its own to grow a partnership and it never goes away. But everybody involved knows what's happening and that's the key.

[Question from audience]

Brian: Yeah, well, that's certainly a balancing act because you want to keep your whole organization informed every step of the way but, yet, if you can't to make progress, it's tough to talk about every detail from the get-go, you'd never get anywhere.

So you're balancing internalizing the needs of your organization so that you can represent your organization to get to that initial step, and then gradually filtering out information and as things get more detailed, you bring in more and more stakeholders and it happens -- I think of it completely as a balancing act because there's certainly -- either extreme would not work.

Frank: This is where I've learned quite a bit from D.R. In my own history, the execution of partnerships has been where I failed more than the partnerships themselves, initially starting them out. I would say experience and certainly learning from -- has been a learning process for me is that if I would say what I've learned is that step-by-step we're keeping it at such a level that we haven't done all the thinking that is going to be necessary by the people that are going to have to actually do the work, that we've been really thinking structurally where things are housed and where we knew the details, great -- we could put in the details.

But, for example, recently we got our groups together for the first time on Philly U's campus -- Philly U, I'm getting used to that -- and by that time there had been a lot of work done up to that point. We had a general idea of what we were going to do as an overarching process, but now individuals within that group, D.R. and I, while we're going to be very interested in paying attention to what they're doing, we need to let them do their work on figuring out how they're going to work together, how those linkages are actually going to happen.

So I think it's bound to fail if you don't at some point along the way. That's what's lovely about the MOU is the MOU let's everybody know what the understanding is without having some sort of contractual SOA that the people that have to make it happen haven't agreed to and don't feel comfortable with.

D.R.: The other component that I've found in terms of propagating information is the partnership component, some of you just trying to do something and the fact that you're doing it via partnership matters a lot in the partnership agreement.

But as you get down into execution, for example, if you're trying to create a new program together, at a certain level in the organization, you're just creating a new program, and the fact that it's a partnership matters less and less. And so in that sense, that also is kind of a dynamic that happens in a partnership.

Brian: And one last point on that related to the comments you both made, I think you mentioned in your question you have people that make decisions, that are at the top so to speak, and you have people that are actioning on this partnership.

I think one key thing at that outset is communication is key within an organization that can be easily executed with the right people in place. It's the funding of it, and I don't necessarily mean the funding of it from a dollars and cents standpoint, but if you're going into a partnership, are you going to fund it with people who already have a day job and this becomes one more thing to do, you're going to dilute yourself right out of the gate and then you're saying is your vision being executed on, it's very possible that they understand it but may not be able to get to it and do the things that they need to be able to do.

So I think that's clear and needs to be clearly defined at the outset and as part of that handshake agreement, what resources are you bringing to the table on this, what resources are you bringing to the table, is this going to be what their focus is? Is that the goal or is it something that will be done on the side? Is there a balance there to make sure that there's a clear execution of what the plan is? And I think that's something that often goes overlooked and results in problems down the road.

How Partnerships Impact Educational Institutions' Organizational Cultures

[Question from audience]

D.R.: From my perspective the partnerships we're involved with are emerging so we don't have many years of some cultural shift to study, but certainly a design point would be you want both organizations to retain their culture because they both have unique strengths to bring to the table.

There's a natural osmosis of bringing teams together and exchanging ideas and just working any two universities on any project, so I think there's a natural evolution of culture, but I don't think of it as a design point of trying to make the two cultures the same or having one entity adopt the others because then that truly is just combining into one larger entity as opposed to the strengths of two unique entities.

Ronald: Yeah, I don't think the partnership is going to change the culture. It may enhance the cultures of both organizations, but I don't think it's going to change who we are or what we are, even during the partnership application going on.

I think culture is something that's bred within us, certainly in my case and working with IBM, they were the giant at the time and it was really bringing them in was like, oh, wow. But certainly they came down to earth and worked with us and there was culture no change. We may have changed the way we do things and adapt a little bit towards the way they wanted it done versus the way we want it done, and they may have changed the same way. But I think culture is -- partnerships is not going to change the culture. I think it's going to enhance the culture.

Frank: I'm going to be controversial and say I think it's going to affect the cultures. I have no idea how it's going to affect the cultures, but the questions that Philly U asks us and the conversations have already had an impact. They may not see it, but the very activity of what we've been doing has affected, for example, my executive management team -- and I know it's affecting how they then are working and thinking about how they're doing their work, so I don't see how it can't affect it.

To the degree, it is still up in the air and obviously as leaders you would hope that what we have is a positive effect on each other's cultures and not a negative one. I'm less worried about there being an effect and more wanting us to be a positive for them, not a negative.

And then with the publishers -- and I was going to use Blackboard as a great example over here -- Blackboard was not a partner with us and Tim over there really got the idea of the difference between the partner and the vendor relationship.

And it has become more and more a partnership as certain people in our organization have had a chance to see in that we get to view into the future, we get -- we succeed or fail together on things and it just -- it changes things.

I like to think we've had an impact on Blackboard. Now, he's our main point of contact and managed our accounts so he's going to say, yes, we have. But I'm sure we get along with others that have been more strategic thinking, I think, have had an impact on them and vice versa, and what they're doing has an impact on us. The same with the textbook publishers.

Ronald: And it's great to have Blackboard here. I've been involved with Blackboard since 1994. In fact, we were the very first school in the little state of Rhode Island where I'm from to acquire Blackboard. But I've seen the changes in Blackboard over the years as it adapted to what higher education was doing and they didn't overpower our education. They said, well, let's work together. Let's work together, let's work together during these changes, so it's great to have you here.

How Alliances, Partnerships, and Governance Can Enhance Academics

Ronald: All right, the next topic is going to be academics and we'll talk a few minutes about that. In my little comments, as universities continue to examine ways in which they can enhance the campus and learning experience and improve productivity through flexible online learning and traditional learning environments, many universities view alliances, partnerships, and governance as a key asset to create intellectually vibrant and relevant academic programs drawing the best students and faculty.

So my little question to start us off will be how will alliances, partnerships, and governance with the organization enhance academics in today's online? How will we enhance academics through these kinds of partnerships? We've already started talking about that, so we can continue talking about it.

Brian: So from the solutions provider standpoint, since we talked about it at an earlier session, it's really the evolution of making sure we're listening to the customer needs and we're mindful of that shift. I think one good example of that is really that shift from the traditional classroom, brick-and-mortar environment to the online environment. That's why we're here today.

So as we know, the traditional content that a publisher provides may not be ideal in an online environment the way it would work in a brick-and-mortar environment. But if we, again, think we have the answers without partnering, listening to, testing different ideas, testing different models with institutions like Post, for example, then we're not going to be successful.

So we've changed -- and I'll speak specifically for Cengage Learning -- we have changed the manners in which we develop content based on how we've been partnering and working with institutions, the manner in which we service our customers, the manner in which we train.

We really look at ourselves now not as a publisher, not as a textbook publisher, but as a educational solutions and services provider. That's print material, that's digital material, those are services that come with the experience of partnering with a Cengage Learning that provide training, professional development, onboarding for digital solutions to help make instructors more comfortable in utilizing the content so that they can engage their students and be more successful, testing and measuring the solutions that we're developing to make sure they are impactful, and that they're helping improve student performance so that when an institution uses them, they are successful.

It's not just a matter of handing them the content and the keys and saying good luck, we'll check back in 15 weeks, here's your bill. It is a question of, we're partnering with you straight through. You've helped us develop these materials. These are the outcomes we expect you to see. We want your feedback straight through, and these are the ways that we're going to be able to improve that based on those feedback.

If it's a completely different model, oh, and by the way, here's a suite of professional development services for your adjuncts. Here are the people who will be helping onboard and train you as you utilize this digital service right straight through. And then here's how we're going to get you ready for the next term. So it is a full complement of how we operate now moving forward, and that has definitely evolved based on feedback from customers and just how we are choosing to operate in the new environment.

D.R.: Yeah, and I think about it in terms of what do we want to be good at and how can we deliver the best educational outcomes. The technology is continually evolving and it's the creative technology of development and as time goes on, what's new becomes old and becomes a commodity.

So, for example, web hosting or something, there was a time being on the web was just being on the web was a competitive advantage. Now it's commodity and such, so -- and commodities are best done at scale and not at the scale of a single university.

So I think about partnering both in terms of those components that evolve to become commodities but also on the leading edge because to have those kinds of tools that you have requires incredible investment and you can spread that investment over many customers, whereas a single university we cannot.

And so sort of the two ends of the technology curve is where partnering makes the most sense for us and then within that middle part, really it's our own strategy and our own internal decisions about giving our strengths and our strategic plan, what do we want to be good at and what do we want to partner with? But it's all about delivering a better educational experience.

Frank: The reason for doing partnerships at all is for the benefit of students. Everything -- every other reason you can come up with looks back to students. So at the center of the core of any collaboration is what ultimately you're going to do for the student.

I'm going to take a little bit of a Post University world view on this, but, you know, those who work with me know the student/university/ourselves mentality, if we take care of the student, the university will be taken care of. If we take care of the university, each of us will thrive. And for a lot of universities that's been all jumbled up in complexity.

One of the things that I'm impressed with Philly U is, I think they're very aligned along the same sort of lines, and certainly we would want to partner with entities that have the right focus. Because at the end of the day, you want something that's great for students and the collaboration is going to -- is going to work.

You're going to figure out a way to make it work and it's like D.R. said. It's because they have strengths that the other partner doesn't have. The publishers have strengths. The publishers being in the room, I want to be careful, but universities -- you go to conferences, and when the publishers aren't around, people treat them like the enemy.

And if you can topple that on its head and say, instead of publishers being the enemy, can publishers be part of a long-term vision, a long-term solution?, you'll find that they have a lot to offer, on a scale that none of us can offer. And I don't want to pick which publisher -- I'm just going to throw out a statistic.

So the library systems of all the Ivy League universities pale in comparison to the content available of just one of the public major publishers -- of just one of the publishers. I'm not making any statement about which one. I mean, it's striking. They have something that is of interest. They also have skill sets, again, distributed across many, many customers.

For us, I wanted to make a comment when I heard campus. I have a visceral reaction and Ron hasn't known me long enough to know that I get a visceral reaction. So my reaction to that is you want to know why we're partnering, because our campus used to be 57 acres and now it's 6.5 billion acres. Our campus is the world.

It's my belief that any university that doesn't treat the world as its campus is going to lose and they're going to lose not in five years -- I mean, not in 10 years or 20 years, but much sooner. You're going to start to see them fail.

So I think with something like Philly U, they recognize that they need to do this as a strategy for their future. And if we can help them achieve their bigger strategic goals and it aligns with our strategic goals, I mean, the win is phenomenal.

But at the core of it, at the end of the day, the biggest win has to be with the student, you know, they're betting that we can provide a student experience for them, provide services to their students that are going to be at a level that would be hard for them to right out of the gate offer. And we need to do that. So the same with the publishers. We need them to step up to the plate and think differently about their models and how they integrate with each of us in different kinds of ways.

Ronald: Really good points. And one of the things that I think when I think of academics and partnering for academics as D.R. mentioned and Frank mentioned, is bringing the strengths together of each institution to work and develop programs that are going to show the strengths of each institution but brought together as one, and that's key.

And like Frank, I think of a campus as the world, too. You know, the online campus is not restricted even though I spent years, and until 2006 I had a campus and I went to work on that campus all the time. But today's world, when we think of campus, a campus -- it's there. It's just what's out there as we go along, so I still use the terminology there.

So certainly partnerships are going to enhance academics and they're going to bring together students to add to their educational experience, and that's what we do.

How Educational Partnerships Can Help Us Meet Technological Adoption Demands

Ronald: But the last topic is a little bit about technology and there's a major need for colleges and universities to confront competition, to enhance academic programs to meet the challenges of online education today and to develop new teaching and learning strategies to meet the demands of the global marketplace because our campus is no longer Post University here in Waterbury. Our campus is the world.

So we need to think beyond. So how do we bring that together? A lot of colleges and universities over the years have found it really, really difficult to adapt to technology. Faculty have it difficult, as we talked about in some of the sessions today, to adapt to technology. Those baby boomers like me in my age with my gray hair, you know, how do we do it and how do we really adapt to technology?

So we need help, we need help and through partnerships we can do that. So my simple question is how can a partnership assist us to meet the technological demands today and into the future? Because technology is going to change as we go along, so we'll start that up for our last session.

Brian: So, again, from the content and the solutions side, as I mentioned earlier, it's much beyond, at least in this area, from the content standpoint. It's partnering now with other organizations like a Blackboard to say, hey, we offer unique services, our customers are asking for those services to be delivered in a more cohesive manner. Why don't we spend some time together and get that done and make the lives for our customers a little bit easier?

It's the evolution of the manner in which we structure our organization in setting up programs, like what we have a Cengage Learning called CourseCare, which is designed specifically to train and onboard instructors with technology, because it's not something you just pick up overnight or by watching one YouTube video on how to do X, Y, and Z. It just doesn't work that way.

It takes time, and it's very much an evolution, and we want to be a part of that. But we know to do that because we've listened, again, to our customer population and we've talked to them about the right ways to go about this.

So how does technology -- how do we get that more incorporated? How do we make people feel more comfortable with it? How does that change? That's providing more services, that's listening and providing more of the resources that are needed to help make that a seamless transition for organizations.

I think one last note on that, it goes even further. I know Post, for example, has a host of instructional designers that help develop and create content. This is excellent. We also at Cengage Learning have instructional designers to work with institutions like Post or institutions that don't have instructional designers to help develop the materials and solutions they need to incorporate technology in the right way.

It's not just a matter of putting something on a shelf and having it in a book store and say, again, that relationship is over. It's what are the different ways that we can work with institutions to help them bridge the gap that they can be the leaders, they can obtain those students all across the globe, you know, mutually beneficial across the board, so we've very much evolved in that capacity and continue to do so. I'm actually a hologram as I sit here in front of you today.

D.R.: I alluded to it before but, for us, we're thinking about online not -- I know some institutions kind of set it up as a separate business unit or a separate unit. We really think of it as a channel to deliver what we already have, that it's tools and a channel to deliver the same knowledge that we generate, it's a different way to share it.

So in that context, the specific technology, we want to be able to use it, we want to have partners to help us with it, but we -- we're not looking to be experts at developing the technology or the backbone, that kind of thing. So getting at this question and thinking about it, that's really how we think about it and in that sense it drives us right to partnership, because what else would make sense to do?

Frank: It's a multi-way street. It's not even a two-way street. Technology is driving changes in higher education, whether higher education individual constituents want it to or not, it's driving it. Our speaker this morning had good points about that. But also higher education educators are changing technology.

