Judy Sudirman: Good morning and welcome to Nevada Weekly, I'm Judy Sudirman and my guests
today are Dr. Neal Ferguson, Dean of Continuing Education, Jan Douglass,
Program Coordinator for Continuing Education, and Dr. dick Davies, Academic
Vice President and today we're going to discuss what continuing education is and
what it can do for you. Neal, perhaps you'd like to fill us in on what is
continuing education and what's going on in Nevada as far as continued continuing
education is concerned. Neal Ferguson: continuing education, by the implication of the word,
means that it continues beyond something and supposedly it's a continuation
beyond formal education. I think that continuing education has been effective
in as much as we take that for granted nowadays. 50 50 years ago formal
education was really what one expected to get and then once she finished formal
education supposedly you were set for life.
We simply turned that turned that assumption around and now continuing
education is something that goes on supposedly throughout life and the
university takes as part of its respond overall responsibility offering a
variety of programs to meet a variety of adults needs beyond the beyond formal
education, so as a consequence, we're set up to do off campus programs for credit
throughout the state. We do a lot of teacher re-certification in those kinds
of programs. We offer correspondence courses for people who can't come to
campus but who might want to pursue a baccalaureate degree or at
least part of a baccalaureate degree that way.
We also offer continuing education programs for professionals through our
Department of Conferences and Institute's. That's one of the areas that
has been growing very rapidly recently because as as one profession after
another decides that it has to require its members to continue their education
in some structured set way setting beyond terminal degree, more and more
people come to us. I think that that perhaps Jan could make some comments
about continuing education programs for the School of Mines, which she's been
connected with for a long time. Jan Douglass: Well, we are extremely lucky to have a school
like the Mackey School of Mines on our campus, is one of the primary
instructional areas for hardrock mining and the western United States and it has
a very active faculty who are interested in not only the students who are on
campus but the students who have left the campus and are actively working in
the mines in this part of the country. We started in 1974 with a small program on
mineral processing and drew essentially from the Northern Nevada
area. Since then, we've run perhaps 25 to 30 meetings on various topics which have
drawn people from all over the United States, Canada, Mexico, Western Europe and
locations in Africa and South America. I think it's been very good for the mining
professional in this area, but it's also done a great deal to advertise the
Mackay School of Mines and the University of Nevada-Reno all over the
world. Neal Ferguson: Jan, maybe you can make some comment about how it is you actually go
about setting up one of those programs. I know that that before I got involved in
continuing education, I really didn't understand the pains that were taken to
to assure that that these programs attracted high-quality faculty from all
over the world. Jan Douglass: Well, I think the first step is having
high quality faculty on your campus to begin with who know who the
professionals are and what their topic areas are and what the adult out there
needs as far as an educational experience is concerned. Once they put us
in contact with the proper speaker, is a question of making sure that the
physical facilities are available either here on campus or in local hotels, making
sure that the word gets out to the mining professional either through his
professional journals or through direct mail and then just sort of making all
the details come together. Usually, this takes a year from the beginning planning
stages to the actual holding of the conference or seminar. Judy Sudirman: What kinds of
programs have been offered in the mining department, things that might be of
general interest to Nevadans? Jan Douglass: Well, we have done a number of things that are of
interest in about it's because Nevada has such a wide variety of mining
experiences available. One of the most successful that we have done
continuously is on volcanism and there are several sites in Nevada and
roundabouts in which there are volcanoes that are responsible for ore deposits
and some pretty spectacular things to look at from a geologists standpoint and
there's of course even more interest on that now with Mount St. Helens and we
are holding, for the very first time, this fall a by invitation only conference of
the people who are the primary premiere volcanologist in the world. Judy Sudirman: You get a lot
of response from Nevadans or is it is it people from throughout the region or
nationally or is it pretty well distributed? Jan Douglass: Well, I'd say our biggest
response would be from Nevadans, particularly with the mining boom going
on right now, but as I say, we have drawn from all over the world. Judy Sudirman: With continuing
education then you offer a variety of classes for or seminars workshops short
types of programs for people in different professions, what types of
professions would be attracted to continued education programs? Neal Ferguson: We have the
miners, we do things for engineers, accountants, people in the medical
profession, nurses, dentists, psychologists, really whoever whoever has a continuing
education requirement and some that don't.
