Wednesday

Co-Designing an Integrated Accelerated Pathways Model w/Employers  and Workforce Development System
Presenters: Hui-Yin Hsu, Lori Conkling, Michael Manipakone, Karla Williams, Madeleine Centeno, Anthony Watson, Donna McClean-Grant, Evelyn Fernandez-Ketchm, Simon Rodriguez, Christine Zagari-LoPorto, Sunil Gupta
Description: CUNY’s Community Colleges Consortium will present the recently awarded $5M DOL Strengthening Community Colleges Training Grant Program. The Consortium will present an overview of the project, framework, theory of change, and strategies proposed to
implement systemic changes within CUNY Workforce Development. The Consortium will also report the up-to-date progress.
3 Takeaways: (1) actively engage employers through partnerships with industry to enhance career pathways and revise policies to support work-based learning (2) develop and implement pedagogical practices supporting online and culturally responsive teaching through faculty/staff professional development (3) design training programs that will enable workers to reskill as quickly as possible with industry-recognized credentials and accelerated pathways to degrees that include credit for prior learning

Ninja Marketing to Capture Leads and Convert to Sales
Presenter: Fern Chan
Description: Learn the stealth moves that successful businesses and entrepreneurs use to convert leads into sales that can be applied to our continuing education model. This session will give you a behind-the-scenes look on how to capture emails, what to do with the information once you get it, and the necessary follow-up to nurture that lead into a sale.
3 Takeaways: (1) How to create value-added lead magnets to increase your subscribers (2) How to automate the follow-up sequence to save you time (3) Provide a VIP user experience that leads to conversion

Modern Racial Dynamics
Presenter: Tyre Bush,  Marcus Brooks
Description: This session will walk the participants through one administrators’ approach to addressing systemic challenges within her region and the steps she took in doing so. We will discuss the thought process, actions, and the outcome of tackling what some consider to be a very challenging subject matter in a very challenging time
3 Takeaways: (1) Finding those with personal experience & intestinal fortitude to facilitate such conversations is not easy at all. (2) However, the right facilitator/instructor can be worth their weight in gold. (3) Intelligent & capable facilitators/instructors only want to show up for those who are willing to do the work and who are not interested in checking a box or serving as window dressing.

Thursday

Building a Skilled Manufacturing Pipeline for NY: How Workforce Education is Changing
Speaker: Barbara Reer, Johnnieanne Hansen, Eileen Larocca 
Description: In order to attract students into workforce training programs, colleges need to look deeply at what matters to those in the community. New pathways have been initiated and supported by SUNY System but embracing them can be a challenge. Using Advanced Manufacturing as an example, we will look at non-credit to credit articulations, Micro-Credentials and Apprenticeships and how these initiatives can grow enrollments and create a pipeline of talent for local employers. The presentation will also look at challenges these initiatives present to campuses and some solutions to those challenges.
3 Takeaways: (1) Understand how to build education pathways for today’s student (2) Learn how apprenticeships can be an answer to filling the manufacturing pipeline. (3) Understand how partnerships are key in helping the economy

Future Insight-Career Pathways Model for Non-Credit to Credit Programming
Presenters: Christine Zagari-LoPorto, Ada Rosales
Description: KCC secured grant funding from Capital One for a research project designed to answer one fundamental question: ‘How do we better align credit and noncredit programs to better respond to local employer demands and reduce the skills gap?’ The results revealed that, on a whole, KCC’s Continuing Education students felt disengaged from their larger college community. In response, the leadership of KCC decided there had to be a practical, scalable and cost-effective approach to meet students’ career counseling needs.  KCC hired Bounce Marketing & Consulting to execute its vision. Bounce created a site that is high on visual appeal and easy to navigate, specifically for students whose first language is not English. Future InSight is a one-stop shop for adults seeking guidance on their next career move at KCC.
3 Takeaways: (1) Understand on how to take current non-credit pathways and connect them to credit pathways at their institutions; (2) How to create maps for students so they can ‘see’ where their certifications could lead; (3) How to utilize free open source data sites, like O*Net, for keeping information provided to students up to date and relevant

CUNY/SUNY Clean Energy Jobs Consortium: Inclusive Pathways to 21st Century Careers
Presenters: Barbara Reer
Description: The Consortium is an initiative of AVANGRID and eight CUNY and SUNY community colleges. AVANGRID plans a pipeline to bring renewable energy from Upstate to New York City, minimizing Hudson River impacts. Under an innovative $3 million plan, the Consortium will advance diversity and inclusion in renewable energy and energy efficiency workforce training programs.
3 Takeaways: (1) Effectively think about how can we change/modify/ update the cultural paradigm of our campuses, in order to reach out to disadvantaged communities and provide them with the support they will need to successfully pursue micro-credentials towards green career programs? (2) Form strategies for effectively working with industry and labor to advance green careers, beyond ongoing discussions and meetings.

