Agenda: At-a-Glance, Keynote, Breakouts and Workshops
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Keynote Presentation

Performance-Based Funding in Higher Education: Trends and Developments
Spiros Protopsaltis, Ph.D., Senior Policy Advisor
U.S. Department of Education

Prior to joining the Department in July 2013, Spiros was senior policy advisor for higher education to Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Tom Harkin. Previously, Spiros was senior policy advisor to Congressman Jared Polis (CO-2). Before moving to DC in 2009, Spiros was the president of a nonprofit policy organization in Denver and the director of policy and research at the Jared Polis Foundation. Spiros holds a B.A. summa cum laude from Northeastern University, a M.S. from the New School University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, and has taught several graduate and undergraduate courses.


Highlighted Breakout Sessions

Deans and Data: It’s In Your Hands Now
Dr. Martha Venn, Provost; Dr. Mary Wearn, Assistant Provost Academic Planning and Policy; Dr. Becky Corvey, Dean of the School of Health Sciences
Middle Georgia State College

There is an old Texas saying by University of Texas football coach Darrell Royal “Dance with the one who brung you”! It is now become a football axiom “keep doing what has been successful for you” We are now at a point with analytics that the academic units can think strategically about their students in their schools. This presentation will provide: (1) brief overview of Middle Georgia State College’s roadmap to bring actionable data to the President’s Leadership Team, Academic Administrators, and Faculty; (2) ownership of freshman and sophomore retention and progression institutionally; and (3) authentic experiences from a Dean’s perspective.

Winning the Workload War While Exceeding Student Expectations
Ben Burton, Chief Financial Student Services Officer, Ivy Tech Community College; Joan Zanders, Director of Financial Aid at Northern Virginia Community College; Anthony Humphries, Senior Director, Enrollment, Financial Aid, + Student Support, Blackboard Education Services

Financial Aid organizations are facing a host of challenges including geometrically growing workloads fueled by an increased need for aid, regulatory complexities, and constricting budgets resulting in insufficient resources to respond to such challenges. This combined with instant-on, anywhere, anytime service expectations from today’s students mean that just keeping up is nearly impossible. In other words, an ever-widening service gap IS today’s reality. Doing things the same way and hoping for a different result is no longer an option- it's time to break the mold. Join this panel discussion to learn how multiple institutions are utilizing innovative techniques to exceed student expectations.

Student Success: Making Cents of the Investment
Dennis Krieb, Jon Tysse, Institutional Research
Lewis + Clark Community College

At Lewis and Clark we have invested in student success and it is paying for itself in student retention. The Student Success Centers (SSC’s) are Lewis and Clark’s tutoring centers. They provide a wide range of help from just in time remediation to paper proofing and everything in between. Careful planning during start-up is now paying dividends as The Office of Institutional Research can tie the impact of tutoring to a host of student performance measures, including retention. We will show the impact the SSC’s have on not only student success, in a wide range of course work, but also how the SSC’s are not only paying for themselves but are a financial windfall for the institution in terms of increased retention.

7 Strategies to Grow and Support Online Programs
Sallie Reissman Ed.D., Senior Director of Online Learning + Educational Tech
Wilmington University

Institutions are looking for systematic ways to grow their online programs. This session will explore 7 strategies used by Wilmington University to develop over 85 online programs in 7 years. What was the design? How did we retain our faculty and students? This presentation will highlight each strategy and the steps involved in the planning that increased enrollments each year while maintaining quality courses and services. Participants will walk away with handouts and access to all online materials shared during the session.

Fostering an “Analytic Culture” Through Collaboration
Heath Tuttle, Ph.D., Director, Learning + Emerging Technologies and Analytics, Univesity of Nebraska-Lincoln; Bret Blackman, Director of Administrative Information Services at University of Nebraska at Omaha

Collaboration is the key to the success of analytic initiatives at the University of Nebraska Omaha and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. UNO and UNL have broadened the scope of their collaborative relationship; moving from technology focused collaboration to focusing on fostering an analytic culture on their respective campuses. This presentation will focus on their unique strategies, as well as on successes and lessons learned.

What’s Wrong With The Stats We Use In Higher Ed
Eric Kelderman
The Chronicle of Higher Education

Nearly every day, you can read a news story about how expensive college has become and see an elected official on television decrying the inexplicable rise in student debt. Colleges, on the other hand, have responded with a constant stream of press releases about the impact of state budget cuts and efforts to cut their costs or raise the quality of academic programs. Unfortunately, many of the statistics used to describe the state of higher education can be easily misused or misunderstood.