I'll use the evolution of Blackboard as an example. I mean, Blackboard, from my viewpoint, started out as a few tools to get things up on the web. So if a faculty member wanted to get a Word document up on the Web -- boom -- they could get a Word document. If you knew HTML coding, you could also just put some text material up there and maybe some pictures and such.

To now, Blackboard's strategy -- if I'm not off on this -- is reconceiving that it's really about learning and it's what's the best vehicle for learning? Anyone who has worked with the technology has seen the evolution of Blackboard from 1997 all the way until today, and you look at the next generation of Blackboard 10, it's pushing where education is going, but it's also being pulled. Blackboard is being pulled into having rethinking about how we use technology.

I was just recently interviewed for University Business Magazine and the big transformation has been that we've had -- I remember when a banner implementation when I was at Drexel University starting in 1998, and it changed how the university operated and not frequently for the better. Because it was the technology and you had to use it in this way.

And Blackboard did the same. I think the publishers at one time, it was, this was the model and you now have to adapt to it. So there was a reaction to technology that was understandable by educators. Nowadays when I hear the negative reaction to technology, I always think it's more a reflection of the individual because companies have gotten it that they may not be 100 percent where they want to be.

Blackboard would say, the publishers would all say they're not 100 percent where they want to be. I don't think Philly U is where they want to be 100 percent, or we are, but it's now focused on the student and it's focused on the user and it's less about the technology as much as what the technology can do in the learning process.

And so what can these partnerships do? As long as they have the right focus, which is student learning and student outcomes, then it's really a matter of matching up what works, what is effective in assessing that. And I might also add technology is going to do what the accrediting bodies have been complaining about with all of us in higher education for a long time. It's going to make us outcomes and assessment driven. It's going to make us metrics driven because those institutions that aren't, aren't going to keep their accreditation anymore.

Ronald: Great. Terrific, terrific panel and terrific topics and I thank all of you for joining us. And certainly we walk away with the thought of, where does partnerships and alliances and collaborations fit in what you do, and how you can bring that to the classroom and to the things that you do? Thank you very much to our terrific panel and terrific session. Thank you for attending and we'll see you at the wine.

Post University men's golf team eyes national NCAA title

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Alongi) — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:45:51 PDT

The Eagles stand proud after clinching a spot
in the national championship

Even though school's out for summer, exciting things are still happening within the athletic department at Post University! Following a fourth place finish at the Atlantic/East NCAA Super Regional last week, the men's golf team qualified for the 2012 NCAA Division II National Championship, marking the first time in school history that the Eagles will be competing for a national NCAA title.

The Eagles will travel to Louisville, Ky., to vie for the title, playing three rounds of golf against a field of 20 teams from May 15-19 at The Cardinal Club.

If their determination during the regular season is any indication of their upcoming performance in Kentucky, the Eagles' momentum will be hard to slow. The team already overcame several adversities this season, including playing in the rain for the first two days of the three-day Super Regional, making its advance to the championship quite a feat in itself. Eighth-year head coach Pete Stevens seemed to think so as well. We captured his reaction after the Super Regional on camera:

If any Eagles fans are planning to make the trip down to Kentucky, tickets are available on site, and we'd expect that you show your Post pride on the course!

For the rest of you following the action from afar, there are plenty of ways to stay informed and show your support for the team as it embarks on this historic journey:

Monitor our athletics website, PostEagles.com, for all updates throughout the national championship, as well as an exclusive blog to give readers an inside look at the team's journey.
Get real-time updates from our athletics Twitter feed, @GoPostEagles. Feel free to @ us with your reactions or cheers for the guys using the hashtag #PostGOLF.
Keep an eye on our Facebook page for exclusive photos from the championship.

Congratulations to the men's golf team, and good luck at the National Championship!

Solved: Detective Jay Pugliese talks about how a criminal justice degree can help your career

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Nardozzi) — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:13:32 PDT

Detective Jay Pugliese

Detective Jay Pugliese handles criminal investigations at the Naugatuck Police Department every day. He's honed some of his investigative, crime-solving skills on the job through hands-on experience and the department's in-service training. But he attributes his ability to make "tough decisions" to the education he received when he earned his bachelor's degree in criminal justice from Post University.

That's due to several reasons, which Detective Pugliese told us about when we spoke with him for a podcast. One of the most important reasons he learned so much was because Post University's criminal justice degree program instructors are active duty and retired law enforcement professionals.

In fact, that's why the detective and I met. The Naugatuck and Waterbury Police Department often work closely together, and when Detective Pugliese came to Post as a student, we got to know each other even better.

Like a true law enforcement professional, Detective Pugliese told it like it is during our interview -- why he decided to attend Post University, how his bachelor's degree in criminal justice is helping his law enforcement career, and where he plans to go next now that he has his bachelor's degree under his belt. His honest perspectives are worth listening to.

By the way, if Detective Pugliese's name sounds familiar, he's the son of Waterbury's Director of Economic Development, Ronald J. Pugliese, who spoke at our Online Learning Conference 2012.

Thanks for joining us on our blog, Detective Pugliese.

We've also included the transcript of our interview below if you prefer reading. Enjoy.

Janelle: Greetings, everyone. Janelle Kozyra here for a Post University podcast. Today I am joined by Jay Pugliese, who is a recent graduate of Post. Jay, it's good to have you with us today.

Jay: Thank you. Good to be here.

Janelle: So, Jay, when did you graduate from Post?

Jay: I graduated in December of 2010.

Janelle: OK, and what are you doing now?

Jay: I'm a full-time police officer in Naugatuck, Conn.

Janelle: Great. So take us back to the beginning, then. Tell us how you got to where you are today. So what made you, first of all, decide to get your college degree?

Jay: Well, right when I graduated high school, I started to go to college at the local community college. I went a semester at the University of Hartford and at the University of Connecticut. But at the time I just wasn't really into college and wanted to do other things. I went to paramedic school and went and got my pilot's license. I would have rather done things like that instead of going and sitting in a classroom. And as I got a little older and got through into my career as a police officer, I decided to go back and get my degree. So I got an associate degree and then I heard about Post's online bachelor's degree program. I actually know the coordinator, and got talking with Dr. Nardozzi, and he convinced me basically to sign up and start taking classes. In about two years, I got my bachelor's degree and I'm very happy and impressed with the degree that I got from Post.

Janelle: So you mentioned Jim Nardozzi.

Jay: Yes.

Janelle: And so how do you know Jim?

Jay: He was a police officer in Waterbury, which is the next city up from Naugatuck, and we've -- the two departments work pretty well and pretty closely together. So just basically through the police circle.

Janelle: So what sealed the deal for you in deciding that Post was the right place for you to get your bachelor's?

Jay: Well, just the fact that they only use active duty and retired law enforcement as their criminal justice instructors, which really kind of brings a new level of commitment to the program. You don't get somebody who has a criminal justice degree, but has never used it in their practical life, teaching you something that they don't really understand themselves; they just know it from reading a book. At least now with Post's program, they use actual law enforcement professionals and retired law enforcement professionals as their instructors. That really allows them to bring in their experience to the classroom and makes learning that much more interesting and that much easier because you have a story to relate the topic to.

Janelle: Did you take classes with Jim Nardozzi?

Jay: No, he wasn't actually an instructor of mine. I just never had the pleasure of having him as a professor.

Janelle: Now how did you decide that criminal justice was what you wanted to major in? What was your associate in, and then how did you decide that was the right path for your bachelor's?

Jay: My associate was also in criminal justice, and part of the reason was financial. The police department pays for a portion of a criminal justice degree, and that's just one of the reasons why. And plus, I am in the field and thought it would be good to further my career.

Janelle: So what did you hope to get out of having the degree, specifically? How did you hope it would advance your career?

Jay: First of all, I wanted a better understanding of the criminal justice system and some of the laws behind the criminal justice system, on how it got started, what the intentions of the system were, and how it's changed as it's moved through history. And I think a lot of that has really been able to help me in my career make some tough decisions, and look back on some of the decisions that I've made in the past, and look back at some of the decisions the courts have made in the past, and been able to understand those a little bit better.

Janelle: Any decisions that stick out in your mind in particular?

Jay: No, just more of the case law, when you're making decisions on how you're going to move forward with a case. Whether you're going to interview somebody, whether they request an attorney, or whether they ask your advice on whether they should have an attorney. Just knowing the system and knowing some of the case law behind the system. It just helped me to kind of maneuver through the legalities of the system a little bit better than if I didn't go to school and just base my decisions on some in-service training that we've had over the years through the police department.

Janelle: So what is your rank now at the police department?

Jay: I'm a detective.

Janelle: OK, and were you a detective before you got your bachelor's as well?

Jay: No, I wasn't. I was a patrol officer.

Janelle: So do you think your degree helped you achieve the detective rank?

Jay: I think it did, yeah. Yeah, I think it definitely helped me, definitely helped me understand kind of the more investigative and more legally specific work that a detective would do as opposed to a patrol officer.

Janelle: What do you like about doing the detective work?

Jay: I like the fact that I can actually follow through a case all the way to the end, and interview the suspect, interview the victims and the witnesses, process the evidence, come to a conclusion at the end, and either close the case if that's the situation or go ahead and apply for an arrest warrant and follow that through the court system. It's just a little bit more interesting.

Janelle: So let's get to some of the nitty-gritty about your experience at Post. How would you sum it up?

Jay: I really enjoyed going to Post University. It allowed me to get on the computer and do my classwork sort of at my schedule, just as long as I met the deadline for when the work was due. And going on the discussion boards and learning from other students and having some good-hearted debates with other students was very, very helpful and made the classes that much more enjoyable.

Janelle: So were you on campus or did you take online classes?

Jay: I went online.

Janelle: What do you think about the online format?

Jay: I thought it was great. You weren't personally interacting with anyone face-to-face, but you were really able to kind of get into good discussions with other people through the discussion boards, and you're able to e-mail questions to the instructors or e-mail questions to other students, whatever. Whatever you needed clarified was no problem. Instead of raising your hand and asking a question, you just put it in the form of an e-mail, and they're always very, very good about getting back with the answers. So I really enjoyed the online classes.

Janelle: Did you continue to work, then, while you attended Post?

Jay: Yes, I did.

Janelle: And how did you sort of juggle your work life with your education?

Jay: Usually when I got home from work I would sit down in the afternoon on the computer and go ahead and do my work for the day and be done in a few hours and have the rest of the evening to myself, so it really wasn't that bad.

Janelle: What are some of your best memories of going to Post? I mean, even though you were online and you didn't have that face-to-face interaction, you didn't have the traditional on-campus experience, but you had the online campus experience. So what would you say were some of your best memories?

Jay: My best memories were just being able to fit getting a degree into my life now, where if I had to go to campus, I don't know if I would have been able to do it as quickly as I did online. That was one of my best memories, I guess, was being able to actually do it.

Janelle: What was your interaction with the instructors like online?

Jay: All the instructors were great. Like I said, if you ever had any questions, you could just put it in the form of an e-mail and send it to them. Otherwise the instructors would get involved in the discussion board threads and they would offer insight, they would answer any questions that you had, they would clarify your answers or other students' answers, and would get involved in the debates or almost stir the pot a little bit to get the debates going a little bit. They were great. Plus they had their own lecture sections, so every week you'd go on and open up their lecture and go through it, and that's how you would learn for the week and match that up with what's in the textbook. And it worked out really, really well.

Janelle: Jay, do you think you were able to apply what you were learning at Post to your job at the police department in real time?

Jay: Yes, I was. Even classes that weren't involving criminal justice, they always had something in the class that I learned that I could use in not only my professional life, but just in my everyday life. You know, talking with other people or even at dinner conversations or watching the news, you can understand different stories a little bit better and so it was very real time. Every time you learn something you can find somewhere in your life to apply that to.

Janelle: Do you keep in touch with any instructors or any of your classmates from Post still?

Jay: No, not really. I do see Dr. Nardozzi and speak with him on a regular basis. As a matter of fact, he just wrote me a letter of recommendation. I just applied to law school.

Janelle: Oh, great.

Jay: So we'll see how that goes.

Janelle: So you are, like you said, you're now pursuing a law degree?

Jay: Yes. I mean, I've got to see if I get in first, but that is the next -- the plan is to go part-time to law school for the next few years.

Janelle: And how did you think of law? Has that been a long-time passion of yours or is that something relatively new that you thought you might want to get into?

Jay: It's relatively new. When I retire from the police department, I'm going to want to do something else, but still stay in the criminal justice field and still try to stay on this side of the court system. So I thought of being a lawyer, possibly a prosecutor would be almost the next logical step. So we'll see how it goes with the application and go from there.

Janelle: If you could go back to Post again, Jay, and change anything about your educational path or what classes you took or anything along those lines, would you change anything? And, if so, what?

Jay: No, I don't think I would. I did actually think about going back to Post and getting into their MBA program, and still may even do that depending on how law school goes, depending on where life takes me in the next few years. But I would definitely attend another Post program and don't think I would really go back and change much about the one that I went through. I really enjoyed it.

Janelle: So, Jay, would you recommend Post to a friend or a colleague?

Jay: Yes, absolutely I would.

Janelle: Great. Well, Jay, it was great talking with you. Good luck with your law school endeavor.

Jay: Thank you very much.

Ex Post Facto

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:26:09 PDT

Here's a special cartoon to celebrate Post University's Commencement tomorrow. Congratulations to the Class of 2012!

Post University cartoon by Dave Blazek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

4 ways academic affairs can better meet campus and online students' needs

noreply@blogger.com (Donald Mroz, Ph.D.) — Fri, 04 May 2012 08:30:57 PDT

NOT ELEMENTARY: College and university academic affairs offices
are being challenged to better support campus and online students' needs

There's no doubt the needs of college and university students have changed with the introduction of online degree programs. Many online students are adult learners, for instance, who need higher education options with flexible scheduling. They demand an efficient and practical education, with classes that directly relate to real-world business situations. This in turn better serves employers, who seek employees with the right education, skill, experience, and talent mix to perform their jobs well.

As a result, university academic affairs offices nationwide are under increasing pressure to adapt their services to better support students' needs, and by extension, the needs of the employers who hire them. Post University's academic affairs office is no exception. As an educational institution that offers a traditional campus-based program and a substantial and growing online program, we've been tasked with developing new ways to better meet the needs of our diverse student population.

I recently wrote about four of our latest approaches in an article for Huffington Post. I wanted to point you to it to give you some ideas for how academic affairs can better meet and manage today's changing student needs. Give it a read, and let us know what you think. Anything you'd add?

