The Entrepreneurial Conundrum of Building Graduate Programs
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Colleges and Universities
Presentation Format Requested
Concurrent Session (45 minutes)
Session Abstract
Graduate adult education programs are under increasing pressure to recruit and push students through the program. This session highlights how academic capitalism forces faculty to be entrepreneurial. This paradigm focuses on convenience, cost, and quick degrees. This session uses K-State’s Adult Learning and Leadership Program to illustrate challenges and barriers.
Target Audience
This session will be targeted to faculty and their students whose goal is to work in higher education.
Learning Outcomes
1) Understand the changing landscape of higher education
2) Recognize the barriers to sustaining graduate adult education
3) Introduce new opportunities
4) Introduce the business side of investment and return on investment
5) Open up a dialogue on how graduate adult education programs can work on this problem together
Session Description
We will first outline how K-State has met recruitment goals for the last thirty years, then using K-State as an example describe how we have to be creative and flexible as markets for new students have waxed and waned. Then present how this affects faculty. To conclude our presentation we will position this case study within the larger framework of academic capitalism and neoliberalism. At the end of our presentation, we will allow adequate time for discussion and end with an invitation to help us plan our next steps so we can have a vibrant network of adult education programs within our profession.
Format & Technique
Presentation followed by discussion