Also, more more specific programs and things like real estate and insurance
are also part of that continuing education for the professions. Judy Sudirman: Now, if I
live in Yerington or in Ely or somewhere, would I be able to take
some of these classes as well or what I have to come to Reno for all of these
classes? Neal Ferguson: Most of them take place on-site here in Reno simply because it's easier
to to get everybody collected, but we do have the Unite system which is the
teleconferencing system which does allow us to hook into professionals all over
the state, so that they can take some of these courses at their in their own home
communities and they don't have to then incur the the travel and the lodging
expenses. Judy Sudirman: Dick, you I wrote a 10-year master plan for the University and
within your master plan I understand you set forth priorities, how does continuing
education fit in with the realm of the University? Dick Davies: Well, the 10-year master plan
was not something that I wrote directly, there might be some faculty members
out there watching this this morning who spent a lot of time working with me on
the master plan, but the academic plan for the 1980s for UNR basically
emphasizes the service function of the university, the land-grant function that
we are a state-supported institution, that we have an obligation to provide
educational opportunities for all Nevadans, those who need and are capable
of benefiting from these types of experiences. Consequently, as one takes a
look at the demography of the state, the changing population that we anticipate,
we we see a tremendous increase over the next ten years in continuing education
activities for UNR. We think it's part of our obligation, specifically the
growing number of professionals in the state, nursing for example, has 32
continuing education units every two years to be re-certified. We feel we have
an obligation to provide at least some of those types of educational
experiences, reaching into the community as in meeting certain specific areas of
responsibility, the growing business community, seminars, and management, tax
accounting are are obvious things we should be doing. We also have a
tremendous obligation through continuing education to meet the re-certification
ease of public school teachers and we have been doing this in a variety of
ways over the years and I would say with the growing population Nevada,
that we're going to see continued education continue to continue to grow
and expand based upon sound accredited programs, sound quality programs,
nothing fly-by-night but certainly trying to meet those kinds of needs that
are identified and come to us. For example, the entire area of Allied Health
is one that we have really not addressed and continuing education. Here. I'm
talking about people other than nurses and other than physicians, physical
therapists, radiologists, x-ray technicians and the like. There is a
growing number of those individuals in the state who also need updating
continually. I think one of the most important things to keep in mind is that
man's body of knowledge is doubling every five years and a person who's
perhaps received an RN diploma in 1960, the state of nursing is totally
different in 1981 and so continuing education seeks to address those kinds
of needs, so given the service function of UNR, our land-grant function, our
tax based support, we plan to try to meet as many of the educational needs for the
adult population of the state in the 1980s. In a summary then that's sort of
where the master plan is placed continuing education.
Judy Sudirman: I understand also that I've read in newspapers lately that there's a lot of
programs and classes that are offered by perhaps accredited or non accredited
institutions in Nevada. I'm wondering what your opinion is on on
UNRs obligation as far as that's concerned. Dick Davies: Well, we feel that our
obligation is that anytime we offer a program we're putting the stamp of UNR
behind it and Dean Ferguson and his interviews
when he was appointed made it very clear that he understood that obligation. We're
are not selling credit, we're not simply offering entertainment, we're offering
sound quality educational programs and we have the stamp of UNR and the
University and the Board of Regents behind that type of offering. Throughout
the United States, there are many what I would call entrepreneurial types of
institutions of education that have moved into the higher education field
and an effort to make a dollar and various institutions oftentimes with a
profit motive are trying to compete with traditional universities and colleges
for that educational dollar. There is a controversy in Las Vegas right now about
a new university that is suddenly opened its doors and is offering doctoral
degrees in clinical psychology. It's made national attention. There are
universities based in such places as Los Angeles and Florida that are offering
programs in Nevada right now, utilizing faculty that where they might be from I
don't know, so the for those who are interested in athletics, the recent
scandal that has affected many of the pac-10 schools involves students student
athletes allegedly taking courses in an extension situation from universities in
the Midwest offering them in one place a garage in a Los Angeles neighborhood.
