Outreach and Continuing Education

Offering thousands of formal classes and training opportunities to make education accessible

Contents:
  • Institute helps businesses prepare for 21st century
  • Program offers education in a non-traditional mode
  • Continuing education helps fulfill the public's trust
  • Classes assist nurses in meeting new state statute
  • Librarians find answers to technical questions
  • Other Outreach & Continuing Education examples



  • Institute helps businesses prepare for 21st century

    Offering public and on-site seminars to business professionals around the state and nation, Management Institute provides industry the latest in management training.

    Post-capitalist, post-industrial, late-capitalist - whatever trendy phrase you choose to describe the current economic state of society, one thing is certain: If businesses are to survive in the 21st century, they must keep up with the rapid technological changes and increasing global competition of the world economy.

    UW-Madison's Management Institute, now a half-century old, reaches out to meet the ever-changing requirements of business by providing the professional development seminars industry needs to survive - and thrive. Management Institute faculty members with strong academic credentials, as well as hands-on experience in business, provide industry professionals with access to the latest management knowledge and technologies.

    As a continuing education unit of the UW-Madison School of Business, in cooperation with UW-Extension, the Management Institute annually provides more than 300 public and on-site seminars and workshops to 9,000 business professionals who come from Wisconsin as well as around the world including Mexico, Australia and United Arab Emirates.

    Business Week magazine, which ranks the Management Institute as one of the nation's top providers of continuing business education, praises the organization for offering "something for just about every managerial level and interest, from first-line, entry-level positions to senior executives." Comprehensive seminars focus on management skills; marketing, sales and customer service; finance and accounting; manufacturing systems and processes; procurement; and logistics, transportation, warehousing and distribution center management.

    TDS Computing Services in Madison, one of the Management Institute's satisfied customers, has sent more than 175 of its employees to seminars since 1989. Marilyn Westmas, manager of professional development at the information systems company, says, "The response from our employees is positive; they consider it a worthwhile use of their time. The instructors are aware of the current business environment, and the programs are very practical."

    Sharon Crandall, systems analyst and project leader in the TELCOM Division of TDS Computing Services, says the Basic Management seminars she has taken have helped her develop a management perspective. "I understand that the goal is not just getting the work done," she says. "Now I try to motivate people and look for opportunities for people to grow and learn new skills."

    The classes, Crandall says, have helped her strengthen her decision-making proficiency. "I learned that I didn't need so much information, so much detail. Now I take the best information I have at the time and quickly make a decision so we can move forward," she explains. She also learned strategies for scheduling, delegating, motivating and problem solving.

    So far, Crandall has taken two of four units required for the Basic Management Certificate. The certificate is designed for first-level managers, supervisors and other business professionals who want to strengthen their management skills. Crandall says that somehow she will squeeze in the remaining two workshops she needs to receive the certificate. She is particularly busy now because, inspired by Management Institute seminars, she has begun to work on a master's degree.



  • Program offers education in a non-traditional mode

    The College of Engineering's high-tech outreach program brings classes to the professionals at their worksites.

    For some UW-Madison engineering students, going to school does not involve plowing through four feet of Wisconsin snow while trekking to Engineering Hall. In fact, some of the students have never seen snow.

    For 120 Engineering Outreach participants, it's not just about keeping their feet and ears warm in the winter. For these practicing engineers, it's about keeping up with the latest technological innovations in the rapidly changing field of engineering.

    "Most practicing engineers cannot come to us, so we bring education to them," says Helene Demont, College of Engineering Outreach Program coordinator.

    That might mean beaming courses to corporations by satellite uplink, or sending videocassettes to engineers at companies that enroll them in the college's program, or using interactive telephone-based technology to link working engineers with professors who are teaching the same courses to students on campus. Students choose from 32 classes each semester in chemical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering, materials science and engineering, and nuclear engineering and engineering physics.

    The Engineering Outreach Program enables engineers throughout the state, and across the country, to take classes from some of the best educators available without having to quit their jobs or move their families to Madison.