Steve Hargadon presents 10 cultural changes shaping the future of education

noreply@blogger.com (Jane Bailey, Ed.D.) — Thu, 03 May 2012 09:02:24 PDT

As promised, we're starting to roll out videos and podcasts from Post University's Online Learning Conference 2012. First up is the keynote session by education futurist Steve Hargadon. He focused on presenting 10 cultural changes he believes are shaping the future of education. He also covered what this future of education, or this "new education narrative," looks like, along with seven ways educators can drive the new education narrative. His presentation is worth watching, and I encourage you to stay tuned for the full video.

This clip also includes the opening plenary session by Ronald J. Pugliese, Director of Economic Development for the City of Waterbury, and Frank Mulgrew, President of the Online Education Institute of Post University. So, as I alluded to in my last blog post, you'll be also able to hear Ron talk about why he believes the future of Waterbury is vibrant, and the role he sees Post University playing in helping bring positive change to the city's community in the coming years.

Hit play, sit back, and let us know what you think of what you see.

Or, if you'd prefer, give the transcript of the video a read. We've added subheads to the transcript to make it easier for you to scroll down to the parts that interest you the most. Here's what's included:

Post University's Dedication to the Future of Education
The Future of Waterbury and Post University's Role Within It
Welcome for Steve Hargadon
The Future of Education Introduction
Why the Traditional Education Narrative is Shifting
10 Cultural Changes Shaping the Future of Education
The New Education Narrative
7 Ways Educators Can Drive the New Education Narrative
Q&A

Post University's Dedication to the Future of Education
By Frank Mulgrew

Welcome, it's good to see all of you here. It's my pleasure to stand in front of you at a time in higher education when things are truly transforming. Anyone who's involved in higher ed knows the transformation is occurring. They can feel it, whether they're part of it directly, or they're feeling it around them, it's happening. This conference is very much dedicated to that.

Post University as an institution is also dedicated to that future. Therefore, [that's] why we have a conference called Shaping the Future. So I want to welcome all of you from near and far to the conference today, and I hope you get a lot out of the sessions, the keynote speaker, and the discussions that you have amongst each other.

As a matter of business, I want to thank our sponsors for their generosity. Each one of them has been a really fantastic partner for Post University. So I'd like to thank Pearson, Blackboard, Cengage Learning, Tutor.com, and McGraw-Hill for sponsoring today's event.

The history of Post University is wrapped up in Waterbury. We were founded in 1890, and have been a part of the Waterbury community ever since then. But we're less focused on the past, now. What we're now thinking is the present and the future. The future of Waterbury is looking really, really bright, and we want to be part of making Waterbury an education hub, a center of the future of education, and we believe this mayor and his staff are really dedicated to that future.

We're also dedicated as a community member. We want to be an active community member and provide jobs, growth, opportunities, community development. So it is my great pleasure to introduce Mr. Ron Pugliese, who is the Director of Economic Development for the City of Waterbury and also the father of an alum of Post University.

The Future of Waterbury and Post University's Role Within It
By Ronald J. Pugliese

Well, good morning everybody. First of all let me, on behalf of the City of Waterbury and Mayor Neal O'Leary, welcome you to this absolutely beautiful downtown and absolutely beautiful Mattatuck Museum.

Post University, as Frank said, had its start right around the corner here. I've had the opportunity this morning to speak to some people from outside of Waterbury, and in some cases, outside of the State of Connecticut. So for those people that are not familiar with Waterbury, let me especially welcome you and thank you for being here. It's very important.

The future of Waterbury, as Frank indicated -- I think he stole my notes, actually -- but the future of Waterbury is extremely bright. We're working very hard with a whole series of partners, and one of our most important partners is Post University. We are so proud of the growth of Post University. I grew up here. I remember walking to Wilby High School, which is up the hill here, and walking by a small building, right down the street, that was Post College back in the 1960s.

And today, to see where Post has gone, physically, at the campus and the west end of this city, and to see the extraordinary growth in online learning, I couldn't be as a citizen of Waterbury, as a citizen of this community, as a native of Waterbury, more proud of the partnership that we've always had with Post, and the evolving and continually, more important partnership that we will continue to have with this great university.

Frank mentioned one of my sons. I have three sons. I'm extremely proud of all three of them. My second and third son, as I was telling some people here this morning, went the traditional route: high school, college, graduate school, got their master's. Couldn't be more proud of these two young men.

My oldest son went a different route. Went to several colleges. Unfortunately, [they] didn't quite work out. Got married, has children of his own, and decided after getting into a law enforcement career, that he wanted to get his degree. And I tell you, as proud as I am of my second and third sons, I could not be more proud of my oldest son as a graduate of Post University online, and part of this extraordinary growth that has occurred right here in the City of Waterbury.

So as a representative of Mayor O'Leary, as a representative of the city, and a representative, quite frankly, of where the future of this city is going, I'm very, very happy to be here today to welcome every single one of you here. Keep in tune with where Waterbury and where Post is going, as partners, because it's going straight north. We're going straight upward, and we couldn't be more enthusiastic.

So thank you, enjoy your time in Waterbury. For those of you who don't live here, come on back. Every single day you come back, you'll see some new things here. We're doing some very positive things, and as I said, a very positive partnership with a great university. I couldn't be happier to be here. So thank you all very much. Have a great day.

Welcome for Steve Hargadon
By Frank Mulgrew

So now I have the great pleasure of introducing our guest speaker. Steve Hargadon is the founder of classroom 2.0, host of the Future of Education interview series, and co-chair of the Global Education and Library 2.0 Worldwide Conferences. He is also the Emerging Technologies Chair for ISTE.

His thinking, what he's thinking about the future, is directly in line with this conference. He's thinking about shaping the future. I was reading all sorts of quotes from various educators across the country about Steve, and what they kept on saying was his quiet and easygoing demeanor, but how influential he was in where education is going, K-12, higher education, all of it, into the future. So it is my great pleasure to introduce to you our 2012 keynote speaker, Steve Hargadon.

The Future of Education Introduction
By Steve Hargadon

Wouldn't it be nice if we all lived up to our bios? I'm quietly reshaping education. This is really fun for me. I really enjoyed preparing for this. I feel like it's a privilege to come and talk to you on this topic. Before we get started, I want you to turn to your neighbor, take 30 seconds, and tell them a passion, a skill, or a talent you have. A passion, skill, or talent. And I'm going to come down and join you here, because, OK, I know it's hard to stop that exercise.

I want you to note the energy in the room. Could you feel the energy in the room? We're going to come back to this at the end, but this is always really fun to do because it really produces an enormous amount of energy. Human energy. So I do an interview series called the Future of Education. I think I'm up to about 250 interviews. I've been privileged to interview people like Ken Robinson and Dan Pink, but also a lot of sort of boots-on-the-ground educators, and it's really fun just to talk about what's going on in education right now.

Why the Traditional Education Narrative is Shifting

So there's a growing consensus amongst them, and amongst a lot of people, that education is broken. But it's kind of intriguing because that's not a full narrative, is it? I mean if we go to our neighbors, a lot of them will say they don't see anything that's not going well. They feel very comfortable with everything. And yet there is this sort of growing consensus amongst the group who are thinking about education that something in fact is wrong, and that institutions like Post are addressing [it].

So that would be the factory model, this factory model system we have. There was a woman here, and she and I both share 8th graders right now. And it's really fun to watch an 8th grader flourish with a teacher who's really, really exciting to them. But then also, you cringe when they come home with memorizing names and dates for history, and you say, where are the stories?

Well when I was growing up, this factory model was the narrative. I sat in the chair. I was obedient. I listened. That was my job. I knew that and I did it very well, and yet we know that doesn't really, at some level, that doesn't work for us now.

So for higher ed, this question of broken would be, is there a tuition bubble? Right? What are graduation rates? And what are employment rates? Is higher ed actually serving the students well? And these are questions that I'm hearing asked every day. So today we're going to go through three areas.

First is, I'm going to make the argument that this is a time of real change, not just that every generation feels that they're sort of at the cusp of history, but that we really are at a place of significant change. That there are 10 cultural changes that are worth paying attention to, and how that impacts education and a shift in this educational narrative.

And the main argument I'm going to make is that even though we think education is driven by pedagogy, that it's actually driven by culture. That we're seeing a technology shift that's creating a large cultural shift, and that cultural shift is changing our expectations for education, and that education is changing because of those cultural changes.

So a time of real change. This is something else that all these people agree on. That there's something really significant happening now. Something at the level of the advent of the printing press. We're seeing a change of what it means to be human at a level that we've probably never seen in our generation and in many generations. So, their argument would be we're going through this change -- the biggest change maybe in human culture in centuries, possibly ever.

When I came here, the first thing I did when I checked in the hotel was I actually noticed that there was 4G on my phone. I don't get 4G at home, right? So then I pulled out an app, and I said, which direction is the tower? And the app showed by an arrow, the direction of the tower. Then I said to the gentleman, I need a room that faces this direction. Then I Instagrammed the screenshot of my phone telling me the direction.

OK, so I don't know about you, but when I buy a book now (and I typically buy from Amazon), if I go into a physical book store, I feel I owe it to them to actually purchase the book I find there. But if I buy a book on Amazon, I'm buying a book because of other people's reviews. The institution has lost some power. If I go out to a restaurant, I go to Yelp or I go to Google Maps, and I look up the restaurant, and then I look at the reviews.

There's something that's really changed here in terms of where I get my information, and who I trust. So this is a change in who has voice, and it's also a very serious power shift. I'm not going to use the word the rest of the presentation, but it's a de-institutionalization that's taking place. The institution has less power and the consumer has more voice.

Do you recognize this scene? So this is Tahrir Square. This is representative of the degree to which these technologies are changing governance and discussions around governance. Creating a new governance in one of the world's oldest societies is not easy, but interestingly enough, who has voice here who didn't have voice before? And what did the government in Egypt do to try and restrict what was taking place? They turned off Facebook and Twitter. These places where there was voice and power.

We're now getting to participate in the world's great conversations. Governance is one of the world's great conversations and those people in Tahrir Square are participating in that conversation. We're participating in a conversation now about education. One of life's great questions, where many more of us are getting to participate because of these technologies.

This is a great series, the great conversations. Does anybody know who publishes this series? Britannica. Again, there's an interesting story there. A 200-year-old physical encyclopedia, now having been displaced by comparable online offerings. So this is the orderly view of the change that we're going through.

So we had the apprenticeship era. The parents were responsible. The content was practical skills. The pedagogy was apprenticeship. Took place at the home. And then we moved to universal schooling as part of the industrial revolution, and the state became responsible. The content was disciplinary knowledge. The assessment was testing. And the location was at school.

And now in this very orderly fashion, we're going to move to lifelong learning as part of the knowledge revolution. Individuals and parents are responsible. The content is learning how to learn. The assessment is embedded. The location is anywhere.

So this is what I think the realistic view is. It doesn't feel orderly. I know a lot of teachers who are saying to me, I'm going to retire, but I'm not ready to go through the changes that are taking place. This is like a tidal wave.

And I like to say that there are three people in this picture you can't really see, but who are there. One is the person on the beach, who's looking at the buildings and doesn't even see the tidal wave. They just don't know it's coming. There's another person, and that person is on the wave. Is there anybody here who's tweeting? Brave enough to admit they're tweeting. So young lady, you're on the wave. So she's on the wave and she's tweeting. I'm on the wave and I'm 50 feet out.

And the third person's on the beach, not looking at the buildings, but looking at the wave and saying, how in the world is she possibly tweeting? How can you be surfing a wave and tweeting at the same time? I can barely walk and chew gum, and now everybody's sharing everything and they've got all this stuff going on. How do they do it, and how do they read all the blogs, and how do they put themselves out there?

10 Cultural Changes Shaping the Future of Education

I don't think this feels orderly. I think it feels like a huge tidal wave and we're trying to figure it out. That's part of what we're doing. We're building narratives to understand the change, and not just understand it, but to be able to communicate that change to others in a compelling way to say, this is what education exists for. This is why we're devoted to teaching and learning. So again, a technology shift creates culture shifts, creates an educational shift.

1. Culture of participation

So I created 10 changes for this talk. It could have been 50. But I picked 10 that I thought were apropos to this conversation. Number one is we're seeing a culture of participation. I don't think this is new. I have three daughters. We've read the "Little House on the Prairie" series three times out loud, and there was a culture of participation. But I don't think this is new. I think we've come back to it, and sort of on steroids.

Web 1.0, when the web came out, we treated it like we treated everything else that we previously had had, right? So we read, we received, and we researched. That was how the web was when it first came out for us. Web 2.0 is about contributing, collaborating, and creating. All of a sudden, we were in a peer relationship instead of a subservient one.

The phrase Web 2.0 came from a man named Tim O'Reilly, who was trying to describe why certain companies had survived the dot-com bust, and others had not. That description is highly technical, but to me it really comes down to Web 2.0 is a framework for user participation. If you think about the companies that survived the dot-com bust, the ones that we now call Web 2.0, they are institutions in a new way. They don't provide the content. They provide a place for us to supply the content to each other.

So if I go to Flickr or YouTube or Facebook or Twitter, I'm not going to see what those companies have to say or to show me. I'm going to see what other users have to say. And that's what Web 2.0 is. It's about institutions allowing us to connect with each other. And that's what great institutions are now doing, is they're allowing their users to connect with each other. They're facilitating those connections.

So the Internet's become this unparalleled platform, right? For participation, and interestingly enough, that's happening largely outside of formal institutions. And that's kind of this dilemma. That's this dilemma of all of these guests. There's so much learning taking place, so much active participation, but it's not happening where we wanted it to or where we thought it was, or where we have a vested interest in it taking place.

2. Culture of creation

OK, #2 is we're seeing a culture of creation. I don't know about you, but I didn't feel like I created a lot growing up. I have a box full of every paper I wrote in high school and college. And my wife says, throw it away. I'm like, no way. Why do I feel so strongly about that box? Well because I wrote those papers wanting them to be seen, and they were only seen by my teacher and my mother. And I'm sorry Dad, but you never read 'em! Right? OK, so we want to be creators. We're interested in that, and yet I don't feel like I was a creator growing up.

My kids are creators. They create. We may argue about the grammar. We may argue about all of the informalities associated with that creation, but they are creators. The digital camera alone. I was a photo buff growing up. I loved taking photographs. My daughter takes probably 10,000 photographs for every one I took, because you had to carefully guard that film. Because it was going to cost you to get it developed and then printed. Well, she can go out and do all these shots while she's using a flash and she's jumping up and down on the bed or something and she'll take 150 photos without thinking about it.