Finding Talent that will Help you Grow in Today's Hybrid Reality
Presenter: Kim Kendall, Dorothy Dobson
Description: How do you find the most talented candidates, who can thrive in the current hybrid learning and work environment? Old hiring process are not yielding the same results. Learn how to update your recruiting, interviewing, and hiring procedures to leverage technology and identify the most talented staff and instructors.
3 Takeaways: (1) Evaluate candidates online and in person using a rubric/criterion guide to make an informed decision about the most suitable candidate for the position. (2) Identify at least one authentic activity to incorporate into their hiring process.

Digital Marketing Strategy for Promoting Online Learning: Building SEO-Optimized Program Landing Pages
Presenter: David Kohn
Description: Improve your web marketing efforts and increase enrollment and revenue by creating search engine-optimized program landing pages. Learn important techniques (content, coding, and analytics) to help your department break through the noise and get the visibility it deserves by improving web traffic and excelling in search engine placement.
3 Takeaways: (1) Articulate the role of search engine optimization for program landing pages in your department's web and marketing strategies (2) Understand search engine optimization ranking factors to optimize content and achieve a higher web page ranking

Thursday Continued

Measuring Our Value: Consistent Data for New York Continuing Education
Speaker: Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner
Description: Early in 2021, the Continuing Education Association of New York (CEANY) was introduced to New York state Assembly Member, Carrie Woerner. AM Woerner serves as the Chair, Legislative Commission on Skills Development and Career Education and as such was interested in knowing how we can all come together and provide the legislators with viable, reliable data across the entire state for continuing education and workforce development programs that would tell the story of what we all do to support such educational efforts to better serve the people of New York. This sessions provides an opportunity for AM Woerner to share her vision, the taskforce that was created to share some information and recommendations and finally for you, the audience to ask questions about this important area.

Win-Win: Engaging Employers and Meeting Workforce Needs
Speaker: Jessica Cinelli, Alissa Levine
Description: Colleges and workforce programs have similar goals for employer engagement, yet each uses its own methods. During this presentation, Kingsborough will talk about how we created and adapted engagement strategies to improve program implementation and outcomes. We will open up the workshop to provide the opportunity for attendees to share their own best practices in engaging employers. We will share our methods and give audience members the chance to explore them
3 Takeaways: (1) Participants will learn ways to evaluate common roadblocks with employer engagement, and how they can create new methods (2) Talk less, listen more. We talk with employers for their professional expertise and experience to identify gaps in our services and to inform program development and improve student outcomes. The most important thing we can do is to listen, to lead meetings with a few talking points, and then let their board members do the talking

Collaborating with the Local Graduate Programs for Win-Win Capacity Building
Presenter: Karen Schuhle-Williams
Description: Even in the best financial times, building department capacity can be difficult. Partnering with nearby graduate programs to create win-win opportunities for you to host interns and/or graduate assistantships is an innovative strategy to build department capacity. This session will provide you with guidance on how to do so.

3 Takeaways: (1) Increase department capacity by hosting a GR intern or GA. (2) Strategically collaborate to stretch budget and impact.

The Role of CE in Setting Course for Higher Education's Future
Presenter: Amrit Ahluwalia, Daniel Gerger
Description: As market demand evolves, Continuing Education units must play a more significant role in ensuring their institutions stay responsive to the shifting needs of their communities. Leveraging expertise in alternative credentialing and customer engagement, these units hold the key to higher ed’s future.
3 Takeaways: (1) Understand the potential for micro-credentialing and alternative credentials as drivers of market responsiveness (2) Form partnerships with colleagues across campus to create true access to flexible offerings.

Friday 

Pandemic Stories: NY's Continuing Education Programs
Presenters: Caelynn Prylo, Franca Armstrrong
Description:  Continuing Education/Workforce Development Units in NY’s community colleges have just lived through a once in lifetime pandemic. We have survived and some of us even thrived. We each have a different story to tell and our successors should know about it. Through facilitated brainstorming, participants will offer their voices about lived experiences and lessons during the COVID-19 pandemic.
3 Takeaways: (1) Talk about how the pandemic impacted them, their students and programs (2) Discuss challenges, successes and lessons learned during the Pandemic

CCI: The SNY Vision of Access + Completion - Success
Presenter: Lisa McKay
Description: As we adapt to a hybrid learning modality, how do we continue to expose students to idea of college as an attainable goal in a remote environment? The College Connections Initiative (CCI) seeks to enrich the student’s personal awareness of college as a realistic pathway to improved life conditions.
3 Takeaways: (1) EOC College Connections Initiative (CCI) Program which provides effective instruction and intensive, intrusive advisement services

that supports the access, preparation and, ultimately, the successful entry into post-secondary institutions for a greater numbers of New York residents (2) How to effectively provide student support services in a remote environment

Empire's ABC Approach to Enrollment Partnerships
Presenter: Sue Epstein, Kylie Byrne, Brian Goodale
Description: At SUNY Empire, partnerships are seen as increasingly important in addressing workforce and educational needs while providing access to innovative, flexible and quality academic programs. The A-B-C approach helps frame discussions within the college, informs strategic decisions and application of resources, as well as collaboration and growth with our partners.
3 Takeaways: (1) Understand how partners’ needs can be at the forefront of strategic use of institutional resources. (2) Understand how to use a conceptual framework, that is nimble and responsive to unify stakeholders.