About 

President's Letter

Leading Innovation in Higher Education

<UCEA InFocus, April 2009 (PDF) Patricia Book, UCEA President 2009-2010

As we near our 100th birthday as an Association, it is important to reflect upon the fact that for almost a century the University Continuing Education Association has been a strong ideological driver in higher education as we have fostered societal leadership, civic engagement, and educational opportunities that have been foundational to innovation.

These qualities have made UCEA members among the greatest forces in higher education with the drive to respond to the changing global context and confront boldly the economic challenges facing our nation and institutions not only in the past but especially today. As a vital Association of institutional members representing the public and private sectors, we have provided adult learners access to higher education to prepare for participation in society through crossdisciplinary professional curricula, new instructional formats, e-learning and entrepreneurial partnerships. Our agility to respond in meaningful ways has never been more important. It falls to us to keep the needs of our students—adult learners—in the forefront of our institutions.

This year, in the spirit of a shared leadership vision to advance innovation and economic prosperity, I am presenting a set of Presidential Priorities in the four areas reflected in UCEA’s Strategic Vision. These four areas emerged as the core needs of our members and frame what they want from our Association: Advocacy, Research, Professional Development and a sense of Community.

In what is by far the most challenging economic period of our generation, it is vital that we pull together our individual efforts to make continuing education a priority and to build awareness of our institutions’ capacity to provide life-long learning that contributes to a lasting foundation of economic prosperity. We must join together in collegial conversations to advance continuing education, lay the groundwork for a new generation of economic opportunity, promote social inclusion and access to education, stimulate entrepreneurship and highlight our continuing achievements in the areas of economic development and workforce education broadly defined.

Some of the initiatives are perennials in our Association’s garden. Others are seedlings that build upon the work of past presidents, and some are seeds of my own. Advocacy for our mission remains at the top of the list for the Association and in our work as members within our institutions and communities. We are committed to increasing access—ensuring that second chance, creating a legitimate door to higher education—and finding creative ways to promote greater affordability through resources we have access to at a time when the need is critical.

In the area of Research, we have a compelling need to build awareness of key environmental trends and issues relevant to higher education institutions in a turbulent economy. We have created a professional development opportunity—Entrepreneurship in Hard Times— for members around this topic at the upcoming Summer Institute.

I also seek to support Association members’ needs for competitive intelligence, market research, and data to support their policy formulation needs by capturing the current operational research conducted by our members around topics of current interest. In doing so, I envision us using new tools that enable us to easily create a body of knowledge that becomes visible to members, tapping into what is currently latent information generated by our members in their daily work. A special presidential task force will explore the possibility of creating—on UCEAConnect or otherwise—a wiki that would be devoted to continuing education. If successful, this would give to the field and to UCEA members an opportunity to easily create, access, and continually evolve a body of knowledge for our field.

With respect to Community, the Association provides a place where U.S. and international continuing higher education professionals can share knowledge, collaborate, form relationships, and develop communities.

I would like the UCEA Commissions and Committees to think about the coupling of innovation with social inclusion in the four core areas of UCEA’s Strategic Vision. Inclusiveness fosters the kind of creativity that can only come from embracing diversity. It is a great time for our entrepreneurial spirit in higher education. To fully capitalize on this great potential, we can make a more visible commitment to this undergirding value of inclusive excellence through our leadership and by elevating recognition of our successes in programs, services, and new models that demonstrate inclusive leadership, collaborative strategies, and effective engagement with diverse communities.

Five years from now, when we celebrate our 100th birthday, let’s eachof us commit to ensuring that we have a much more diverse, demographically representative sea of faces at our national and regional meetings and across our leadership venues.

— Patricia Book