Anybody using Instagram? Anybody have a child using Instagram? That daughter who took those thousands and thousands of photos is now posting them to Instagram and getting feedback from other people in a way that was really reserved only for the highest professionals until this generation.
Instagram is brilliant, both in its simplicity and its potential to share. And it reminds us of a number of things. We're not just creating text. We're creating visual imagery. We're creating movies. YouTube, Instagram, Flickr. These are media that are becoming compelling for their ability to communicate, and for our ability to create in this culture of creation.

This is my friend, Kevin. So Kevin has amyloidosis. It's a rare condition. Typically, when you're diagnosed with amyloidosis, it's a terminal diagnosis. It's a protein deposit in your organs, and his was largely confined to his heart. So they decided to do one of the first heart transplants for someone with amyloidosis.

I didn't know Kevin at the time. He was about a block up. I knew of him. So I called and said, Kevin, sometimes when people go through a difficult health issue, they like to blog because then they save themselves all of the telephone calls. You don't know me (I was leaving a message), but I'd be glad to help you set up a blog.

He called me back the day before going into the Mayo Clinic and he said, I'd love to have a blog. So his wife's name is Barbie. So it's KevinAndBarbie.com. OK, so Kevin is now the world's foremost expert on amyloidosis and heart transplants. Now he happens to be a physician. But he doesn't have any professional credentials around amyloidosis and heart transplants, but his blog is the place people go to learn about amyloidosis and heart transplants. People have written him and said, You've saved my life. He created out of nothing, he created a space for that conversation.

I have a skin condition called vitiligo. I don't know if you're going to be able to see it. It's the Michael Jackson skin disorder. You lose pigment in your skin. I'm very light-skinned, so it doesn't bother me, but if you're dark skinned and you have vitiligo, it's enormously debilitating.

So one night I'm thinking, hmm I have vitiligo. I know how to build social networks. Why don't I build a social network for people with vitiligo? Literally three hours later, it's up online. It is now the world's largest network for people with vitiligo. Created. Didn't require a foundation. Didn't require a mailing list. Didn't require money. Just created. Right?

These are in essence, these creations become our resume. In fact, they're much more powerful than our resume. This is my daughter's website, the oldest daughter. Not the 8th grader. She does theater for kids with autism. You've probably never thought of that, but those of you who know children on the autism spectrum have probably just now said, oh that's kind of brilliant. Because theater is practiced socializing. And autism is a disorder that affects the social skills, so she has more work than she knows what to do with.

She couldn't convince her university professors to let her do this in the university, so as soon as she graduated, she put up the website, she started doing interviews, and she now does this professionally. She created.

3. Culture of sharing

And #3 is a culture of sharing. This is intriguing to me because we've got lots of stories in higher ed about difficulties in sharing, right? Ryerson University and the Facebook group, and suing the student, bringing him up on academic charges. And then he sues them back? You've got the guy in Florida who sues the students for posting his lecture notes, because those lecture notes are copyrighted material. We've got conflict around sharing, but the web is clearly bringing us a culture of sharing.

Wikipedia is very much a shared information piece. Anybody use Wikipedia? Anybody use it daily? Anybody use it hourly? I actually watched the movie the other night, it was about a peacekeeper, a woman who goes Bosnia and she discovers that terrible things are going on there. And I'm watching the movie on my laptop on the left hand side of my screen. I have Wikipedia open on the right hand side of the screen. I'm actually researching while I'm watching the movie. I was kind of blown away, but this is a culture of sharing.

We now have a licensing system for sharing. Anybody using Creative Commons? Creative Commons is a license. I want this shared and I'm going to tell you how it's OK to share, rather than, "I'm protecting, cannot use unless you contact me," I want to share my content. Here's how it has to be attributed, or it has to be for noncommercial purposes, or whatever it is. But there are a variety of licenses now under Creative Commons for sharing. This is a culture of sharing.

When my kids post their pictures on Instagram, nobody's asking for permissions. I take Jane's picture and I post it on Instagram. Ten years ago, I would have had to ask you to sign a form, a release form to actually post that. There's a shift here to sharing, which is very different. They call this a gift economy. This is an actual phrase used to describe an ecosystem where sharing is the primary method of getting things done.

So I share with you. I give you attribution. I promote what you're doing. I'm not looking necessarily for the gain to me. We often think of, well I'll say this -- David Wylie, who runs a number of Open Education Resource projects, will say that we often think that we're a honeybee. If we give knowledge or we sting somebody, we're going to die. We can't give it away. The bee that stings loses its stinger and the bee is going to die.

We're not honeybees. We're like people lighting candles. The famous Thomas Jefferson quote, I can light your candle. It doesn't diminish mine at all. And if we light all the candles in the room, there's more light in the room. Well that's how education really is, right? At core we believe that knowledge liberates and it provides light. And this culture on the web is a culture of sharing. It's a culture of lighting candles and having more light available.

4. Culture of conversation

It's also a culture of conversation. When I asked you that question about your passions and interests, there were probably 50 conversations going on. Now if I come into a room like this, do I need to hear every conversation? No, but I have value and engagement in the conversation that I'm in. And that's intriguing to me because if we look at the web, the web has now become this place of conversation. All of these conversations are taking place.

And you can look at the web and say, well, it's too much. Why would I ever contribute if there are already great videos on algebra? Why would I add another video? Or if there's already all of this content, why would I participate? Well, for the same reason when you come into the room, you don't stop talking. You get value from that conversation with someone else. The web has become this great place of conversation. Conversations that we can't participate in all of them, but we get the value from the ones we're in.

5. Culture of information

It's a culture of information. This is intriguing to me. Anybody hear of Big Data? Big Data is just the enormous amounts of data that we're now able to collect and then thinking about how you actually analyze that data. There's so much information now from the web. Do you recognize these photos? And it's not just that there's information, it's that there's information everywhere.

These devices that we carry. This is my Android phone that has that lovely 4G signal right now. This device, it's not actually a phone. My this is the Galaxy Nexus, and it had a problem, and I was without this phone for four days, and I cared more about the fact that I was without my phone, I keep saying, my device, than if I had lost my computer. This device is better than the Dick Tracy watch. In fact, it rivals the Star Trek Communicator. There's actually an app I can put on this phone to emulate the Star Trek Communicator.

We have online learning. This is the famous chart from Clay Christiansen on disrupting class, showing the growth of online learning. Not from a pedagogical standpoint, but just from the growth of a technology where we have access to information anywhere.

This is Flip Learning. You've probably been hearing about Flip Learning. I'm glad they switched the name. Three years ago, this came out of Texas known as Teaching Naked. The idea was that you went into the class without an actual structured outline for what you were going to do because the content had been provided to the students before. Well, I'm glad we've moved on right? I'd much rather be a Flip Learner.

But Flip Learning is like Khan Academy. It's the video taping of the course content and then coming to the class and having the discussion in the class. There's also, because of this information everywhere, I think going to be a huge change in textbooks. I think we're going to fire our textbooks. We're literally going to say, you don't serve any useful purpose, and you cost a lot of money, why would I use you? Because I can aggregate web content now, and I can create a place for conversation around that content that's much richer than a textbook has been.

6. Mobile culture

We're also a mobile culture. Does anybody know the statistics on the number of mobile phones in the world? Tracey Wilen-Daugenti, who wrote a book called "Society 3.0," who works for the Apollo Group, quoted a statistic that 70 percent of the world's population has access to a mobile phone. Now I really have to wonder about that, because multiple devices, again, I'm not sure that that's actually 70 percent of the world's population. Maybe if you take the total population of the world, 70 percent would be the number of actual devices, but it's still stunning.

Someone announced last week that 40 percent of high schoolers have an iPhone. An iPhone! I don't know if these are accurate numbers, but they're close enough to accuracy that I kind of nod my head and think wow, right? This is a mobile culture. We have all of these devices. It's off-grid online.

I used to provide email labs for conferences, because I did a lot with open source software, so I could show how you take all these old, used computers and set them up as a lab for email. Have you been to a conference lately with an email lab? They don't have them anymore. Why? Because you check your email on your device. You don't have to go to a computer anymore.

Does anybody recognize this photo? Huge bonus points if you do. Yes, what's it from? You think it's Next Generation? This is from an old Star Trek -- remember they used to carry a tablet around? Right, this was essentially the iPad how many years ago? This has actually come out in the court cases on the trademark issues related to the tablets, because who really invented the look and feel of the tablet? Well clearly it wasn't Apple or Samsung or anybody else. Some geeky nerd who was working on the Star Trek set. Yes!

7. Global culture

OK, we're now a global culture. When I was in high school, I went on an exchange program and I lived in Brazil for a year. That was a big deal. I think in the United States, there are fewer than 1,500 students a year who actually go live abroad as part of an exchange program. It's a small number. And it's actually a small number in college who study overseas.

But intriguingly, we're becoming a global culture. I talk to somebody in another part of the world almost daily now, if it's not through Skype or some other program, I'm communicating in a way that just didn't happen before. My 18-year-old daughter, the second daughter, just got back from doing humanitarian work in Nepal for six months. And I'm kind of stunned by how easy that was to do. And the fact that that now is so culturally close.

This is Anne Merchan, who's an accounting teacher in a small rural school in Australia, who, if you see pictures of her, she's at a high school level. You see the picture of the school. There are cows in the background. And she brings in people from all over the world to her students routinely.
This was bringing in the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, for which she actually invited the whole world to attend. So they had students from all over the world listening to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra talking about what they do.

If you think about our definitions of innovation, we've typically thought that people bring ideas from one area or industry into another, and that that's a large part of how innovation takes place. And what we're seeing now is incredible global innovation. Ideas brought from one place in the world to another almost instantaneously, an amount of hours rather than weeks and months or years.

This is that conference I hold. This is the Global Education Conference. It has over 10,000 participant log-ins, five days, 24 hours a day, 300 to 400 sessions over the course of a week for people all over the world to talk about globally connecting in education. It's astounding.

Tomorrow -- Jane knows, because I'm staying here in order to do this -- I'm running a conference called the Social Learning Summit on the use of Web 2.0 and social software in education. Seventy-three sessions over the course of six hours, but online and free. People presenting from 12 countries. Stunning.

8. Social culture

Okay, we're a social culture. Now this is really intriguing to me. We have the rise of social networking. First we had blogs. Anybody here ever blog? Keep your hand up if you're still blogging. So that's maybe a tenth of the room, slightly less. The blogs were a great tool for being able to communicate for creating those social connections, but they were limited because they were chronological and you had to learn something about the technology to do it.

Then came wikis. Arguably a much better medium for communication than a blog. Multiple authorship, create multiple pages, good hyperlinking system. How many of you actively create a wiki? Ten percent down to maybe two people total. Why would the better technology not have created more usage?

Then comes social networking. So Facebook doesn't release their numbers publically on a very regular basis. The most recent figure was about 845,000. I think the official announcement was 750. I think everybody expects they're waiting for a billion users before they make the next big announcement. But if Facebook were a country, it would be the world's third largest country.

How many of you belong to a social network? What's the difference? We can argue that it's the technology. We can argue that what social networking does is uniquely bring you in to an environment, allow you with multiple tools. It's not as constrained as blogging or wikis. But the argument I would bring is that it recognized the social. That immediately, it helps you connect with other people that we know. That our lives are social.

My dad, who could be for all intents and purposes now defined as a recluse, he's older, he's retired, he's in his home. He still emails me and my brother an article at least once a day. He's sharing with two people. But that's sharing. And we're kind of built to share. It fulfills something in us. And Facebook and these other companies recognize that. In addition to a lot of other themes that we've talked about -- creation, participation -- but there's something about the social that we're re-recognizing, that we're seeing the value of.

This is my Classroom 2.0 social network, started five years ago for educators interested in Web 2.0 social networking. It now has 66,000 members. That's a drop in the bucket compared to Facebook, but the truth is it's actually too large for the conversation, because we don't actually want to talk to 66,000 people. We want to splinter off. The statistics show that for all the friends we have on Facebook, we actually communicate on a regular basis with about seven of them. But we do communicate and we make those connections.

9. Grassroots culture

Number nine, we're a grassroots culture. This is where I dive a little bit deep. So our traditional way of getting things done was that we had an institutional idea. We created a plan, we went to market, we sometimes had to incentivize participation, sometimes had to incentivize for the ultimate goal of getting to participation. This is how most institutions do things. I'm sure that none of you experience this at all in your current roles, right? This is how we do things. We get an idea, we plan, we market, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

This is the new social model. So intriguingly, it starts with participation, but not mandated. Participation by choice. When you go to someplace on the web, you're going to where you want to go. So if you got vitiligo friends or you go to Classroom 2.0 or you go to Flickr or you go to Instagram, you're going somewhere you want to go and that personal participation leads you to participating publically.

So you make a choice. You're going to post something, you're going to be involved, you're going to be active. You then end up joining into a community of people and then sometimes that community actually goes to a level where they're doing things for the benefit of others that not even relate to the community.

So if this is Encyclopedia Britannica. This is Wikipedia. And intriguingly Wikipedia serves a whole group of people who don't contribute at all to Wikipedia. So this bottom-up, this grassroots movement ends in the civic, much more often than the institutional does, because the institution is based on certain structure, financial rewards, compensation, and the like. So the intriguing part here is that the institutional idea and the end result community look very, very similar.

Britannica Online and Wikipedia are both online encyclopedias. They look similar, but they're created completely differently. Oftentimes I'll have someone come to me and say, you created Classroom 2.0, a social network with 66,000 people. We are trying to create a social network within our school community. We can't get four people to join.

And I'll go through this and say the difference is people are forming from the grass roots up, rather than from the institutional down. And you have to figure that out and respect it. There's a whole set of lessons we won't get into today, that when you shift your mindset, you think about how you help those users participate with each other and what they're looking for.

10. Long-tail culture

I told you we were going to go deep, and even slightly deeper. We're in a long-tail culture. This is a pretty famous graph. Anybody seen it? It must not be that famous. This is a power law curve. And this was from a book called "The Long Tail" by Chris Anderson. And this curve describes demand.

Let's say we're talking about music or books. The books or music that sell the most are at the head of the curve, are the ones that generate enough revenue to get into a retail store. So I used to say if I go into a Borders bookstore, but I can't say that anymore, right? So if I go into a Barnes and Noble, and I'm looking at the books, those books have to sell enough copies to justify being in a physical bookstore.

What Amazon discovered was that all of these other books that don't sell enough copies to get into the physical bookstore, there's still a demand for them. It's just that the demand isn't great enough to justify the distribution warehouse, advertising costs. But Amazon starting selling in this long tail, because they could actually figure out a way to have five copies of a book in one single warehouse in the United States, instead of having to put five copies on every shelf in a physical bookstore.