    For Kimberly-Clark engineer Greg Rajala, the first outreach student to receive a mechanical engineering degree, the outreach program allowed him to continue his full-time job in Neenah, Wis. while pursuing his master's degree at UW- Madison. "It would be quite a financial burden at this point to have to leave work and become a full-time student and keep my family together in one place," Rajala says. "With the outreach program, I was able to keep up with my studies and work at my own pace, while keeping up with other responsibilities such as my family and my job," he says.

    The coursework gave Rajala "new tools and information" to apply to his job. Most recently, he was able to use some of the mathematical skills he learned in developing machinery for a new product line Kimberly-Clark released this summer. "I was able to use information that I had learned in my master's degree to solve problems in the machines," says Rajala, who adds that he is now thinking of going back for his Ph.D. so that he can eventually teach other engineers.

    Like Rajala, engineers benefit from the program through specialized training and career advancement. Some turn to the program to fulfill course requirements before applying to graduate school in Wisconsin. Others simply want to enrich their knowledge and need the strict deadlines of school and the expertise of UW-Madison faculty and staff to guide them. Students working toward master's degrees need approximately five years to complete their program.

    The Engineering Outreach Program office has seen many changes since its inception. In the 1982-83 school year, only two courses were offered to 20 enrolled students. Today, the figures have grown to include 32 classes and 120 students. Demont is confident that as communication technology progresses, Engineering Outreach will progress right along with it. That means that more engineers in Wisconsin will have access to the courses and knowledge they need in their careers.



  • Continuing education helps fulfill the public's trust

    Program provides government officials the training and knowledge they need to better serve the state.

    Norma DeHaven and Ronald Buchholz are government officials who take their responsibilities as public servants very seriously. One way they've done that is to participate in an in-depth continuing education program for public managers conducted through UW-Madison's Division of Continuing Studies.

    Begun just five years ago, the Wisconsin Certified Public Managers Program is attracting many middle and senior government managers from throughout the state who want to better meet the demands of their jobs.

    That was why Buchholz, deputy administrator of the Division of Safety and Buildings in the Wisconsin Department of Industry, Labor and Human Relations, enrolled.

    "At first I just wanted to take a course on strategic planning," he says. "But most courses taught by consulting firms and other colleges focused on planning as it related to managers in private business. The class at UW-Madison was the only one I found that focused specifically on the needs of workers in public sector management. The class was so good, I decided to enroll for the entire series of management programs."

    Each semester the Wisconsin Certified Public Managers Program offers eight to 10 classes in such subjects as leadership, ethics in government, quality improvement, performance evaluation, budgeting, conflict management and risk management. To become nationally certified, participants must attend 300 hours of classes, take several exams and complete outside projects. The entire course of study usually takes three years.

    DeHaven, city manager for the city of Fitchburg, says one of the most remarkable aspects of the program is its ability to provide participants with a broader view of their role in government. "One of our common mistakes in government is to get too narrowly focused on our particular job," she says. "The program helped me see that most managers in government have a commonalty of concerns: You aren't the only one struggling with a particular issue or challenge."

    More than 200 managers from all levels of state and local government throughout Wisconsin are enrolled in the program. Susan Paddock, director of the program and a UW-Madison assistant professor of governmental affairs, says, "We've been impressed with how many Wisconsin public managers are willing to spend a great deal of their time to study and better understand their roles and responsibilities in government. They are living up to the public trust placed in them."

    In addition to the public managers courses, continuing education departments in the Division of Continuing Studies and other UW-Madison schools and colleges offer more than 2,000 classes each year in areas of both professional development and personal enrichment.

    The Division of Continuing Studies offers such programs as a weekly evening French class at Lowell Hall, an all-day workshop on using the Internet at the Wisconsin Center, a six-session medieval history class at West High School, an accounting seminar in Grainger Hall, a series on tax law and a class on recent award-winning children's books via Extension's Educational Teleconference Network, a book talk series on American novelists at the Madison Public Library, a three-day conference on distance teaching at a local hotel, and others.

