835: LIVE from ⁠InsightsEDU⁠ 2024 - with Matthew Norsworthy, Director of Integrated Solutions & Business Development, UPCEA

Joe Sallustio: Welcome back, everybody. It's your time to up on the EdUp Experience podcast where we make education your business. This is Dr. Joe Sallustio, and we are back with you for the 22nd time here at Education Dynamics' amazing conference called Insights. Any mistakes I make are only because I've been podcasting and talking to amazing leaders in and around higher education. That's a lot of talking. In fact, I was going to get myself some water and I forgot to do it. So this is just to take care of the guests. We've got to have great conversation.

I've finally gotten a guest co-host. Not finally, I've had guest co-hosts, but I've gotten this particular guest co-host. He said he was going to guest co-host with me. I didn't believe him. He said he might do it. But he has shown up.

Let me properly introduce him. Ladies and gentlemen, he is Eric McGee. I'm sorry, Eric, that was the wrong button. Let me try again. Ladies and gentlemen, he's Eric McGee, Senior Director of Marketing and Corporate Communications at Education Dynamics.

Eric McGee: I'd like to clarify, Joe, that I am still trying to decide whether I'm going to co-host this episode with you or not.

Joe Sallustio: Boy, that tells you where I'm at in this journey of podcasting. We have a great guest with us to talk about what's going on in higher ed in certain areas. Well, you'll get it when I introduce him. Ladies and gentlemen, he's Matt Norsworthy. He is the Director of Integrated Solutions and Business Development at UPCEA. Matt, what's going on?

Matt Norsworthy: Hello. Thank you for having me. Glad to be here.

Joe Sallustio: I played just the applause for you.

Matt Norsworthy: I appreciate that.

Joe Sallustio: Respect. Tell us about UPCEA. What do you do? How do you do it? Who do you serve? How do you serve?

Matt Norsworthy: Okay, so UPCEA focuses on - we are a nonprofit membership-based organization. Institutions or corporations join and become members, and then everybody within that institution or corporation has access to the benefits of membership. We focus on leadership and online professional and continuing education. So what does that mean? That means anybody who is either rolling out new online programs or has existing programs - they need research, they need professional development, they need to find out what the market is holding. They may have a new continuing ed workshop or certificate program that they are looking to roll out. They want to talk to other institutions within the community. Who do they go to? They go to us, they join us, and then we bring everybody together.

We find out who has done this, who has paved the way, who has gone through these issues and could help other institutions along the way in their process. I know one area that is obviously big these days is alternative credentials. So we have come together to bring folks to talk about their experiences with alternative credentials. What have they been doing in the field already? What new technology is out there that we could bring in?

We had our first conference in that area this past year. It was a booming success.

Joe Sallustio: Yes. Thank you.

Matt Norsworthy: Thank you. And then we have obviously our second one coming up later in the year and we're already getting excitement and everybody wanting to get involved to find out because obviously this is a big field, hot topic in higher ed these days.

Joe Sallustio: Amazing. The membership. Everybody shares. Is this a sharing and caring group?

Matt Norsworthy: It is very sharing and caring. We have like an internal - I guess you could say, I wouldn't say it's a chat board or message system, but an internal network that they can go online. They just create a user account. They go online and start conversations, get groups together about like topics. We've even had folks come in there and say, look, I'm looking for a model on setting this up or rolling out this new online program. Has anybody done this? I mean, literally, it's like an all-call. Has anybody, can anybody help? And they'll get, you know, 20, 30 responses of someone who either they may have done it themselves. They may know someone who has gone through it at another institution. They're sharing research. They're sharing, you know, non-proprietary products and whatnot that they can share. And it's literally like a huge helping network, if you will.

Joe Sallustio: I'm going to pass it over to Eric, but before I do, I want to just say that Eric asked me to play a certain thing for you before he asks you questions because he wants you to know something. I am the greatest.

Eric McGee: I do want to ask any questions or do you want me to keep asking him?

Joe Sallustio: I will keep asking questions. How many members?

Matt Norsworthy: We are over 400 institutional members. And then speaking of, you know, with the institution, like I said, everybody within the institution has access. So we are over 15,000 individually engaged members.

Joe Sallustio: Wow. That means 15,000. Over 15,000. Engaged. So you've got 20, 25 maybe inactive members, but 15,000.

Matt Norsworthy: Right. And obviously, you know, some institutions, may be areas or departments, colleges that are not necessarily involved in this and have not reached out to us yet. But in terms of the institutions and having 15,000 individuals getting involved using the membership, accessing that has been phenomenal. And that's worldwide. So I mean, we have institutions all over the world, a high number of institutions in Canada. And then we've probably got a good, you know, 40-odd institutions outside of North America.