Amazon now sells more books that aren't sold in a traditional bookstore than are. In aggregate, Amazon sells more product in the long tail than the head of the tail. This is really intriguing to me, because in part what it may be telling us is that if this is the corporate world, if this is the traditional high volume world that we're used to, this long tail world may actually eclipse our traditional world in terms of volume, which has huge implications for the kind of jobs that we'll have and for the kind of skills that we need.

If I'm that compliant student, who graduated from high school in 1979, and knows exactly when to raise my hand and when not to, then I'm really well-suited to this world, this hierarchical, corporate-compliance-oriented world.

But if my daughter, who graduates from college in 2008, is doing theatre for kids with autism, she's down in this world. What skills does she need that are different from these skills? She needs the ability to create a website, to feel entrepreneurial, to be self-engaged, to take initiative. These are very different skills and I'm intrigued by this, because this long tail world has potentially really huge implications for us and for how we think about who we are and what we do.

Again, this is my friend Kevin. He's in the long tail. He could make a living from this, but he doesn't. This is my vitiligo network. Again, this is in that long tail world. I got an offer to work for a vitiligo research company. Of course that's not my interest, but it could have been my professional career. And it is for my daughter. This is what she does in that long tail.

The New Education Narrative

OK, was it too deep? Did we dive too deeply or are we OK? So we have these 10 cultural changes, and if my argument is that we are seeing technology changes that then drive culture changes that are going to drive educational changes, what's the new narrative for education? What narrative do we build out of those cultural trends?

It's certainly not for me, the factory model narrative. I can't tell my 8th-grade daughter that she should study those history memorization questions, and that's really going to serve her well, because I know in my heart she has to become engaged around something that she cares about in this new world. Or at least that's my belief.

So now we're trying to figure out what's this new narrative. I'm going to make a proposal and the fun of you as an audience is you get to push back. I want to argue that our new narrative is agency. Our new narrative is helping people to learn to act for themselves. That my narrative was compliance. It sounds stark, it sounds dramatic, but it's true. And my parents would have told you that's true. My job was to be a compliant student.

My argument is that the new learner has to be an agent, a self-learner. The autodidact is going to be king or queen. The cultural shift is that this participation reinvented is tapping our cognitive surplus. I like to say that I've had a personal cognitive revolution. When I started blogging, my brain started working differently.

I discovered someone on the Titanic. Literally. I discovered that someone who was listed on all the Titanic manifests for decades was listed wrong, because I suspected that the name that should have been Hargadon actually was Hargadon. I wrote the Irish Titanic Society and I said, I think you may have a mistake there. They went back to the original passenger manifest and said, yes in fact that was actually Kate Hargadon who was on the Titanic who died. And for years I was listed on every Titanic site as the historian who discovered Kate Hargadon. Unfortunately I don't get credit in the 100-year anniversary. Can you believe that?

But I went through a personal cognitive revolution. All of a sudden my brain started to fire differently. I was communicating with people. Instead of gathering all those papers in a box to go in my attic, I was communicating publically online and getting feedback. For me, this was a dramatic shift. And I'm seeing it in my kids. Their active engagement.

So I want to put agency in context. We already know about agency because we live in some worlds that do a really good job of balancing structure and freedom, because when we balance structure and freedom, we unleash individual energy. That's the story of democracy, and it's also the story of free market economics. These are systems that have structure, but allow for freedom within the structure.

Look what's happened to China in the last 10 years. Pretty heavy on the structure, but with just a little bit of freedom, explosive growth. It's a recognition of the individual capacity of every human being to be engaged, and for me that's agency. It's like unleashing a torrent of energy. When I was in high school, I would come home from school and I would watch Gilligan's Island. That seems pathetic, but I know I'm not alone. I could have been doing all of these other things. The world now affords incredible opportunities to be doing other things than watching a sitcom.

Clay Shirky calls this the redistribution of our cognitive surplus. He was being interviewed by a television reporter who said, how do people find the time to do all of this? And he said, you of all people have no right to ask that question, because we've been sitting in front of the television for hours every day and we're now doing something else with that time.

So structure, freedom. Where do schools, educational institutions, typically live? They've lived on the structure side. I don't think anybody's felt like they were purposefully being over-controlling, but this has sort of been our narrative model. And interestingly enough, as we move to freedom, I think we're going to see incredible opportunities. I think online learning does this in brilliant ways. It brings agency to the learner.

So if we're going to educate for agency, we have to be thinking about how to unleash individual energy and potential. How do we unleash the energy and potential to live in this world? I'm not saying this world doesn't exist, but most of the jobs in this world are being outsourced, or are going to go to robots. This is the arena in which I personally think we need to be trying to figure out how to help people become learners. So technology shift, at least the culture shift, leads to an education shift, then who's on the front lines? You are.

7 Ways Educators Can Drive the New Education Narrative

OK, so this is the break point. I have a series of slides of advice for you as individual lead learners in the learning agent world. This is an action list for you. But with these 10 cultural trends, with you as lead learners, I want to suggest there are some actions that you can take that fit the bottom-up model, rather than the top-down model.

First, have you ever seen this diagram? What do they tell you on a plane? Put on your mask first and then help others. Why your mask first? Number one, you have to be alive to help others. Number two is, that mask is a frightening thing. And you're showing the child that the mask is safe. Kind of intrigued by that.

So my #1 piece of advice for you is to be the lead learner. Don't think about anyone else, but think about your own learning. That's why I asked you that question about passion and interest. And the energy that it generated for you. What did you love doing? Rediscover that. You can't help other people become learners in the long tail world if you're not a learner in the long tail world. I can't help my kids become readers if they don't see me reading and loving reading. And as you as an instructor, an educator, your approach to learning is a significant part of how you help others. Go through that cognitive revolution yourself.

Number two, build your personal learning network. We have this incredible freedom now to find places to learn, from that bottom-up where we can go and learn the things that we want to learn. I joked about Evernote popping up the little thing coming up on my screen, but Evernote now is a collection of unique and individual learning that I have done that actually is becoming a part of my value as I pursue the things that are interest to me. I was living in that long-tail world, and if I'm right, we're all going to live in that long-tail world and we want to find the learning that fits our own interests.

Number three, start building a personal web presence. We're very comfortable describing this idea that my daughter should have a website to show what she's doing with theatre for kids with autism, or that students should build e-learning portfolios. But the moment I ask educators to build their own web presence, many of them sort of shrink back to what I said, and I'm not good enough, and why would I put anything about myself online? So intriguingly, if we want to be that learner who is out there, sort of showcasing our interests and passions and our learning, then we have to figure out how to build that same website that we would want our students, our agent learners, our long-tail workers to have. Some people get stuck on this because it feels like personal branding. My quick piece of advice is if you think of a personal brand as the way that you help others, then it really makes sense for you to showcase how you can help other people. Think of this as part of the gift economy. What can you do for others?

Number four is develop your online habitudes. So habitudes is a phrase that comes from Angela Myers, and it's the combination of habits and attitudes. It describes the ways that we approach life, and to live online to be a passionate learner, to be involved in that conversation that leads to this cognitive revolution. There's a little bit of courage required. Courage, thoughtfulness, care, think of what those online habitudes are and then begin to practice them.

Number five, become a part of the conversation. This is often hard for people, but go to a website, write something. This isn't as hard as it was three years ago, because you've likely written something on a Facebook page, you've gone public. But are you participating where it's most critical, where you care the most, the ideas around which your energy is released?

Number six is build, curate, or participate in a passion project. Start a vitiligo friends network. Really the most rewarding thing I've probably ever done. My wife is now going to be very mad at me -- are we streaming? Other than getting married and having children, one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. I get an email from someone at least once a week from someone thanking me for creating the network. It's not uncommon for me to get email from someone who says I was close to suicide until I found the network. How does a skin condition create that kind of trauma for somebody? Well, if you're dark-skinned, and you have big, bright white patches, you don't even want to go out. You get a job at night and you feel like you don't know anybody else with the condition. This has fulfilled me. You can do the same thing. You can find something that you care about where you can start the project.

And number seven is ready, set, engage. Just do it. Ok. Now we're done.

[Applause]

Do you like this new narrative? Am I touching on something you care about? Would you define the narrative different?

Q&A

[Question]

This is a dilemma that a lot of us face. I really care. And it's not that I just don't care about her knowing the dates. I really care that she's not learning the value of history. Meaning, instead of actually learning what the issues were and getting engaged, she's being asked to memorize the names and the dates. So I've been very candid with our 8th grader and said, honey you've got to get through the class. And she's very oriented to, in 8th grade she's worried about getting into college, so she does her homework three weeks in advance. She's very unique in this way.

I've just said, I don't care. You do whatever you have to do to get a good grade. But I'm going to make sure that we talk about it. I read every book that she reads in school, and I talk to her and I really engage at the same time that I'm saying to her, it's your choice. She says, what if I get a B? I'm like, honey, there's worse things in life than a B, plus nobody's looking at your 8th-grade transcript.

So our 19-year-old who just got back from Nepal, she applied to colleges when she was in Nepal. She didn't get into her first-choice school, so she sent me a note and she said, Dad, what do I do? I said, honey, #1 is just remember there's no plan B, it's always a plan A. Find something you care about, figure it out, look for another school, but don't go into plan B. Somebody made a decision. You have not failed. You've done things you've cared about in your life. You're passionately interested. There is no plan B. Make a new plan A.

So she calls me back a week later. My plan A is I'm writing the admissions office and I'm sending them a letter asking them to reevaluate my application. Awesome. Week after that, they accepted her. And it's like, OK, this is really interesting. My parents would never have given me that advice, but to me it feels as though that's the advice of this time.

There's a new book out called "I Moved Your Cheese." Do you remember the book "Who Moved My Cheese?" The idea was things are going to change. If you're in a big company, you have to learn how to change with those things. This Harvard professor writes a book called "I Moved Your Cheese." Says sometimes things change and it may not be the right thing, so you can actually go move the cheese. Become the agent.

So hopefully it's in that conversation that I'm making a balance there for my own child of letting her make the choice. And we talked about this. I think it was Admiral Trafalgar. Is that the right name? Who was the admiral who captained his first ship at 14? Horatio Nelson. OK, my daughter's 14. She could captain a ship. She doesn't know it, but she's much more capable than we give her credit for being, and I want her to make those choices. Again, that's my own personal choice for my child. Yes.

[Question]

De-institutionalization? Well we face some really interesting issues now. So the question is, do I ever worry that the de-institutionalization is becoming re-institutionalization? We all have to look at Egypt to recognize that all of a sudden in a power vacuum, people come in and there are new forms of power and new kinds of questionable activities.

Certainly in a Big Data world, we're living in a place now where we don't need to get too deeply into politics, but a liberally elected president has just signed an executive order that gives him unlimited control of the country in the case of a national emergency, which is intriguingly not what our Constitution says.

We're seeing all kinds of interesting -- now the NSA says they can keep data on American citizens for up to five years without any suspicion of terrorism. So with all this de-institutionalization comes all this power to potentially re-institutionalize in different ways that we actually, I think, have to guard against and say, this is really important. We have to protect our privacy and we have to protect independence.
So those of us who are thinking deeply at this level as learning agents have to think about freedom and what that freedom means and how you protect. I know that really went deep and I hope I didn't offend anybody with my comments.

[Question]

Yes. You're like me. You go to get the prescription medicine -- old people need prescription medicine, so why is the label in tiny text, right? Could you not make a big label for me? So the question is, is there somebody doing a good job of making big screens? Well certainly we're seeing really fun technologies come to the forefront with regard to screen and interaction, like with the CNN stuff. Are we done, Jane? Thank you so much. That was really fun.

Why 2012 is the magic year for an adult learner with disabilities

noreply@blogger.com (Donald Mroz, Ph.D.) — Wed, 02 May 2012 09:18:44 PDT

Jon Savoy was seven years old when he was involved in a car accident that has changed his life forever. The right side of his body shakes. His ability to speak and write clearly was diminished. But on May 5, at the age of 36, he will don his cap and gown, and walk with the Post University Class of 2012 to receive his bachelor's degree in human services.

Jon has obviously faced his fair share of obstacles in life. Yet, he is outgoing and outspoken. He has tenacity and perseverance. And he'll be the first to tell you his disabilities have made him a leader, because he's been forced to overcome his physical challenges and think outside of the box to accomplish his goals.

We'd like to you to meet him. Watch our video interview with Jon, where he tells the story of his accident, how he gave up on going to college, and what made him change his mind and commit to earning his college degree. We encourage you to stay tuned until the end. You'll see why.

We wanted to feature Jon's story on our blog not only because it's inspirational and uplifting, but also because Jon is an example of someone who sees higher education as a means of creating a personally rewarding future. He's now armed with knowledge and skills to get a job in his field of study and continue to make a positive impact on others.

Jon attended our Main Campus in Waterbury, and was able to tap into the array of services offered through our office of Disability Services to make completing his degree possible. And as you'll hear in the video, he also found at Post a welcoming community in which he could live, learn, and thrive.

Congratulations, Jon.

For all our readers, you can also read the transcript of our interview below.

Bob: Hi, everyone. I'm Bob Sembiante, Communications Associate at Post University. I am here on the beautiful Waterbury campus of Post on our porch of our Torrance Hall, our admissions building, and I'm here with Jon Savoy. Jon is an adult learner who will be receiving his bachelor's degree in human services. This May he'll be walking in graduation here on our campus. Jon, it's a pleasure to meet you.

Jon: A pleasure meeting you, Bob.

Bob: Thank you. Jon is an adult learner. He's 36 years old, and getting his degree. He has quite a unique story to tell and I'm actually very happy that you're here, Jon, to tell your story. There was an incident that happened early in your life which affected you greatly. A lot of people are faced with obstacles that come up as they grow up, and you had a unique one that happened to you early on. I believe you were 11 years old?

Jon: Seven.

Bob: Seven years old. You were seven years old. Would you tell us a little bit about the accident you have that became such a turning point in your life?

Jon: Yeah. I was seven years old. I'd just gotten out of school and I was going to my friend's house, but I never quite made it to my friend's house. I was hit by a car.

Bob: On your bike you were hit by a car.

Jon: Yeah.

Bob: Do you remember the moment happening?

Jon: Yes, I do. And when I got hit by the car, me and my bicycle flew up on the car's hood. I made eye contact with the driver, Andrew. He panicked or whatever, hit the brakes, sending me and my bicycle flying on the hood and landing 10 feet down the road. I snapped my vertebrae, had a massive heart attack, and grand mal seizures. I broke both legs, but I was told that I died several times on the way to the hospital. I remember the doctor telling my parents that I will never walk, talk, go to school, brush my teeth, or do any of those types of things.