    UW-Madison continuing education courses make it possible to share the resources of the university with more than 140,000 citizens of Wisconsin annually as they update their knowledge of their current professions, prepare themselves for new careers, develop new skills, adapt to changes in the workplace, and expand their knowledge and creative interests.



  • Classes assist nurses in meeting new state statute

    New coursework in distance education program helps health care professionals keep abreast of the latest developments and provide quality health care to Wisconsin.

    new distance education initiatives involving the Schools of Pharmacy, Nursing and Medicine are paving the way for advanced practice nurses to get the courses they need to prescribe medications under a new state statute.

    ctive April 1, 1995, an estimated 2,000 state advanced practice nurses can prescribe medications, provided they have the necessary coursework in areas dealing with drugs, pharmacological preparations and pharmacology.

    Madison has stepped in to fill this need by developing a noncredit distance continuing education program to meet the needs of professionals practicing in the field, explains Patricia Lasky, associate dean in the School of Nursing. The program consists of eight two-hour sessions offered weekly in the evenings.

    To reach out to students in Platteville, Milwaukee, Madison and other sites, the schools developed a way to offer the courses through two-way video conferencing.

    "Video conferencing was very convenient and effective. The short classes offered close to home allowed me to keep my attention focused and observe more than I usually do," says Nancy Swailes, a geriatric nurse practitioner from Memorial Hospital of LaFayette County in Darlington, one of the more than 60 nurses who have taken the course. "There was plenty of time for questions and answers, and the hands-on sessions covered the situations we deal with well."

    Swailes' classroom in Platteville allowed for live video and audio interaction between the UW-Madison faculty and students at the sites. "The other option was to drive to Milwaukee or Madison for an eight-hour-long seminar. This option worked better," she says.

    The schools also developed a graduate- level credit course and offered it via a two-way interactive compressed video link during 1995 Summer Sessions to some 90 physician assistants and advanced practice nurses at UW-Madison and UW- Oshkosh.

    "This distance education project on drug therapy for primary care providers will help advanced practice nurses and physician assistants better meet the health care needs of citizens in rural and urban settings, and underserved areas," says Allan Mailloux, an assistant professor in the School of Pharmacy, who served on a state advisory committee that helped draft the rules allowing nurses to write prescriptions.

    Commitments to provide continuing education at a distance are part of a longer-term effort. The School of Nursing has offered courses over the UW-Extension Educational Teleconference Network to community and hospital sites for 30 years. The school is now working with UW-Extension on a collaborative distance education bachelor's degree with UW- Eau Claire, UW-Green Bay, UW-Oshkosh and UW-Milwaukee targeted toward some 9,000 state nurses who have associate degrees. All courses will be available via distance education with the first two offered in January 1996.

    The Medical School also offers a master's degree for physicians in hospital administration using distance education, supplemented by two-week visits to campus each year.

    And, chances are if you visited your pharmacist recently, he or she is one of the 70,000 pharmacists who takes UW- Madison noncredit courses from Extension Services in Pharmacy each year via self-directed, accredited units in a popular pharmacy journal.



  • Librarians find answers to technical questions

    UW-Madison's nationally known research libraries offer up-to- the-minute knowledge to help the state maintain a critical edge in the information age.

    A critical stab wound. A terminal illness. Pickle brine waste. Cancer-prevention effects of nutritional additives. Old landfills. And patents - lots of patents.

    These are all topics for which businesses, professionals and citizens throughout Wisconsin rely on experts at campus research libraries for up-to-the-minute information in science, technology, agriculture, law and medicine. From Cumberland Memorial Hospital in the northwest section of the state to Rust Environment and Infrastructures in Sheboygan, library outreach services at UW-Madison serve all of Wisconsin's major industries and hundreds of small companies.

    Approximately 50,000 requests for information were filled last year by staff at the Medical Library Service and four other library outreach services on campus. These requests, for which the libraries charge a "cost-recovery" fee, came from more than 1,000 clients in 61 Wisconsin counties. Requests are increasing at more than 10 percent per year.