Well, those types of activities are throughout higher education. UNR is not
going to be a part of that type of thing and we are our objective is to provide
the needs for Nevadans with quality programs and certainly Reno and Las
Vegas, our two cities with large populations are that will attract in the
future these types of entrepreneurial activities. In some cases like the
traditional business colleges, that's a perfectly legitimate function, but on the
other hand when school suddenly appear overnight and offering master's degrees
and doctoral degrees, one has to ask some very fundamental questions. Now, we have a
commission on post-secondary education in the state that must grant the license
to any such institution to operate and I would hope that that post-secondary
education commission would look at these types of institutions very closely
before they would grant them the license to operate in the state of Nevada. Judy Sudirman: So, in
other words, the consumer should be aware that's whom they're dealing in to
basically be a buyer beware type of situation. Dick Davies: I would suggest and in the state
in which I live before I came here, the state of Arizona, we got involved in a
situation where a school nobody had ever heard of before was suddenly offering
master degrees in nursing to local nurses and they thought they were buying,
excuse me, earning an illegitimate degree and when in fact no self-respecting
institution would recognize those credits, so there is in that particular
area concern and so in our my conversations with Dr. Ferguson before
he took the position of being Dean of Continuing Education, we talked a great length
about this type of problem to make to make sure that in the types of things we
do, we're offering sound solid educational opportunities. Judy Sudirman: So, in other
words, if I were a resident if I am a resident of Reno and I'm concerned about
one of these could I call the University and find out whether it's an accredited
institution? or? Dick Davies: Uhm we don't have that type... well accreditation can come from many
sources simply because an institution is accredited doesn't necessarily imply
that we will accept those types of credits. Basically, we do not we were not
to tool up to offer that type of consulting service, but I would suggest
that by simply looking at the name of the institution one could in fact
determine whether or not those kind of credits would be transferable if in fact
they want to use them for degree program. Judy Sudirman: Jan ,what kinds of programs will be
offered this summer and perhaps into the fall that would would enhance
professional development? Jan Douglass: Well, we have a program coming up next month
in geriatrics. It's called "Elder Care", and it is for all health professionals
who deal with you know the older person and their problems both psychological
and medical. We have a kind of exciting thing coming up in the fall I think
called the "Accounting and Information Systems Exposition", which will be a
display of computer technology particularly as it affects the
accounting professions. We have between 45 and 60 credit courses which will be
held through the off-campus division and the various communities in Northern
Nevada. They are so diverse that I'm afraid
there's no way I could go into all of them, but I'm sure that anybody who's
interested who would like to contact the off-campus division they'll be glad to
send them a brochure which covers them all. Jan Sudirman: I understand that continuing
education is also involved with summer session. Perhaps Neal, you know you could tell
us a little bit about summer session and what's available
in summer session right now. Neal Ferguson: Continuing education has the administrative
responsibility for for summer session. Summer session tries to do a
number of things, one of which is to offer curriculum which would allow
undergraduates to accelerate progress through a degree program so that they
can finish in three years or three and a half years or something like that, but
beyond that, we also offer courses that might not appear in the regular schedule
during their you're either because there there's summer specific or because
they're so intense that it would be difficult to schedule them during the
regular year or they might be simply experimental in nature and the faculty
members don't have time to to go ahead and do something like that
during their regular school year, things that local people have long been
interested in are, things like the Lake Tahoe music and
that's going to be it's now having its silver anniversary this year. Judy Sudirman: And, that's
what high school students? Neal Ferguson: That's right, high school and and junior high and
that's up at the university's 4-h camp and that's held every August and we're
now in the process of getting that organized and ready to go for this
summer as well. On the other hand, we have an experimental course, I guess is the
only way to describe it, for physics teachers coming up in in August as well.
It appears to be the case that a large number of physics classes are taught by
by teachers who are not physicists or didn't major in physics in college and
this course is designed specifically to give them techniques, information,
laboratory skills that they might not otherwise be able to get so it's geared
specifically at those teachers who don't whose background in physics isn't that
strong, so those two programs are examples of things that sort of cover
the gamut of what we do. Judy Sudirman: And, also summer session I understand is offered in in
shorter term so student may perhaps take a class for five weeks and then go on
vacation or you know work something out it's a little more flexible than the
rest of the year is that right? Neal Ferguson: Right, the courses depending on the course it can
take place in just two or three days, it can be two or three weeks, or it can be
five or six or seven weeks depending on what it is so the flexibility does work
very much to the students' favor during the summer.
Judy Sudirman: Now, field study programs are also offered during summer session and
probably by this time of the year most of them are probably well underway, but
for next year are there gonna be a variety of field study programs
opportunities for students to learn about cultures and history and geography,
perhaps of other countries? Neal Ferguson: We always we always have a fair number of those
going to France or Mexico or or wherever, but also we have field study
taking place in Nevada as well. We have archaeology of course underway now and
then in the second summer session they'll be the ecology study on the
Great Great Basin which is always a good course and students are interested in
getting into the flora the fauna and artifacts of the Great Basin. It's really
a wonderful course. Judy Sudirman: When can someone register for the next session? Do you
have that information available? Neal Ferguson: Basically, they can register anytime the
easiest thing to do is to call summer session or office and then the summer
session office can get people details about when and where and how much that
kind of thing, but that number is seven eight four four
zero six two. Someone will wait till nine o'clock in the morning, but anytime after that
people can call up and if they want a summer sessions catalog, we'll send that
in the mail to them the same day, whatever they need. Judy Sudirman: That's seven eight
four what four zerp six two. Okay, I noticed that summer session tuition
went up ten about ten percent this year. Is that fairly typical of new budget
restraints or is continuing education involved with some of the budget
restrictions that education seems to be feeling this year?