Bob: Those are some extensive injuries that a seven-year-old boy has to deal with. And you're here now at age 36. You've come a long way. You're sitting here having a conversation on the college campus where you're going to graduate, which is pretty amazing. And I'd imagine that physically you had some obstacles that you had to overcome along the way. But I imagine that in society you had some obstacles to overcome as well. And I'm wondering which ones were harder to deal with? The changes you had to deal with with your family and friends accepting what happened to you, or the changes in your body?

Jon: To me, it is no dramatic change, because it happened to me when I was young and when you're young you have a better chance at bouncing back and that's what I did.

Bob: Do you remember how old you were when you decided to go to college? Was it right after high school or later?

Jon: Right after high school.

Bob: And did you immediately come to Post?

Jon: No, I didn't. I first went to Naugatuck Valley Community College which is a two-year college. But because of my obstacles and the challenges that I'm facing, I had to take another approach.

Bob: Now because you talk about the different challenges that you face, your time at Naugatuck Valley Community College took longer than average. You took 16 years there at Naugatuck and then you decided you wanted to continue.

Jon: Yes. But the reason it took 16 years was because I gave up. I just gave up on everything back in '98.

Bob: When you say you gave up everything, you mean your studies?

Jon: I gave up on college. I gave up on just about everything in '98. And a friend of the family saw me and he said, Jon, what are you doing? Nothing. I want to go back to college, but I don't have the money. And he goes, how much do you need? And I told him. And a couple weeks later he sees me walking down the street and he picks me up and we go in his bank and he takes out the money that I need and he goes, you can go. Go back to school with it. Which is what I did for him, and I've just been plugging along ever since.

Bob: You've obviously made some connections here with people. Are there any thoughts about the faculty or fellow students you've met here that you'd like to share?

Jon: The faculty and all the -- everybody at Post is -- I love them because they made me feel like such a part of their family. They were touching to me. It meant one of my own. One thing that I'm going to miss about Post is how everybody looks out for everybody and it's how, like, everybody here is like one big family and it's very touching.

Bob: Everyone in a university setting has their own challenges. No matter what age they're at, they bring their background here to the university and everyone faces different challenges -- some more than others. You've experienced that. Do you have any advice for any other college students, whether they be undergraduate or graduate, about overcoming obstacles and setting the goal like a college education?

Jon: Never give up and if you want something bad enough you can achieve it.

Bob: Jon Savoy, wow, you have absolutely -- you've blown my mind today. You have an incredible story, you have an incredible energy and way about you and I think there are a lot of people who can learn a lot from what you've gone through in your life. Thank you for talking with me today.

Jon: Thank you.

Online Learning Conference 2012 photos

noreply@blogger.com (Jane Bailey, Ed.D.) — Tue, 01 May 2012 09:56:27 PDT

We snapped some photos from Post University's Online Learning Conference 2012 that we wanted to show you on our blog. Feel free to flip through the slide show to see some of the happenings at our event. Keep your eyes on our blog for our next post about our Online Learning Conference, the video of Steve Hargadon's keynote presentation.

Some Post University 2012 graduation statistics

noreply@blogger.com (Donald Mroz, Ph.D.) — Fri, 04 May 2012 07:54:47 PDT

Post University commencement 2012 is just a few days away, and we're wrapping up with our final planning and logistics. That includes crunching the numbers on how many university graduates we have this year, the number of students who completed their degrees on our main campus, the number who completed them through our online accelerated degree program, who's coming to commencement, and more. Want to know where you fit in? Here's an infographic showing some Post University 2012 graduation statistics we thought you'd like to know.

This work by Post University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.Based on a work at blog.post.edu.Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at blog.post.edu.

Ending remedial education, the value of an MBA degree, and becoming a strategic leader: The latest topics we're talking about

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Statmore) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:39:46 PDT

Several news articles have caught our attention lately, and we wanted to weigh on some of the top issues we're seeing being discussed in education and business. Here's a roundup of our take on some of these stories in the media:

How to end remedial education by narrowing achievement gaps

The Connecticut General Assembly’s higher education committee passed a bill in March that would require the state’s public colleges and universities to eliminate non-credit stand-alone remedial classes by fall 2014. The bill has been drawing national attention, as many see it as an effort to address a long-standing obstacle to improving graduation rates.

It has also "raised questions about why so many incoming students are not prepared for college-level work and what can be done about it," according to Nancy L. Zimpher, Chancellor of the State University of New York. She writes in an Inside Higher Ed article that everyone who has a stake in a child’s education (parents, educators, civic groups, employers, and government leaders) must collaborate better to immediately address weaknesses they see in a child's learning progress, before they become larger challenges that require remediation.

Jane Bailey, Dean of Post University's School of Education, has been following the legislation. She commented on Nancy's article, writing that reducing and eliminating the need for remediation goes beyond "connecting the dots between cradle and career." Jane described several strategies she believes are required to reduce or end remediation. Flip over to her comment to see what they are.

4 ways to create a more valuable MBA degree program

Here's one line that we couldn't have agreed with more when we saw it in Businessweek: "The world is forever changing, and MBA programs must keep pace, educating students for the future." It's part of an article written by Thomas S. Robertson, Dean of the Wharton School and Reliance Professor of Management and Private Enterprise at the University of Pennsylvania.

Thomas went on to talk about the value of an MBA, and how you often see two schools of thought on what an MBA degree program should focus on. He says most business executives want MBA programs to emphasize practicality and real-world use, while many university professors believe they should center around academic theory.

After Don Mroz, Post University's Provost and Dean of the School of Business, read the article, he left a comment about why MBA degree programs today must strike a balance between teaching rigorous academic theory, while also providing opportunities for students to apply what they're learning to solve real-world business challenges. Don went on to explain four ways to achieve this balance and create a more valuable MBA degree program, which you can read about by clicking over to the article.

To become a strategic leader, don't forget to slow down

Author and entrepreneur Paul J. H. Schoemaker recently wrote an article for Inc. tackling one of the most common challenges business leaders and professionals face every day: How to be a more strategic thinker. Many of us tend to get caught up in our day-to-day that we can lose sight of our business objectives, and act more tactically rather than strategically.

The article caught the eye of Doug Brown, Academic Program Manager for Post University's Online MBA Program. He recently wrote a post on our blog in this same vein about four ways to slow down and become a better business owner.

From where Doug sits, most business owners and leaders are not only dealing with the matters directly in front of them, they're also doing it faster than ever before. He expounded on this in a comment on the Inc article, including some advice worth reading to help business owners and professionals keep their eye on the ball and become more strategic leaders.

What are your thoughts on these issues? Any feedback or advice to add?

19 perspectives on the future of online higher education in America

noreply@blogger.com (Jane Bailey, Ed.D.) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 11:30:50 PDT

A NEW NARRATIVE: Steve Hargadon analyzes education shifts
during our Online Learning Conference 2012

With 19 presenters at Post University's Online Learning Conference 2012 last week, there was nothing short of 19 perspectives on the issues, trends, and technologies shaping the future of online higher education in America.

If you were there, you have probably formulated some of your own thoughts on what you saw. And if you weren't able to make it to our event in Waterbury, Conn., you haven't missed out. We recorded all 14 sessions and will be posting them on our blog throughout the coming weeks. You can follow them by bookmarking our Online Learning Conference 2012 tag.

But first, I wanted to sum up a few of the highlights from the conference. This year's theme was "Shaping the Future: Driving Innovation in Online Higher Education." Speakers shared many great insights and guidance on how to take advantage of new strategies and technologies in online education.

Ronald J. Pugliese, Director of Economic Development for the City of Waterbury, opened the event with his thoughts on the future of Waterbury, which he said is extremely bright. Ron cited Post University's leadership in higher education and the city's partnership with the University as one of the most important ways Waterbury will be able to bring positive change to its community in the coming years.

Our keynote speaker, Steve Hargadon, delivered an address about the critical shifts happening today in education. He discussed how a major factor driving these shifts is culture, not pedagogy. For instance, Steve is increasingly seeing a culture of creation.

He explained how there's been a major deinstitutionalization of education in recent years, in which students are gaining a stronger voice and the ability to be creators in their educational journeys. Students increasingly want to pursue what is interesting to them, and make strong connections between what they're learning and what matters most to their lives and career goals.

This, Steve said, flips the traditional narrative of education, which has focused students on acting as compliant learners, adhering to institutions' rules about what and how to learn. The new education narrative empowers students to be agents in their education, acting for themselves, learning how to learn, and embracing self-directed learning opportunities.

New online teaching and learning technologies, Steve said, are helping make self-directed learning possible. These technologies -- social media in particular -- bring agency to students by enabling them to unleash their individual energy and creative potential, build their personal learning networks, pursue their passions, and discover new tools to help them in their lifelong learning journeys. We will provide additional detail on Steve's talk, which generated a lot of discussion throughout the day.

I thought one of the last panel sessions of the day extended some of Steve's ideas. Frank Mulgrew, President of the Online Education Institute of Post University, joined D.R. Widder, Executive Director of Innovation at Philadelphia University; Brian Joyner, Vice President of Marketing from Cengage Learning; and Ronald Black, Academic Program Manager for Higher Education at Post University in a panel discussion about the importance of educational partnerships in the mission to improve and implement online and hybrid learning models that are driven by student needs.

Frank questioned why we should contain ideas and innovations to individual educational organizations. We should instead open ourselves up to collaborations, alliances, and partnerships to maximize the industry's ability to innovate and develop the most effective online education delivery models.

This, Frank said, will help individual organizations hone their expertise in particular areas while tapping other resources to create products and services that best meet student needs and strengthen America's global leadership position.

Those are just some of the major points that resonated with me. Much more to come as we post videos and podcasts of the Online Learning Conference 2012 presentations. We'd love to hear your feedback on them, as well as your thoughts on how the event went and your perspectives on the factors impacting the future of online higher education. Feel free to leave comments.

Ex Post Facto

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 14:25:45 PDT

Post University cartoon by Dave Blazek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Watch our Online Learning Conference 2012 streamed live

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Statmore) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 10:52:32 PDT

Can't make it to Waterbury, Conn., for Post University's Online Learning Conference 2012? No worries. We're going to be live streaming some of the sessions, so you can tune in at any point during the day to catch the action on our Online Learning Conference 2012 Livestream page.

Just bookmark the Livestream page and get ready to tune in starting at 8:30 a.m. this Friday. For a refresher on the conference agenda and conference speakers, flip back to our previous posts.

We'll also be recording every session, and will be posting the videos and podcasts on our blog throughout the days and weeks following the conference. So whether you're attending or not, you'll be able to catch up on everything you might have missed.

Our blogging team will also be on hand during the event to chat with attendees about why they came out and what they're seeing. So if they tap you on the shoulder, don't be shy! We'll be posting our attendee interviews on our blog as well. You can follow all of our coverage by bookmarking our Online Learning Conference 2012 tag.

And don't forget, the Twitter hashtag for the conference is #OLC2012. We hope you'll follow the news and reactions there, and of course join the fray!

Lastly, if you want to attend the conference, seats are still available. You can still register for our Online Learning Conference 2012 here. What are you waiting for? Sign up! We're looking forward to a great event!

3 ways to thrive through the education industry's evolution

noreply@blogger.com (Thomas Samph, Ph.D.) — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 13:30:39 PDT

Many colleges and universities have been around for decades, and some, centuries. Over the years, student needs have changed. Instructional design approaches have advanced. Educational technologies have become more sophisticated.

The colleges and universities that have continued to stay relevant through the education industry's evolution are the ones that have gone beyond just adapting to new ways of thinking and doing things. Rather, they've embraced change and put a stake in the ground to innovate new educational approaches to meet the needs of the modern student.

Sounds self-evident. But it doesn't come easy, as many educators who've been in this situation can probably attest. In fact, we're some of them. The last several years have been a mission to reinvent Post University to meet the needs of today's students, which include a growing number of adult learners in addition to 18- to 22-year-olds.

We've learned a lot through our efforts to create a university that can deliver educational services to students in whatever format is most suitable for them, build an online education operation, and make a Post University degree more valuable with each passing year.

We wanted to share some of what we've learned in the hopes of helping you thrive in the face of industry change, too. So I penned an article on Huffington Post detailing just that, entitled "A 122-Year-Old Start-Up? How Post University Reinvented Itself for the Modern Educational Era."

I wrote about how our efforts to reinvent Post were essentially like creating a new institution -- hence developing a "122-year-old start-up." I told the story behind our need to update our approach to education, and shared three lessons we've taken away from our initiatives. Flip over to give the article a read and let us know what you think.

By the way, this is the first of several articles we hope to contribute to Huffington Post's College channel over the coming months. We'll keep you updated on our blog when new articles are posted so you can follow them.

Men's lacrosse comes to Post University

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Alongi) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 09:52:58 PDT

Sticks up, fellas! Men's lacrosse has come to Post University! That's right, we've scored our first men's lacrosse team in Post University history, joining our 16 other intercollegiate sports. Jim Griffin was named the program's inaugural head coach.

Lacrosse is widely known around the Northeast, and Post University has had a women's lacrosse team since 2009. So it was an easy decision to add men's lacrosse to our student athletic programs. We hope the addition of men's lacrosse will bring more top-notch student athletes to Post University, while also expanding the use of our new LaMoy athletic field.

We believe Coach Griffin will play an instrumental role in recruiting and developing a winning men's lacrosse team for many seasons to come -- on and off the field. Before joining our squad, Coach Griffin helped guide the launch of the men’s lacrosse program at York College of Pennsylvania. He served as the team's head coach for seven years, ending with a 56-48 record. You can read more about Coach Griffin's background on the Post University athletics website.

Also be sure to watch our video interview with Coach Griffin, where he talks about his plans for creating a winning Post University men's lacrosse team.

The Post Eagles will begin practice in 2013, and gain full varsity standing in 2014. If you're interested in learning more about the team, hit the Post Eagles site for details on Post University's men's lacrosse program, and read our press release announcing the men's lacrosse team.

If you're interested in joining the men's lacrosse team, fill out the recruiting questionnaire.

Post University Online Learning Conference 2012 speakers announced

noreply@blogger.com (Jane Bailey, Ed.D.) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 10:24:32 PDT

FORESIGHT FOR THE FUTURE: Reserve your spot now
to hear what's next for online education and your role within it

A couple weeks ago we told you that education futurist Steve Hargadon will be keynoting Post University's second annual Online Learning Conference on April 20 at the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, Conn. We also told you that we'd be announcing the full list of speakers and sessions soon. Today, I wanted to pull the curtains off that information!

As I wrote about in my last post, this year's conference theme is "Shaping the Future: Driving Innovation in Online Higher Education." After Steve sets the tone for the day in his opening address, "The Future of Education," a full array of thought leaders, educators, and researchers will bring you the latest news, information, and innovations that are driving change in higher education -- and in particular, online higher education.