    Library information services are an old and venerable component of the Wisconsin Idea. The Medical Library Service, for example, has been helping the state since the 1920s. The primary importance of UW-Madison in providing statewide information was acknowledged by the state legislature in the 1970s when Wisconsin Interlibrary Services was established in campus libraries. Since then the interlibrary service has provided millions of books, journal articles and information searches to citizens through their local public, school, academic and special libraries.

    The newer, highly automated information outreach services are an outgrowth of this continuing commitment to share the knowledge resources of the campus.

    For Barb Bartkowiak of the Marshfield Clinic, immediate access to the latest medical information is crucial. "Patient care is not something you can plan ahead," she notes. "When a doctor is doing emergency surgery in an hour, he or she needs information immediately."

    The clinic, a multi-specialty medical facility serving patients in central Wisconsin, sends requests to the UW's Health Sciences Libraries' Medical Library Service almost daily. "Madison's response is always timely," says Bartkowiak. "They take our needs seriously."

    Besides assisting physicians and hospitals, Health Sciences Libraries' experts also deal with individual requests. Because of the librarians' knowledge and sensitivity, the state's Reference and Loan operation refers to the libraries all questions from citizens regarding diseases with poor prognoses or disabling symptoms. The requester receives a prompt, personal response from trained medical librarians.

    The services provide searches of specialized databases (available because of the campus's research activities), technical materials not found elsewhere in the state and government documents. Staff are familiar with the universe of information in a given subject in both printed and electronic formats.

    Wisconsin TechSearch, an outreach service located in Wendt Engineering Library, is one of the largest. The service provides "untold value," according to Mike Mattes, senior scientist at SSI Technologies, a Janesville automotive sensor corporation with a national market. "Information is vital," says Mattes, who uses TechSearch for literature searches, patent searches and a current awareness service, which lets him know what is newly available in the fields in which he is interested.

    The ability to cross-match a number of disciplines is also important, states Jerry O'Dea, director of product and market development at Avonmore Ingredients in Monroe. Avonmore, a developer of new food ingredients and client of the Steenbock Agricultural and Life Sciences Library service, uses information in the agricultural, food science and medical science fields. O'Dea says he would have to spend months in libraries on his own to find what the Steenbock service readily finds for him.



    Other Outreach & Continuing Education examples

  • Based on the number of people who stayed in university housing, some 20,000 visitors from 85 organizations visited the UW-Madison campus this summer for a variety of educational opportunities.

  • The School of Business offers an Executive MBA program that allows high-potential managers to earn degrees without putting their careers on hold. The program, designed in conjunction with area business leaders, offers classes Friday and Saturday every other week for two academic years.

  • The School of Veterinary Medicine has developed the Dairy Health Management Certificate program to help veterinarians from around the state meet the changing needs of the dairy industry and to broaden their knowledge base. The interdisciplinary program is offered two days during the week over a two-year period so that practicing veterinarians may participate in the program while maintaining ties to their local communities.

  • The university's integrated outreach departments offer more than 2,000 professional and personal enrichment credit and noncredit programs for 160,000 people per year.

  • The Wisconsin Idea Seminar, an annual five-day journey around the state, is designed to introduce new UW-Madison faculty and staff to the outreach opportunities available in Wisconsin and to introduce them to the importance of public service in their roles at the university. Over 300 faculty and staff members have participated in the program since it began in 1984, meeting people from around the state from farmers to public school officials, business leaders to government leaders.

  • The Division of Continuing Studies offers a newly designed noncredit Summer Chatauqua Program for learners in retirement. This summer more than 140 learners enrolled in the annual program, which is offered twice each summer.

  • Audio conferencing equipment and computers linked by phone lines permit interactive instruction in technical Japanese and German simultaneously to students on campus and at various business and educational sites around the country.

  • Windows on the World, a summer course that introduces a world region or country to university and special students, includes an associated program of extracurricular performances, talks and exhibitions.

  • With the goal of developing more effective ways to screen people for heart disease, the UW Medical School is using a $3.5 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to work with doctors in Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. Medical School faculty will be visiting 156 physicians at 50 primary care sites to develop ways to educate patients about risk and prevention.

