About UCEA

President's Letter

Sometimes Continuing Education Is About Life and Death

Too many times, our profession is seen as the necessary evil within the Academy, a mechanism for generating revenue. Even the most altruistic among us usually counter with an argument about the merits of CE as the provider of access, especially to underserved, disadvantaged and non-traditional students. Few, I suspect, would ever think of continuing education as engaged in serious activity that impacts life and death. Sometimes, though, we need to reframe the discussion of the importance of CE in ways that upset the equilibrium and the status quo. While I am certainly not suggesting that all of CE, or even most of it, is about life and death, I am proposing to hold out for you an example of the power of continuing education that has always been true throughout the history of this profession and can give us all inspiration on some of those dark days.

In July, an exemplary lifelong continuing educator received the Congressional Gold Medal, America's highest civilian honor. He added this to other major awards he received for his life's work-continuing education. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977, and the National Medal of Science in 2004, in addition to dozens of other awards and honors, along with nearly 50 honorary degrees from 18 different countries.

He was never the President of UCEA. Heck, he was never even a UCEA (or even NUCEA) member. And yet, I would argue, he is one of the most significant continuing education professionals ever known.

Who is this exemplary continuing educator? He is Dr. Norman Borlaug, now 93 years old. An American agricultural scientist, humanitarian and, yes, a continuing educator.

Teaching his Techniques

Dr. Borlaug is often credited with saving more lives than any other person through his revolutionary work in agriculture. In short, he developed unique ways to dramatically increase crop yield, create crop strains that resist diseases and develop more compact wheat plants that withstand heavy seed heads. His high-yielding techniques have saved millions from starvation. As a continuing educator, Borlaug has taught his techniques to scientists and farmers in Mexico, Pakistan, India and Africa.

Born in Iowa, Dr. Borlaug's undergraduate career mirrored what many of our current students experience today. He began as an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota in the two-year General College, transferring later to the College of Agriculture. Not unlike today's students, Dr. Borlaug had to interrupt his studies to work. He eventually went on to complete his masters and doctoral degrees in plant pathology and genetics at the same University. After a relatively short career as a microbiologist at DuPont in Wilmington, Delaware, he took an agricultural research position in Mexico and later a faculty position at Texas A&M. Now retired, Dr. Borlaug continues to spend much time in teaching, research and world food production activism, shuttling between Mexico and the U.S.

A Model of Best Practices

There is much more that can be said about this stellar continuing educator. What are some of the "take-aways" from a lifetime of achievements that speak to our profession today? He is absolutely passionate about his work, suffers fools lightly and is urgent about his efforts because, indeed, lives are at stake. Dr. Borlaug's application of University research to real-world food shortage problems and his dedication to the continuing education of scientists and farmers are models of some of the best practices in our profession. Moreover, Borlaug had a global outlook and engagement long before it became fashionable or necessary. In the face of an agricultural industry that was focused on machinery, pesticides and irrigation, Norman Borlaug created a new blue ocean that made most of these elements irrelevant.

Sometimes Continuing Education is more than just money or access, it really is a matter of life and death. Just remember Norman Borlaug.