The SOCHE Segue - April 2010
Still Lots To Come
While it seems like the change in season is suggesting the academic year is coming to a close, our schedule is still full of great events:
- University System of Ohio Sustainability Conference
- Ohio Cooperative Education Association’s annual awards - where our own Sheryl Kent will be honored
- Bridging the Four Generations in Higher Education
And, we have some stories for you to ponder as you start venturing outside this spring:
- How to make “back to school” easier for adult learners
- Training professors to teach online
- Our region’s unique resources highlighted at the Dayton Water Conference in May
So, as you read this issue of Segue, we hope you enjoy lots of fresh air and fresh news from the world of higher ed.
Sincerely,
Sean Creighton
Making “Back to School” Easier for Adults
According to the U.S. Department of Education, adult learners are the fastest growing educational demographic - and the numbers will continue to rise.
An ad-hoc group of SOCHE member intuitions has been working to make re-entry to education easier for adult learners, who may have decades of work experience behind them.
“Because of our current economic situation and other factors, more adults are returning to school - and some after a very long absence,” says Dr. Patricia Brewer, dean for the Pre Cohort PhD Program at Union Institute and University. “We are looking for ways to support adult students that are collaborative. Many SOCHE institutions work with adult learners, and if we gather our forces we can proactively provide services to these students.”
Brewer is leading the Adult Credential Ad-hoc Committee (ACAC), a task force of SOCHE member institutions. Over the past year, the ACAC task force has explored adult initiatives. The group is building a clearinghouse of information for adult students, including credits that may be applied to certifications and educational programs outside those typically offered by colleges and universities. Working with registrars, they have also started to track how various member institutions value licensures, certificates and other credentials.
“Many adult students have job-related licensure or credentials that today would require a degree.” As examples, Brewer mentions peace officers, firefighters, realtors, computer operators, and licensed practical nurses. “These people have all participated in learning activities that colleges value - and may honor with credit.”
The first step, Brewer says, is to make students - and potential students - aware that colleges recognize their credentials. “What they have learned is worth something in the college environment,” says Brewer. “Many colleges will honor their credentials with credit toward a degree.”
For more information or to support the adult learner initiative, contact SOCHE or call Dr. Brewer at 513-487-1182.
Sheryl Kent Named OCEA Employer of the Year
SOCHE is proud to announce that Sheryl Kent, its Assistant Director, has been selected as 2010 Employer of the Year by the Ohio Cooperative Education Association (OCEA). Sheryl was selected for her commitment to the professional growth of students and for the quality of co-op programs that she has led.
Sheryl has served on the OCEA Executive Board in many capacities for 10 years, and is currently its President. During her tenure, OCEA has built a presence on Linked-In that facilitates the exchange of ideas and organization-wide communication. She also led an effort to update the OCEA Constitution to more effectively represent the needs of the membership.
The award will be presented at the OCEA annual conference on Tuesday, April 27, 2010 at Ohio State University.
Congratulations, Sheryl! And thank you for your contributions to cooperative education in the state of Ohio.
University System of Ohio Sustainability Conference
The Ohio Board of Regents invites area faculty, staff and students to attend its Sustainability Conference on April 27. The event, being held at Ohio State University, begins at 8am and promises to teach us more about greening the curriculum, green workforce development and energy efficiency strategies.
Distinguished guests and speakers will include:
- E. Gordon Gee , President of Ohio State University
- Chancellor Fingerhut
- Dr. Brit Kirwan, Chancellor of the University System of Maryland
- A President’s panel Roderick McDavis (Ohio University), Marvin Krislov (Oberlin College), Jerry Sue Thornton (Cuyahoga Community College) and Ron Erickson (Hocking College).
Plus, SOCHE was asked to program a special session on the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment for this conference. More information is available online. You can also register online here - space is limited and registration closes soon!
Summer Conference: Bridging the Four Generations in Higher Education
For the first time in U.S. history, four distinctly different generations are working side-by-side in our schools.
SOCHE invites you to start your summer with this entertaining and enlightening program, featuring Jason Ryan Dorsey - bestselling author, speaker, and entrepreneur.
Dorsey will reveal the preferences and priorities of each generation, and will highlight what they bring to the word of education - so that we might begin to build on common ground. This presentation will be filled with strategies and actions to reinforce a culture of cross-generation communication, teamwork, trust and continuous improvement.