  • The Cross Cultural Health Care Initiative in the Department of Family Medicine focuses on teaching healthcare providers in Wausau about the unique cultural needs of the Hmong community, whose population has been growing rapidly there since the mid-1980s. The Bridge Community Health Care Center, which opened in April as a result of the initiative, serves minority, underinsured and underserved populations, the majority of whom are Hmong.

  • The School of Veterinary Medicine offered a summer workshop, "Celebrate Diversity: Enhancing the Learning Environment in Veterinary Medicine Education," for 31 veterinary colleges around the United States and Canada.

  • Teachers of all subjects and ages can participate in a summer colloquium on enhancing the quality of teaching. In the colloquium, UW-Madison instructors who have received Distinguished Teaching Awards work with teachers to improve teaching.

  • The newly established Center for International Programs in Government offers short-term programs on governmental policy and processes for governmental officials from foreign countries. Officers of the Budget Bureau of Thailand participated in the center's first program.

  • By broadcasting a class on developmental disabilities on WHA, the School of Social Work makes available this course to a variety of human services agencies, parents and others associated with developmental disabilities. In all, some 12-14 counties have taped this broadcasted course for use in training and education.

  • Engineering Professional Development provides 380 on-campus programs serving 15,000 engineering professionals each year.

  • Through the Center for Public Representation's Clinical Program, which is affiliated with the UW-Madison Law School and staffed by clinical law faculty, law students participate in hands-on internship opportunities while working with Wisconsin residents to provide legal assistance and education. For example, students have been instrumental in assisting low- and moderate-income families to obtain health care financing and access to affordable telephone service.

  • Engineering Professional Development developed a course on engineering project management for Johnson Controls Field Service Engineers. The course will be delivered through Internet e-mail and audiographic teleconferencing; a pilot test to 20 students at three Johnson Controls locations was completed this summer.

  • The Great Lakes Indian Law Center, a clinical program at the Law School, serves as a legal resource and offers research expertise for Native American tribes in Wisconsin. The center also provides internships and hands-on legal training for UW law students interested in American Indian legal issues. The center helped the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin restructure its outdated constitution.

  • School of Library and Information Studies continuing education courses are helping keep hundreds of librarians across the state in the forefront of the electronic age. Through workshops - some of which are accessible to rural areas via distance education - librarians stay current on information technology.

  • The Wisconsin Alumni Association's Spring Day on Campus and the week-long Alumni University provide people from throughout Wisconsin with a chance to visit campus and attend seminars offered by world-class faculty. Course topics range from research breakthroughs to economic issues to the arts.

  • Engineering Professional Development developed a new solid waste management course, which was attended by representatives from eight Native American tribes from across the United States.

  • The School of Family Resources and Consumer Sciences held its second week-long Wisconsin Child and Family Advocacy Institute in July 1995. The program was designed to train family specialists working in the field in how to get the information and resources they need to improve the climate for families in their communities.

  • The Wisconsin Family Policy Impact Legislative Seminars teach legislators and other public policy officials about the effects of policies on families. The seminars are a project of the School of Family Resources and Consumer Sciences' Center for Excellence in Family Studies, whose mission is to promote research in family studies and share information with the public.

  • The Legal Assistance to Institutionalized Persons Program provides criminal and civil legal aid to prisoners and mental health patients while giving law students the opportunity to put their legal knowledge and training to good use. Law School students represent clients and patients incarcerated in the Wisconsin Correctional System, the federal prison at Oxford and the Mendota Mental Health Institute.

  • Participatory Learning and Teaching Organization (PLATO), a learning-in-retirement, member-led organization sponsored by the Division of Continuing Studies, Office of University Special and Guest Students, provides learning experiences for people of or nearing retirement age. Over 150 current members participate in programs and receive a bi-monthly newsletter. This summer, for example, activities included two tours of the Olbrich Gardens, a four-session lecture series on the history of Wisconsin, and a five-week series on race relations.

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