Neal Ferguson: Well, it is and it isn't. Some of our funding comes from the state but we're
largely self-reliant. We create our own money for the most part and summer
session is completely self-supporting. It gets no direct tax dollars, it gets
indirect tax money through buildings and through the utilities that kind of thing,
but the classes themselves are self-supporting so there's no tax money
there at all and that's the reason why tuition had to go up this summer. We had
raised tuition for about four or five years, but meanwhile all of our costs
have continued to go up about ten to fifteen percent a year,
so we were a long ways behind the power curve this summer in terms of in terms
of tuition and we simply had to to raise it 10% was modest compared to what
inflation has been doing to us, but since we're self-supporting, how the money has
to be there. Judy Sudirman: So, in other words, the continuing education the operation of
continued education is generally financially self-supporting not
really reliable... Neal Ferguson: 75, 80 percent of total revenue is self generated, the other 20%
comes from the state, but in the summer session program, it receives no state
money. Judy Sudirman: So, in programs like the professional development program is
basically the people are charged, assessed a fee and that basically covers
the expenses so so they're paying for what they get.
Neal Ferguson: That's right and hopefully they get what they pay for. Judy Sudirman: What kinds of
budgetary restrictions do you foresee in the future as far as continued education?
Do you have any problems with that? Dick Davies: Well, continuing education is part of the
university and the entire university, right now, the deans, the department
chairs, vice presidents, the president are reviewing our budget for 1981-82 and
early 82-83 trying to determine our what our priorities are. We are on an
extremely tight budget. There is a myth and more and more convinced it's a myth
that there's a lot of fat at the university in its budget. If it is I wish somebody
would point it out to me because we have just cut 10 faculty positions out of our
budget for next year, we have reduced other budgets in face of enrollment, we
have just cut skiing out of the intercollegiate athletic program, and
they're still projecting a deficit that they hope to make up with additional
booster monies and ticket sales, which is a question that will remain to be seen,
so higher education in Nevada is in a very rigorous situation and it's not
unusual of businesses and family finances are in the same crunch. Our
electric bill has gone up with everybody else's. Our utility bills in general
have gone up, we have the same types of constraints as a family budget except
ours is a little bit larger and so right now, I would say continuing education is
going to be have to be creative if it wants to grow just like other academic
administrators are being asked to be creative and how to deal with very
severe budget problems and what continuing education is going to be able
to do, in terms of growth, I think will largely be a result of external funding
beyond what the state of Nevada is going to be able to provide. The services
they're going to have to be presented in such a way that the consumer is not
gonna want to pay the dollar to to receive those services and I think
that's where continuing education fits in. Neal, what do you for this challenge
in the 80s, apparently there's gonna be a tight fiscal crunch, do you see any
expansion in continuing education? Neal Ferguson: Well, I would hope for expansion. Right
now, we're looking at survival but I think we'll continue to expand though as
population grows, as the economy diversifies, maybe this is a statement of
faith, but I really see the the occupational structure of Nevada
becoming much more diverse and that will only increase the demand for the kinds
of services that we provide. You know, I hope to see the day that Nevada has a
high tech industry on every street corner and we have engineers coming out
of the woodwork demanding that we provide them the kinds of continuing
professional educational opportunities that say occur in the Bay Area, which has
a high tech economy. That's only one example, but the we're really on the
leading edge of change and we certainly haven't reached our potential. Judy Sudirman: Is this a
training continuing education or? Neal Ferguson: You know, every
continuing education operation, every state university and in many private
universities as well, the private universities have gotten into this as
well. I think it's safe to say that it was once something state university saw
as part of their mission, but I just saw an amazing series of seminars being
offered by Harvard and MIT in conjunction since in the same town so just
you look at you look at different states and you see that they do things
differently and our mission is to respond to Nevada's needs, so yes, we are
going to to try to meet those needs. Those needs are going to grow,
but other states are in completely different circumstances. The University
of Michigan basically just cut their continuing education resources by about
40% because of budgetary problems, so it just depends on where you look. Judy Sudirman: Is
continuing education as a whole, is it a growing field, is it...? Dick Davies: Yes, throughout the
United States it has been one of the most prominent growth aspects of higher
education in the last 20 years, yeah. Judy Sudirman: And, UNR that apparently that trend
seems to be moving that way also. .Neal Ferguson: We're we're looking at other
ways to expand in addition to simply continuing professional education. Dr.
Davies and I have talked at length about the desirability of setting up some kind
of external degree programs so that that students wouldn't necessarily have to
come to the campus to complete the degree program. We're both very excited
about that and really want to push for that but that's an another example of an
area in which we might grow. Judy Sudirman: So, in other words, in the future we may be able to
see people living in in Ely or in Hawthorne or Battle Mountain being able
to take a pursue an external degree in their own communities through the
university. Dick Davies: A significant portion of that particular program with new technologies coming
on more television telecommunication systems in general. Judy Sudirman: I understand our time
is about running out. Thank you for joining us on Nevada Weekly. I'm Judy
Dudirman and have a good day.
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