Rethinking Student Success: Analytics in Support of Teaching and Learning
Timothy Harfield, Scholar in Residence, Learning Analytics
Emory University

Passing grades and retention through to degree are essential to success in higher education, but these factors are too often mistaken for ends in themselves. A high-performing student environment has provided teachers and researchers at Emory University with a space to think critically about what success means, and about the extent to which data might inform the design of successful learning environments. This presentation will (1) discuss some of the unique challenges encountered by Emory University during its 2013-2014 Blackboard Analytics pilot, (2) describe several provisional insights gained from preliminary data mining, and (3) outline how Emory’s pilot experience has informed support of learning analytics on campus. What we have learned at Emory University has both broad and deep implications for how institutions use data in support of student success, but these insights could only have been achieved in an environment where grade-performance and retention are not significant issues.

Data Analytics: To Be or Not to Be. Understanding the Need for Data Informed Enrollment Praxis
Dwight Sanchez, Assistant Provost for Enrollment Management
University of the District of Columbia

This presentation will outline and explicate the use of data analytics in understanding how to be strategic in increasing and maintaining enrollment.

Tackling the Headwinds: Using Analytics to Propel Students to Graduation
Brad Bostian, Ed.D, Director of First Year Experience, Central Piedmont Community College Kara Bosch, Director College Administrative Support Training and Reporting, Central Piedmont Community College

Community colleges face twin headwinds of an improving economy and flattening high school graduation numbers. Blackboard analytics can help a college maintain and even grow enrollments by identifying and solving inefficiencies. Join Central Piedmont Community College as they discuss their use of analytics in the development of recruitment and retention initiatives and measuring the success of these initiatives.

Moving from a "Just In Time" to "Forward Thinking" Technology Organization
Stephani Jones-Hines, Associate Vice President of Mulvane and Online Operations, Cowley College

By rethinking the way technology support is handled across the college, Cowley College has been able to move past managing day to day to being a much more strategic organization increasing the value it provides to students and faculty. During this session we will discuss the decision making process to rethink the way Tier 1 and Tier 2 technology support at the College are provided as well as take a look at how an enhanced partnership with Blackboard has significantly improved satisfaction of end users and staff.


A Day in the Data Life of a College Administrator
Dr. Cat Finnegan, Associate Vice Chancellor of Institutional Effectiveness, Virginia Community College System

This session will follow a busy administrator through her day, sharing the data and dashboards that help her to make good quality decisions. Dashboards in the Finance, Student, Financial Aid and Human Resources modules will be shared.
Hands-On Workshops

Student Success: What does it mean and how does it happen?
Karen Yoshino, Director and Principal Strategist; Terianne Sousa, Product Manager for Student Retention Services, Blackboard

The link to student success is through purposeful and intentional program approaches combined with effective adoption and use of technology. Learn about the relationship and impact of faculty development, student outcomes, and student advising and how those relationships result in improved institutional performance.


Leveraging Data to Inform, Initiate and Improve on Institutional Goals
Phil Adams, Director and Principal Strategist, Blackboard

This session will discuss the importance of Analytics in setting and tracking institutional goals. Using KPI’s and trend analysis to evaluate performance and predict results, and how creating a culture of data informed decisions will help with enrollment growth and overall student success.

Seeding Success: Cultivating Your Learning Technology Ecosystem for Online Learning
Chad Kainz, Principal Strategist, Blackboard

Deploying technology does not guarantee online learning success; creating an engaging experience that students will interact with on a daily basis involves growing and managing your learning technology ecosystem. How does your ecosystem shape the online learning experience you want (and need) to create? What should you invest (and divest) in? How can you apply a holistic approach toward technology to achieve your online learning goals?
Day# 1: Thursday, October 30th
8 AM - 8:50 AM Registration, + Breakfast
9 AM - 10 AM Keynote
10 AM - 12 PM Breakout Sessions
12 PM - 1 PM Lunch
1:05 PM - 2:40 PM Breakout Sessions
2:45 PM - 3:15 PM Networking Break
3:20 PM - 4:40 PM Breakout Sessions
5 PM - 7 PM Networking Reception


Day# 2: Friday, October 31st
8 AM - 8:50 AM Breakfast + Networking
9 AM - 10 AM Keynote
10 AM - 12 PM Breakout Sessions
12 PM - 1 PM Lunch
1:05 PM - 2:40 PM Breakout Sessions
2:45 PM Adjourn


Agenda At-a-Glance


Questions about the call for proposals, agenda, or broader event can be sent to Mike Lovell at mike.lovell@blackboard.com.