For many online and professional continuing education units, the primary barrier to adopting artificial intelligence is not access to tools, it is uncertainty about where to begin and how to proceed without disrupting daily operations. Leaders are often balancing innovation with stability, making it difficult to introduce new approaches without clear structure. A focused, time-bound strategy can reduce that ambiguity. A 90-day adoption…
The “traditional” student is quickly becoming a relic of a bygone era. The future of enrollment is concentrated in new, non-traditional markets: adult learners seeking rapid re-skilling, dual-enrolled high school students, and the millions of Americans with “some college, no credential” who represent a significant scalable opportunity for growth. Universities know they must pivot decisively…
Many of us utilize AI daily in our higher education work, yet we may not have assessed the ethical and human-centered nature of the tool we have selected and trained through our prompts. AI tools are no longer a relatively simple search engine that is driven by marketing metrics to help us conduct our research.…
The spring semester is coming to a close with the normal host of routines. Yet, beneath those routines, something is unfolding in the labor market that will greet your new graduates who will face an incrementally tighter job market. I asked Claude Sonnet 4.6 Extended Thinking to research the tasks relevant to preparing our new…
Policy Matters | American Rescue Plan Act Passes – Includes Significant Relief Dollars to Higher Education (March 2021)
Major Updates American Rescue Plan Act Passes – Includes Significant Relief Dollars to Higher Education The most recent COVID relief bill, one of America’s largest in terms of dollars spent ($1.9 trillion), and Joe Biden’s first major legislation as President, provided a marked increase in funding to colleges and universities compared to previous bills. While…
Plan to join us in-person for 2022 events!
I’m pleased to share with you some exciting news: UPCEA’s industry-leading events will be back live and in-person in April 2022! Even better, we are combining the Annual Conference and the Summit for Online Leadership and Administration + Roundtable (SOLA+R), hosting both events in Orlando, FL, at Disney’s Coronado Springs April 11-14, 2022. For the…
Survey: About Half of Faculty are More Positive About Online Learning Today Than Pre-Pandemic, And Expect to Keep New Teaching Techniques and Digital Materials in Place Post-Pandemic
The Third Digital Learning Pulse Survey, Conducted by Bay View Analytics on Behalf of OLC, WCET, UPCEA, CDLRA and Cengage, Looks at How Higher Education is Changing in the Wake of COVID-19 March 24, 2021—As the pandemic has moved U.S. higher education online, half of faculty (51 percent) are more positive about online learning today…
UPCEA Announces 2021 Association Award Recipients
7 Individuals Receive Association’s Highest Honors WASHINGTON, March 2, 2021 – UPCEA, the leader in professional, continuing, and online education, has announced the recipients of the 2021 Association Awards. The UPCEA Association Awards program includes recognition of both individual and institutional achievement across the UPCEA membership. Since 1953, UPCEA has recognized its members’…
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…
We 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…
Some conferences feel long. This one flew by. And still, I kept thinking I wish I could have attended even more sessions. Over the past few days at the UPCEA Annual Conference, a few very clear themes kept coming back. Not just in presentations, but in conversations with people across institutions. Yes, AI is still very much…
Online enrollment leaders don’t need another mandate to “use AI.” They need relief. Most teams are already stretched thin by demands to manage inquiry volume, follow-up expectations, data hygiene, and prospect responsiveness. They lack the capacity to take on yet another complex initiative, especially one that feels abstract or disruptive. AI mandates promise transformation when…