Roger Travis from the University of Connecticut will talk about an alternate reality game course in "How to Turn an Online Course into a Mission to Save the World." Hendree Milward, a math instructor from Tunxis Community College will talk about a lean, mean media-rich social messaging system called Edmodo in "Discuss -- Quick, Light and Mobile."

Dr. Jerald Cole of the University of Bridgeport (now studying at Harvard) will present "Uses of Social Media in Education: Modes, Methods, Media and Architectures." New vocabulary will be in full force: texting, tagging, wikiing, and blogging with rich media integration -- all things that will be sure to generate good discussion.

There will also be a workshop, "Introduction to Twitter," by Post University's Academic Program Manager for Instructional Design, Jennifer Bouchard. Participants will have the opportunity to learn how to use Twitter in their own education context. A research-based session on online discussion board usage related to workload and value will be presented by Post University's Online MBA Degree Program faculty member, Zvi Goldman, Ph.D.

Those are just some of the highlights! The complete list of Online Learning Conference 2012 sessions and speakers includes:

"How to Turn an Online Course into a Mission to Save the World"

Roger Travis, Ph.D., MA, Associate Professor of Literature, Culture and Languages at University of Connecticut

"Discuss--Quick, Light and Mobile"

Hendree Milward, Math Instructor at Tunxis Community College

"Workload and Value Perceptions of Adult MBA Learners and Instructors partaking in Asynchronous Discussion"

Zvi Goldman, Ph.D., MBA, Academic Program Manager for the Online MBA Degree Program at Post University

"Increasing Student Engagement using Rapid Authoring & Audio Visual Content: Being Present in your Class"

Thomas M. Abbott, MBA, Academic Program Manager for Business Administration at Post University
Claude Beaumier Abbott, M.Ed., Adjunct Faculty for the Computer Information Systems (CIS) Program at Post University and Adjunct Faculty for CIS & Business Applications at Naugatuck Valley Community Technical College

"Uses of Social Media in Education: Modes, Methods, Media and Architectures"

Jerald D. Cole, Chair of the Department of Instructional Technology in the School of Education at University of Bridgeport

"Introduction to Twitter"

Jennifer Bouchard, Academic Program Manager for Instructional Design and Technology at Post University

"Innovative Active Learning Instructional Activities"

Daniel Mercier, Assistant Director at the Institute of Teaching and Learning at University of Connecticut
Oskar Harmon, Associate Professor of Economics at University of Connecticut
Andy DePalma, Assistant Extension Professor of Continuing Studies at University of Connecticut
Roger Travis, Ph.D., MA, Associate Professor of Literature, Culture and Languages at University of Connecticut

"Shaping Collaborations, Alliances and Partnerships in Online Higher Education"

Frank Mulgrew, President of the Online Education Institute of Post University
Ronald Black, Ph.D., Academic Program Manager in the Online Master of Education Program at Post University

"Individualized Instruction for All: Using Knewton Adaptive Learning to Improve Education"

Ken Goldstein, VP of Sales, Knewton

"Enhancing the Internship Experience with Blackboard Vista"

Cher Shannon, MHSA, LADC, Professor and Program Coordinator for Drug & Alcohol Recovery Counselor and Human Services at GateWay Community College

In my last post, I told you that Pearson, Cengage, and McGraw Hill are sponsoring the event. Blackboard has also signed on as a sponsor, and all four sponsors will have tables at the conference. In addition, Pearson will share its Knewton Adaptive Learning, Panopto, and Smarthinking technologies, and Cengage will give a presentation on its MindTap technology.

The Twitter hashtag for Post University's Online Learning Conference 2012 is #OLC2012. It's the best source on Twitter for all action, reaction, questions, and answers before, during, and after the event. So if you're attending the conference, be sure to include #OLC2012 in your tweets. If you're unable to attend, follow #OLC2012 for event-day coverage. We'll also be tweeting updates leading up to the event, as well as video coverage after the event.

Rumblings of change are being heard across the landscape of higher education as bricks and mortar turn into clicks and mortar. New words and phrases that were not even a part of the higher education vocabulary a few years ago have become commonplace: social media, hybrid courses to flip classrooms, open courseware, or mobile technologies. The 18- to 22-year-old student is becoming a smaller part of the post-secondary market as adults of all ages add certifications and degrees to their quest for lifelong learning.

That's why we hope you'll join us for the Online Learning Conference, and take away new insights to help you make sense of this change. There are many exciting sessions planned for the day leading up to a wine and cheese reception at the end of the conference -- a perfect opportunity to network and use this new vocabulary of change for higher education.

I believe this is an incredibly exciting time for higher education. I look forward to April 20 as a wonderful opportunity to share that excitement with colleagues around the region. Spots are filling up fast, so I hope you can join us! Register for the Online Learning Conference 2012 now.

We will continue to blog about updates leading up to the conference, and will be streaming live video coverage from the event. Stay tuned for more information.

Countdown to Post University graduation 2012!

noreply@blogger.com (Donald Mroz, Ph.D.) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 08:21:29 PDT

Attention soon-to-be graduates! You've probably had May 5, 2012 circled on your calendar for quite some time. It has definitely been on my calendar for many months. That's the day when the Post University Class of 2012 will graduate.

We've been preparing for commencement for several weeks now, and we wanted to give you an update on where our plans stand. Given that our graduating class includes traditional students from our Main Campus in Waterbury, Conn., as well as Online Accelerated Degree Program students, we have a number of things planned for our graduates.

Something new we've done this year is create a Facebook event for Post University Graduation 2012. Hit the page to let everyone know if you're going, and find out who will be there!

You can also use the Post University Graduation 2012 event page to help plan for and celebrate graduation, as well as interact with your fellow soon-to-be graduates. Keep an eye out for graduation updates, and feel free to ask any questions about commencement. We'll get back to you right away.

We're also hoping to use the Post University Graduation 2012 event page as a way to find some of the best stories of what life is like at Post University. So tell us, where are you from? What's your degree program? What's your best memory about Post University? Who would you like to thank for helping you along the way to graduation? Share your stories, memories, photos, and videos -- before, during, and after the ceremony.

Like last year, we will be broadcasting commencement live via a video feed on our website for those of you who can't make it to the ceremony. Be sure to tell your family and friends about the live stream too. We're setting up the feed now, so check back on our blog for more information on how to tune in to the live stream.

We'll also be creating commemorative 2012 commencement DVDs, which will include the entire commencement ceremony. They make a great keepsake or gift, and will save you from recording the ceremony yourself. We'll let you know when the online order form is up and ready.

The total number of graduates for the entire 2011-2012 academic year (which includes August 2011, December 2011, and May 2012 graduates) is 759. Of that number, more than 400 are from Connecticut. I'm proud of each and every one of our graduates, and I'm looking forward to celebrating this milestone with the Class of 2012.

More news to come about Post University graduation 2012. You can get all the updates on our blog by bookmarking the Graduation 2012 tag, following Post University on Twitter, hitting our Facebook page, and joining our Graduation 2012 Facebook event. Also, keep an eye on your Post University email for other to-dos to prepare for graduation.

Be sure to return to our blog for more information and fun stats on the Class of 2012!

4 ways to slow down and become a better business owner

noreply@blogger.com (Douglas S. Brown, J.D.) — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 07:29:03 PDT

Hey business owners, it's quiz time! Do you move from one task to the next without finishing what you started? Do you jump out of meetings to answer calls to your cell phone? Do you respond to emails while on conference calls? Do you scarf down lunch while responding to emails while on conference calls?

If you answered yes to any of the above, you're like most business owners. It doesn't make you crazy (at least, not necessarily ...). But it certainly makes you crazed. Operating this way nearly always carries a hefty price tag.

For starters, multitasking has repeatedly been found to lower productivity, and in some case, by as much as 40 percent. Racing through 14-hour marathon days burns you out, which reduces your mental sharpness and clarity. This increases the chance you'll make mistakes, and decreases your ability to think creatively and strategically. Your team is also effected. They will either try to model your behavior or, worse yet, reduce their effort because they conclude it is impossible to keep up.

But I probably don't have to tell you this. You know first-hand the detriment that a harried work life can have on your energy, sanity, and personal life. You also probably know that during your slower days, you're able to concentrate better and get more accomplished. It's not science. The best way to fuel improved productivity, innovative thinking, and smooth business operations is not to go, go, go, but to SLOW DOWN. Here are four tactics worth trying:

1. Clear your mind and desk. It's difficult to plan what you want to accomplish when your mind is rife with to-dos, papers are piled on your desk, and your inbox is bursting with unread mail. Organize it. Get rid of clutter. Then think about and decide what you want to do.

2. Set early wins. Taking small steps to reach your goals will enable you to generate positive, ongoing momentum in the right direction. If you want to close more sales, for instance, try scheduling specific time blocks to pick up the phone and call the people you've been meaning to call, write the people you've been meaning to write, and schedule the meetings you're not getting to because you're too busy reacting to fires.

3. Don't confuse activity with productivity. Raise your hand if you think you're an adrenalin junkie. Many business owners are. They often get immediate satisfaction by going fast and doing a lot at once. But just because you're busy, it doesn't mean you're accomplishing your goals. Realize that you might not be as effective or efficient as you could be if you just slowed down, and took a break to regroup and do the task better.

4. Encourage your employees to slow down too. This will help you create a more productive, cohesive organization. Explain to your employees why it's important to slow down at work and share your methods for doing so. Invite suggestions from your team on how to improve productivity, decompress, and re-energize. Hold a fun event for employees or treat everyone to free ice cream at lunch to foster break time.

You probably have heard the saying, "I don't know where I'm going, but I'm sure making good time." Resist this idea. Instead, strive to know where you are going and make good time. I'll leave you with one important reason why, in the form of a question: Are you more attracted to and willing to follow people who appear erratic and frantic, or people who appear calm and centered, and know where they're going? What kind leader do you need to be?

I encourage you to try these approaches for slowing down, and see how they affect your productivity and ability to reach your goals. And please let us know how they work out for you! We'd love to hear how things are going, and other ideas you have for slowing down to work smarter and more efficiently.

Where do you stand on Facebooking with students?

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer Bouchard) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:20:40 PDT

FRIEND OR FOE: New arguments arise in the debate
on Facebooking with students

It's a hotly debated topic, and for obvious reasons. At one end of the spectrum, it can be argued that Facebooking with students blurs the line of appropriate student-instructor relationships. At the opposite end, it can be argued that Facebook helps foster student-instructor relationships and can be used to support educational programs.

The latest story I've come across on the topic is this Huffington Post article by Emily Wall, Assistant Professor at the University of Alaska Southeast. She nearly "always says yes" when her students friend request her on Facebook. Her reason: It helps her get to know her students on a personal level, understand where they're at in life, and get clued into the highs and lows they're going through. This, she writes, "makes it easier for me to teach them."

That's just the nutshell of her position, and I encourage you to take a look at her article for her full reasoning. From where I sit, I certainly agree that Facebook and other social media platforms can be great tools to enrich learning. In fact, students in two of my online Master of Education courses are using Twitter to expand their personal learning networks. (I hope to write more about that soon.)

However, as I wrote in the comment I left for Emily, I don't think we can forget that instructors are in a position to grade their students' work. That creates a professional setting that should be respected online. But on the same token, this doesn't mean students and instructors shouldn't interact at all using social media. I gave my solution to the matter in my comment on Huffington Post.

Click over for my thoughts on how instructors can create a professional learning environment using social media. When you're done, come back here and let us know your take on the issue. Do you Facebook with your students? Why or why not?

Ex Post Facto

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 13:08:49 PDT

Post University cartoon by Dave Blazek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

The call for a higher order of higher education

noreply@blogger.com (Frank Mulgrew) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 09:48:32 PDT

Why higher education needs to evolve to meet the demand for more flexible delivery models

Industry research continues to show that active learning and deep engagement in a subject matter helps students retain more knowledge and develop stronger skills than traditional lecture-based instruction. Researchers have demonstrated this across myriad fields of study, including medical science, pharmaceuticals, mathematics, engineering, leadership, and veterinary science, just to name a few.

Yet, the lecture remains the mainstay in higher education. While lectures have a role to play in education, the growing demand for more flexible delivery models is turning traditional education on its head.

Many students -- adult learners in particular -- are seeking more interactive ways to build their knowledge and skills so that they can apply what they learn in class today to their careers tomorrow. This has been evident in all the interviews we've done with our adult learners, including those who have shared their stories on our blog.

And many employers are seeking job candidates with not only hard skills, but soft skills that are better acquired in an interactive learning environment. The ability to collaborate, create, and communicate and think critically top the list of soft skill employers are seeking, according to a new survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).

The development of these skills, especially among today's fastest growing segment of learners -- adults learners -- can be particularly well addressed in a carefully crafted online learning environment. Tools such as online discussion boards can provide increased and ongoing engagement among instructors and students that simply can't be achieved in a lecture. Other elements, such as real-time knowledge discovery and the ability to apply learning in real time, give adult learners practical knowledge they can immediately use in their careers.

Although online education has become mainstream -- fully 77 percent of colleges offer online degree program courses -- many programs are not providing the level of interaction, engagement, and motivation most students seek. I still see courses where the instruction is mainly comprised of online presentations that students read through or taped lectures that students watch and then take a quiz at the end. This is hardly an interactive or engaging model.

Higher education needs to evolve so that it's squarely rooted in student-instructor engagement, and encourages ongoing interaction among peers. Here are the elements I see comprising this new education model. We're also planning to unfold this topic more in Post University's upcoming Online Learning Conference 2012, which you can register for now.

Asynchronous discussions. We should get away from a "pass the baton" approach, and move toward asynchronous discussions where students can contribute their thoughts at any time. Online discussion boards are well-suited for this, because students from different parts of the professional spectrum can add feedback, relate personal experiences, debate ideas, share advice, and post resources when it fits their daily schedule. This cannot happen in a typical lecture because you only have a window of time for discussion, after which students disperse, work on their projects, hand them in, and receive a grade. Online discussion boards, however, can foster ongoing conversation and collaboration, keeping students continually involved in the learning process, and often taking them far beyond the materials at hand.

Real-world integration. Assignments and projects should relate to what adult learners are doing in their jobs or want to do in their careers, rather than rely on hypothetical scenarios at imaginary companies. For instance, an assignment to develop a marketing plan should ask the student to develop a plan he would actually use in his job. This gets to the heart of what adult learning should be about: education for real-world scenarios. Online discussion boards have an important role to play here too. Students can tap their instructors and peers for informational resources, ideas, feedback, and advice as they tackle real-world projects. They can incorporate data into their papers or run with new ideas in their jobs immediately, gaining valuable feedback and expertise along the way. This model also encourages students to draw upon their peers' experiences and perspectives, something that is rarely possible in a lecture.