About Jason Ryan Dorsey
Recognized as The Gen Y Guy®, Jason is an acclaimed keynote speaker, bestselling author, corporate consultant and award-winning entrepreneur. In the past twelve years, Jason’s clients have taken him to all 50 states and as far away as Egypt, Finland, Spain, and India.
A proud member of Gen Y (who text messages his mom every day), Jason has been featured as a generational expert on 60 Minutes, 20/20, The Today Show, The View, in Fortune Magazine and over 100 other media outlets. In recognition of his business achievements, Jason won the Austin Under 40 Entrepreneur of the Year Award at age 25. Jason’s newest book is Y-Size Your Business: How Gen Y Employees Can Grow Your Business and Save You Money.
Bridging the Four Generations in Higher Education
Monday, May 17
9am-12pm
Wright State University
Click here for more information
Institutional Vulnerability and Strategic Responses in Today’s Marketplace
Save the date for SOCHE’s Special Topics Forum, “Institutional Vulnerability and Strategic Responses in Today’s Marketplace.”
Featured Guest: Dr. Robert Sevier
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
9:00 am - 12:00 pm
University of Rio Grande and Rio Grande Community College
Rio Grande, Ohio
Click here for more information.
Training Professors to Teach Online
As online classrooms fill, professors may find themselves with lessons to learn.
“Many faculty members have taught most of their lives from the front of the classroom. When they move online, they look for ways to deliver the same content in a new, foreign environment. It doesn’t work,” says Dave Wright, Director of Curriculum Innovation and e-Learning at the University of Dayton (UD).
The problem, Wright says, is that faculty members perceive “class” as a place to deliver content. But online, it’s not just about delivering information. Without visual and auditory cues from the professor and from their peers, the students don’t have the context to process and handle the information.
The answer, Wright says, is to rethink the experience from the students’ perspectives.
Great online classes, he says, engage students. They incorporate tools for student-faculty and student-to-student communication and include frequent feedback.
“These are things you would want in any class,” says Wright. “But online, it’s easy for students to lose these communication channels.”
If students are not fully engaged, he says, they tend to struggle and can be prone to higher drop-out rates than students who attend classes in a traditional setting.
At UD, faculty members who teach online complete a training experience that mimics students’ online experience. Professors “swap roles” and see the class as their students would. Wright says this experience helps them to identify tools that are useful in the online classroom, when to use them and just how important they can be to the learning process.
“We know that no matter where and how faculty members teach, they will probably learn by doing and that they will change the way they teach by incremental steps,” Wright says. “But, the shift from traditional face-to-face teaching to online is too significant. It’s very helpful for faculty to turn to those who are trained to support distance learning.”
Supporting a Historic Flight
Scientists from the University of Dayton Research Institute played a supporting role in making aviation history in March when the U.S. Air Force successfully flew the first "all-engine" test flight using a biomass jet fuel blend.
Although the Air Force has tested aircraft fueled in part by biomass-derived and conventional fuels, the March 25 flight of an A-10 Thunderbolt II jet over Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., marked the first time in history a plane flew with all engines fueled entirely by such a blend, Air Force officials said. The A-10 was fueled by a blend of fuel derived from camelina oil - a flowering plant in the same family as mustard, cabbage and broccoli - and conventional JP-8 jet fuel.
University of Dayton researchers supported the Air Force Petroleum Agency by analyzing and testing properties of the biofuel blend used in the flight. The Air Force Research Laboratory sponsored the work performed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
Air Force-sponsored fuels and combustion programs have created 20 new high-tech, professional jobs within the last year alone, and provide hands-on research opportunities for some 30 University of Dayton School of Engineering students working alongside faculty and University of Dayton Research Institute researchers.
Wilmington Professor Named Ohio’s ‘Outstanding English Teacher’
Wilmington College’s Gloria Flaherty, emeritus professor of education, received the 2010 “Outstanding English Teacher Award” in the university category by the Ohio Council of Teachers of English Language Arts.
Prior to joining the College’s education faculty in 1985, Flaherty taught elementary school in New York City, Alabama, Florida and Massachusetts. She was a reading specialist in New York and taught English and English as a second language in Germany when her husband was stationed there for military duty.
Flaherty also taught reading and English at Mad River School District and Dayton Stebbins High School before completing her doctor of education degree and moving to Wilmington College, where she has been “doing the job of her soul” for over 25 years.
