Imagine your bellwether program stepping into a modern search arena with a glossy tri-fold and a storied reputation, ready to battle any challenger. Across the ring rolls a robotic rival as “The Imperial March” blares over the speakers. The ref signals start; a blinding spotlight from the robot makes your program vanish from view. The…
Read MoreIntroduction At the 2025 UPCEA Annual Conference, the session “Owning Your Awesomeness” reminded us that professional growth isn’t just about mastering skills—it’s about recognizing and amplifying the unique strengths we already have. For leaders and practitioners in professional and online education this means embracing both the outward image we present and the inner narratives that…
Read MoreThere is a new “cliff” in American higher education, and it is not the demographic cliff. Rather, it is the dramatic cliff in math knowledge, skills, and abilities. Let me be clear that other discipline deficiencies are found in this new generation of college students, however they are dwarfed by those in math. These have…
Read MoreMost of us in higher education are now familiar with generative AI bots, where you formulate a prompt and get a reply. Yet, we are now beginning the advancement to agentic AI, the autonomous 24-7 project manager. The dramatic enhancement in the capability of AI as it moves from bots to agents will bring about…
Read More10 Facts About Student Interaction in Online Programs (U.S. News & World Report)
Though online students are often far from one another, many online instructors still assign group projects. Online students may use tools such as Google Docs to edit assignments along with Skype and online chatrooms for discussions. “It is preparation for the workforce,” says Ray Schroeder, associate vice chancellor for online learning at the University of…
AGB Search and UPCEA Partner to Serve Growing Nontraditional Higher Learning Sector
Partnership will focus on executive searches for professional, continuing, and online education. WASHINGTON, D.C. – June 28, 2017 – AGB Search, the firm focused exclusively on all aspects of higher education executive search, has partnered with UPCEA, the leading association for professional, continuing, and online education, to provide executive search services for higher education…
Secretary DeVos Issues Statement on Regulatory Reform Task Force Progress Report
US DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION — U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos today released the following statement on the Department’s Regulatory Reform Task Force’s first progress report as required by President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 13777: “The Regulatory Reform Task Force has been hard at work over the last few months cataloguing over 150 regulations and…
Department of Education Provides Year Round Pell and Increased Flexibility for Students
US DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION – WASHINGTON—Today, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced Year Round Pell grants will be available to students beginning July 1, 2017. This policy change will ensure hundreds of thousands of college students have the resources needed to finish their coursework in a timeframe that meets their individual needs. “This decision is…
The tagline for Convergence, Credential Innovation in Higher Education, raises two important questions: First, what kind of credentials are we talking about? Is the scope of credentials unlimited, blue sky, or confined to incremental changes on the margins of the status quo? And second, who is leading that innovation, and what do they need to…
Read MoreWe are pleased to share the foreword by UPCEA CEO Bob Hansen from the newly released Chief Online Learning Officers’ Guidebook: A Framework for Strategy and Practice in Higher Education. The guidebook, now available from Routledge in paperback, hardback, and eBook formats, provides a comprehensive framework for today’s online learning leaders. Learn more and purchase…
Read MoreHalf of prospective students use AI tools every week. Yet, only about a third of higher education institutions have a formal strategy for AI search. That gap isn’t just a metric. It’s a brand visibility crisis. Students are using ChatGPT and Perplexity to research programs, compare universities, and narrow their lists, often before they ever…
Read MoreStudent success starts with the right conversation. By uniting data, technology, and human connection, institutions can shift from reactive outreach to proactive engagement that strengthens trust, equity, and long-term retention. Every Student Is a Story, Not a Segment “On the other side of every data point, every phone number, every email address, there’s a person…
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