Self-directed learning. Learning should have a personal meaning to students. Instructors should clearly define the outcomes for their students, and let them reach those outcomes in a way that is relevant to their lives and learning goals. This enables students to learn more information in a deeper and more permanent way. And since students have more control over their learning, they're naturally more motivated to explore new information and try new ideas.

Outcomes based on the learning process. The "how" and "why" of learning are just as important as the "what." Outcomes -- and by extension, grading -- should be based on students' ability to find information and take themselves on a lifelong learning journey, as opposed to simply memorizing facts. When done well, an online classroom makes vast informational resources available to students, and encourages the students to rely on the perspectives and advice of their instructors and peers. This lets students take their learning in directions that extend far beyond what they're actually required to demonstrate through an assignment. Rather, students can develop soft skills, including the four C's (collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity), to apply their knowledge to solve real-world problems.

Strong advisor support systems. Advisors and instructors should have ongoing and meaningful dialogue with students so they can better guide students through their educational program in a way that works best for them. This includes helping remove the barriers to higher education often faced by adult learners. For example, an advisor can handle administrative tasks, such as reminding students when they have to register for a course, and making recommendations on which course(s) should be taken when.
In short, imagine there is a "super curriculum" on top of the curriculum. The super curriculum is the ultimate educational outcome students are seeking by completing the curriculum -- that is, building the knowledge and skills needed to reach their career goals, pursue lifelong learning, and make a positive impact on their industry and personal life.

We can achieve this by evolving to a new delivery model, one that combines all of the elements presented here, and centers around interactive, practice-based and student-focused learning environments.

Education futurist Steve Hargadon to keynote Post University's Online Learning Conference 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Jane Bailey, Ed.D.) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 11:29:06 PDT

TAP THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION: Attend Post University's
Online Learning Conference 2012 on April 20

In our efforts to make higher education institutions better, we sometimes focus on fixing the broken parts from the past, rather than starting with a fresh slate upon which we can create and innovate for the future. We have the ability to go beyond just amending and patching what's not working anymore, and instead make a whole new education world.

Many education thought leaders -- including futurist Steve Hargadon -- believe that the new world is online education. Steve, in fact, was one of the first to recognize the value that social networking could add to education, and has since become one of the industry's preeminent voices for technology, education, and learning. His Future of Education interview series (which Post University's online Master of Education degree program students all subscribe to) has been a catalyst for sharing these ideas with the world.

STEVE HARGADON: Keynote speaker
for our Online Learning Conference 2012

That's why we couldn't think of anyone more fitting to keynote Post University's Online Learning Conference 2012 than Steve. This year's conference theme is "Shaping the Future: Driving Innovation in Online Higher Education." Steve's keynote address will fittingly focus on "The Future of Education."

We're holding the conference on Friday, April 20 at The Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, Conn. We hope you'll join us. You can register for the conference online. But don't wait to sign up. We're expecting a large turnout this year, and we're accepting registrants on a first-come-first-serve basis.

Our Online Learning Conference 2012 will be an opportunity for anyone in higher education to hear leading professors and instructors share some of their latest online learning research and strategies. The one-day event will feature 12 breakout sessions, including:

How to Turn an Online Course into a Mission to Save the World, by Roger Travis, Associate Professor at University of Connecticut.
Participatory Tweeting as a Vehicle for Course Engagement, by Jerald D. Cole, Professor and Chair of the graduate Instructional Technology program at University of Bridgeport.
A Twitter workshop, by Jennifer Bouchard, Academic Program Manager for Post University's School of Education. She will share some of the tweeting assignments she uses within Post's Online Master of Education degree program.
An online discussion board forum, by Dr. Zvi Goldman, Academic Program Manager for the Marketing concentration of Post University's Online MBA Degree Program. He will share his research related to workload and value perceptions of students and instructors when it comes to online discussions.

We're planning to announce the rest of the speakers on our blog soon. In the meantime, we've posted the basic agenda at the bottom of this post so you can keep it handy.

If you go to the conference, keep an eye out for our blogging team. They will be on hand to capture the sights and sounds with videos, podcasts, interviews, photos, and more. Feel free to take an interview with them! We'll be posting our coverage on our blog. You can follow all of our blog posts related to the conference by bookmarking the Online Learning Conference 2012 tag.

You know, it was only a few short weeks ago that I went to Teachers College at Columbia University to hear Frank Mulgrew, President of Post University's Online Education Institute, speak with Teachers College faculty, staff, and students about the future of higher education. Post and Columbia are very different institutions, learning from each other how to shape a new order of higher education.

Our collective dialogue at that forum was energizing to all. As we see innovations like Kahn Academy flipping classrooms, and watch renowned instructors like MIT's Professor Lewin teach physics through open courseware, we know that there is no room for business-as-usual in academics.

That's why I'm excited to be on the committee organizing Post University's Online Learning Conference 2012, and about our initiatives at Post University. We are working to create a model of higher education that is different than traditional models of post-secondary education.

Our play with future visions is not only to help our university, but also the organizations and institutions our students will touch. As our students take courses such as Future of Education or Unleashing and Sustaining Innovation in Organizations, we're expecting them to start thinking about reshaping their own education, business, and career worlds.

I am looking forward to joining my fellow higher education colleagues at our April conference, where discussions about the future of education as well as the encouragement to be ever more creative and engaging in the classroom will be the order of the day! See you there.

Post University Online Learning Conference 2012 Agenda
"Shaping the Future: Driving Innovation in Online Higher Education"

The Mattatuck Museum
144 West Main Street
Waterbury, Conn. 06702

Friday, April 20
8 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

8 a.m. Continental breakfast and networking
8:30 a.m. Welcome by Frank Mulgrew
8:45 a.m. Keynote by Steve Hargadon, "The Future of Education"
10 a.m. Concurrent Sessions (3)
11:15 a.m. Concurrent Sessions (3)
12:15 p.m. Lunch and networking
1:15 p.m. Concurrent Sessions (3)
2:30 p.m. Concurrent Sessions (3)
3:30 p.m. Closing remarks, wine and cheese reception

The conference fee is $125, and includes breakfast, lunch, closing reception, and all conference presentations. You can register online. The conference is being hosted by Post University and sponsored by Pearson, Cengage Learning, and McGraw-Hill Education.

What it's really like to work in the human services field

noreply@blogger.com (Katey Baruth, Ph.D.) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 11:15:39 PDT

FELICIA SCOTT: The Post University
graduate has taken human services to heart

Felicia Scott has been busy this week doing what she does best -- volunteering and helping other people. Yesterday she pitched in at the Austin Music Awards, which benefits the SIMS Foundation, an organization that helps Austin musicians and their families cope with addiction.

But that's just one of a long list of ways Felicia has been living out the principles of human services. The last time we talked to her, about a year ago, Felicia had just gotten back from a 10-day trip to El Salvador where she helped build a community center and a garden to support impoverished people.

She also was working to complete her drug and alcohol counseling certificate from Post University, after earning her online master of science in human services degree with a concentration in clinical counseling from Post University.

We caught up with Felicia to see what she's been doing over the past year, and where her master's degree in human services and career have taken her. Read on for the interview our blogger, Janelle, had with her to see where she is now.

I especially encourage you to read our interview if you're interested in the area of human services, because I think Felicia is the epitome of the type of person it takes to do well in this field. Find out from Felicia what it's really like to work in human services, the personal qualities you need to succeed in this field, and the opportunities and rewards that are open to you when you make human services your life's mission.

Janelle: Do you know what has been going on with the community center that you helped build in El Salvador since you were there last January?

Felicia: I do, actually. I did not get to take the trip this year, although many other people did and got great news. The crops that we planted last year are now flourishing and are feeding that small community that we worked in. They've built more houses in January 2012, and now they're able to provide fresh water, which was not there when I went to visit.

Janelle: Do you know how many people are using the community center now?

Felicia: At this point, I believe about 200. Many of the children there are not allowed to go to school unless they have a certain amount of money, which many don't have. So the community center is being used for school as well, and just family activities and picnics and different things on the weekend.

Janelle: Are you planning to return to El Salvador any time soon?

Felicia: I hope to. I have a three-year-old and five-year-old, so that's why I wasn't able to go this year. But I'm in constant communication with them and the people involved that live here in Austin. We're hoping to go next year to keep it going.

Janelle: When we last connected, you wrote in some of your emails to us about what it was like to go to El Salvador and help its people. It sounds like it was an emotional experience for you.

Felicia: Yes, it was a very emotional journey. But it provides you the in-service, and that's what you're there to do. You're there to work in another culture. You have to go in with non-religious views and just be practical. You're there to help provide their own kind of peace that they're looking for in their community. So for me it was an emotional journey and it was a great one. I feel that it began with me before I even went to contribute to the people there. I had to go in with the attitude of, "This is what they deal with on a daily basis and this is what you deal with back home." So you go in with compassion and we turned out to have a lot of unity in the end.

Janelle: Where has your human services work taken you today?

Felicia: Well, I'm teaching at Post, which I love. But outside of that, I'm working for a unique foundation called the SIMS Foundation here in Austin. It's a great place that offers mental health and addiction recovery for Austin musicians and their families, because there are a lot of musicians here. They offer on-site counseling and a full range of addiction services, like medical detox and sober living. But really what they do is bond the musical community together by providing these services to people that are gone so many days out of the year, leaving their families in Austin with no services. Many times, the children need counseling when their father or mother is on the road. So it's a really neat organization. On March 14 I'll be volunteering with them for the Austin Music Awards. It's a kickoff for South by Southwest, which is a huge musical tour here. We'll be running their kickoff party with food and, of course, music, to raise funds for them. It also spreads the word in the music community.

Janelle: So musicians that have gotten care from SIMS are going to be playing at the Austin Music Awards?

Felicia: Some of them will, yes.

Janelle: Why did you get involved with SIMS?

Felicia: I got involved with SIMS because I have a very close connection with wanting to work with mental health as well as addiction recovery. Currently I'm teaching one of the addiction recovery classes at Post, a drug and behavior course. I grew up in an alcoholic home, so that's how I got started with the alcohol and drug counseling courses at Post after I got my master of human services degree from Post. It's a field that's really close to me. But it's also important to break the stigma, in my opinion, on mental illness and addiction recovery. I'm also just a music lover and this happens to be a great city for it.

Janelle: What do you think needs to change about the way that we look at and treat addictions?

Felicia: We need to put the information out there, and have more education in schools. I have a daughter that's in kindergarten and of course we don't go into addiction too much, but we will be talking about it as the kids grow up. It's something that needs to be talked about and not shunned, in my opinion. Same with mental health issues. Even if you live in a small town, you can still have an impact on a local level.

Janelle: What's your goal with your efforts in trying to raise awareness about mental health care and addictions?

Felicia: Never give up, basically. And like I tell my students, human services is not just about sitting in a cubicle all day. It's about guiding people, being compassionate, and being an advocate for a certain cause or many causes. You can go to work every day, but when it really comes down to it, you need to be involved in the community.

Janelle: What other organizations are you involved in on a volunteer basis?

Felicia: Another one that I just am getting involved in is called GENaustin. It's a girl empowerment network. They work with girls in middle school up to high school level. Their mission is to support and guide girls to make wise choices. They help them navigate pressures of girlhood -- you shouldn't have to fall into peer pressure, you shouldn't have to wear a certain amount of makeup, etc. I'll be doing the training for it soon. Then I'll actually get to go to some of the schools and speak with the girls and parents for their We Are Girls conference. It's an annual, statewide conference and what they try to focus on is self-image, media, and parent/daughter relationships. They also do girl workshops throughout the year on dating, communication, friendship, college, and other topics.

Janelle: Will you be talking to girls in some of these workshops as well?

Felicia: Yes, that's the goal. And they train you on that so you're up to speed before you can talk to the young girls.

Janelle: Why is it important to you to be part of GENaustin?

Felicia: Well I'm in my mid-30s now. I grew up in a small town, so they had Girl Scouts and things like that, but there weren't specific things talking about how to teach girls to be leaders. I think this provides a healthy, non-judgmental way for girls to speak out. That's what I would hope for my own daughter as she grows up. I think it's a powerful message and I hope it takes off.

Janelle: What do think drives you internally to volunteer and help other people in need like this?

Felicia: I think it's always been instilled in me. My mother, although she wasn't a big advocate for traveling across the country, did small things in our community to help out. I think seeing that as a child helped me gravitate toward it. I started at a very young age working with the homeless and giving out food. That's something I did this past Christmas with my five-year-old and three-year-old. We got socks and personal care items, put them gift boxes, and brought them the homeless shelter here in Austin and gave them out. I've always had that compassionate side of me. I feel like I have to be a voice for people that can't have their own voice.

Janelle: What are you doing now professionally? You mentioned you're teaching at Post University.

Felicia: I'm working for Post, which is great and I love it. Right now, I teach two courses. I'm applying to Ph.D. school, so we'll see where that goes. I'm coming out in May to Post's graduation to walk as an adjunct professor and hopefully meet some of my students and mentors that have helped me along the way, because I haven't met them face-to-face. I've only done online courses. I'm looking forward to that.

Janelle: How did you get started teaching as an adjunct at Post University?

Felicia: I had graduated, and one of the professors -- we had a close mentorship/relationship -- asked me to do it. I jumped on it because I just love everything about the online environment. That's how we're going with education now. I have worked there for several modules now and hope to continue. I'm working in a drug and behavior course, and that's in the psychology department. And then I do an online master of human services course.

Janelle: What are you trying to impart to your students, considering your background and how your compassion for helping people has been instilled in you since you were a young girl?

Felicia: Even though they are online courses and I'm not meeting my students face-to-face in the classroom, I like to share the message that it's about a global community. No matter where we're at, we can all connect on some level. And like I said, even if the students never left their small town, they can still make impacts. But I always tell them human services is not a glamorous job. It's not a job where you're going to get paid a lot of money. But if your heart is in it and you're able to guide people and have compassion, then you'll do well.

Janelle: What goals are you striving to achieve overall in your life?

Felicia: Well, overall, I would say continue my education. I'm looking at a couple of doctoral programs. I'm debating on a couple, either in psychology or a doctorate program at Arizona State University that focuses on behavioral health. I would hope to continue to do that, get the Ph.D. work done, and just raise my kids in a great way. I have a deep passion for non-profit work, but I also have a huge passion for teaching. So if there is a way I can combine that, I would love to do it.

Janelle: Best of luck to you, Felicia. It was great catching up with you.

Felicia: Thank you so much.

Thanks for updating us, Felicia! We're looking forward to seeing you at graduation this year too! Keep up the phenomenal work.