Wright State’s Living Laboratory receives $473,000 in state funding
Ohio’s State Controlling Board approved $473,000 for a high-tech home that serves as an educational facility for nurses, health care providers and students.
Wright State’s “Living Laboratory” opened in November at Bethany Village senior community in Centerville, Ohio. The laboratory is a collaboration between Graceworks Lutheran Services and the Nursing Institute of West Central Ohio.
The two-story house models an intergenerational home environment, helping health care professionals learn to care for patients in their own homes rather than in a hospital or nursing home.
The funding released by the Controlling Board will support the laboratory’s technology needs, including a “family” of human patient simulators. These mannequin-like robots represent patients of different ages and can be controlled remotely by faculty to simulate a variety of health conditions and symptoms. The Living Lab currently houses six simulators and will add five more with the additional funding.
Other projects at the Living Lab develop technologies to help patients maintain independent living. Under the supervision of Wright State computer science and engineering professor Kuldip Rattan, Ph.D., several doctoral students are working on a wearable monitoring device that can detect the precise location of patients in the home.
The $473,000 comes from Ohio’s higher education capital fund. The Living Lab was also awarded more than $94,000 from the Department of Health and Human Services.
In this Issue:
Making “Back to School” Easier for Adults
Sheryl Kent Named OCEA Employer of the Year
University System of Ohio Sustainability Conference
Summer Conference “Bridging the Four Generations in Higher Education”
Institutional Vulnerability and Strategic Responses in Today’s Marketplace
Training professors to teach online
Wilmington Professor Named Ohio’s ‘Outstanding English Teacher’
Wright State’s Living Laboratory receives $473,000 in state funding
Adult Credential Ad-hoc Committee
ACAC participating organizations:
- Antioch University McGregor
- Edison Community College
- Sinclair Community College
- Southern State Community College
- Union Institute and University
- Urbana University
- Wittenberg University
Enrollment Numbers by Age
(Year and projected enrollment)
- 1990 = 5,788
- 1995 = 6,103
- 2000 = 5,974
- 2005 = 6,828
- 2008 = 7,045
- 2012 = 7,340
Adult learner defined as students age 25+
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2009). Digest of Education Statistics, 2008 (NCES 2009-020), Table 190.
The Four Generations
The Four Generations according to Jason Ryan Dorsey:
Matures - born before 1946Baby Boomers - born 1946-1964
Generation X - born 1965-1977
Generation Y - born 1977-1995
Tools to Engage Online Students
Dave Wright, Director of Curriculum Innovation and e-Learning at the University of Dayton, offers these suggestions to make the online classroom an active learning space for students.
- Online students perceive less direct communication from their instructor... Faculty members may need to communicate more frequently and to be accessible and responsive.
- Online students have less interaction with their peers and colleagues. To reduce feelings of isolation, create opportunities for students to interact with or engage in dialogue with one another.
- Writing activities work well in the online environment, and should include student-to-student activities in addition to student-to-instructor.
- Utilize discussion forums and other tools that mimic how students would engage with one another on Facebook and other social networking sites. Allow students to be users and participants - not just recipients of information.
- UD subscribes to Quality Matters, a company that measures the quality of students’ online experience. Quality Matters provides parameters that define a quality online experience, and allows faculty to share ideas and grade one another.
Dayton to Host National Water Conference
Water Innovations Alliance’s Dayton Water Conference 2010
May 10 - 12
University of Dayton
Upcoming Events
updayton's “Young Creatives Summit”
Friday, April 16, 2010
Faculty Development Roundtable
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Student Leadership Conference
Friday, April 23, 2010
Library Conference “Making Connections to Learning: The Library in the Academy”
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Summer Conference “Bridging the Four Generations in Higher Education”
Monday, May 17, 2010
Institutional Vulnerability and Strategic Responses in Today’s Marketplace
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
More Stories About Higher Education
Lumina Foundation for Education Launches $8 million Program to Encourage Adult Degree-Seekers (Philanthropy News Digest)
Minority-Serving Colleges Benefit From a Student-Loan Change They Fought (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
The Specialists (Inside Higher Ed)
A California Law will Raise All Students Grades (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
Seton Hill Offers All Students and iPad (Pittsburgh Business Times)
Colleges Snap Up Real Estate in Buyers’ Market (The Chronicle of Higher Education)