Joe Sallustio: Interesting. Eric, places.

Eric McGee: I know that there's been a lot of growth in membership over the last several years. Why is it that the schools are coming to UPCEA more so now than they have in the past? Are there specific services they're looking for or is it just the conferences? What do you think it is that's leading to that growth in the association?

Matt Norsworthy: It's a little bit of all of that actually. So word of mouth has been our best form of advertising actually. You have just a few people who go to it and attend a conference and then they will go and tell a friend at another institution. Just talking to people here at this conference, was speaking, you know, talking to somebody at our booth, they wanted to learn more about UPCEA. I had somebody from a member institution yell, "They're the greatest place on earth." I didn't even, you know, unsolicited advertising there.

So, you know, you have that feeling. So it's the community, it's being able to, you know, get real answers to real-world problems actually, in higher ed. And then we're also seeing it because so many institutions are looking at ways in which they can expand. A lot of that is going through online and professional education. If you are going to offer someone who has already attended their institution, an alumni, what better way can you bring them back if they don't need a full-on degree, but through some sort of a certificate program or an online workshop or online, any form of online program.

So how do we do that? What are other institutions doing? That draw to us to come and find that out, to have that community has been phenomenal. And then of course, there's also the research. So we do a lot of research and we have a lot of reports in partnership with corporations and other higher ed institutions that when people get a hold of any one of them, they're like, "My gosh, this is a reliable, trustworthy research source." And so we want to stay on top of them. We want to follow what they're doing, what is hot in the field these days. And then that becomes an even bigger boom for wanting to join.

Eric McGee: Of all of the services and member benefits that you have, what is the most in demand? What's the most used? Is it like the list service to the exchange of information? Is it the professional development opportunities? What is that thing that really the members are engaging in?

Matt Norsworthy: I would - we have definitely seen a huge interest in conference attendance.

Eric McGee: He's being modest, folks. They sold out their annual conference two and a half months before the conference.

Matt Norsworthy: Yeah, that's a fact. That is a fact right there.

Joe Sallustio: Preach. Why do you think? Why do you think so? Is it the fellowship, the exchange of ideas, the need to be in person?

Matt Norsworthy: Well, it's also just to be able to attend to hear the sessions, to hear the speakers, to talk to the exhibitors, the corporations that are out there that are, you know, talking about their new software products. And attending other conferences like this one, non-UPCEA conferences, I have people come up to me saying, "I heard about your conference in such and such a city" or "I heard about your conference on alternative credentials, I got to get there."

Literally even someone here at this conference asked, "Hey, is it too late to get into the annual conference?" And I had to break the bad news of, the best we could do is put you on a waiting list. It's that kind of word-of-mouth fervor that everybody is getting excited about. And it's even to the point where, yes, good problem to have, but unfortunate that we sold it out. And you do have to tell people, "I'm sorry."

But yeah, I think it's just the excitement about all of it, the community and being able to, you know, kind of get in the know, if you will.

Joe Sallustio: About a year ago, let's say two years ago - what are we in, 2024? We interviewed Bob Hansen, you're the CEO of UPCEA. He was very passionate about the community piece of UPCEA. You can't do it on your own. You need different ideas. You've got to look at different models. You've got to get different ways of doing things. And that was like the biggest value proposition that he talked about is the community. Right? Because we're all on our own. We're all going to probably fail. But if you exchange ideas with one another, if you get that support, we're in it together. We're going to serve students. And it's the students that are really at the center of all of the ideas that we have. That community piece. How do you foster it at UPCEA? How do you make sure that it's strong and continuous?

Matt Norsworthy: Right. I think there's one - like you said, the excitement level, you have to have the excitement and so many people at UPCEA are excited. I mean, even Eric, as a member, for so many years has been excited about what we do. Our researchers like Jim Fong and Bruce Etter, they are excited about what they do. And then presenting that research, it gets everybody else excited in the room. You know, Bob, obviously, is very excited and passionate about all of this. So you have that.

And then I think institutions and higher ed, if you think about it, when the pandemic hit, so many institutions were like, "My gosh, what do we do? How are we going to get by? What's the next step?" And no matter what your experience was with online, so many institutions had to go online in order to maintain. And that lasted for, you know, a solid couple of years in terms of until things started to relax a little bit. But the sense of community helping each other - what have you done? What are you going through? Yes, there are still obviously competitors, but there is also that whole idea of, we just want to be able to do better for our institution and we'd like to learn from you. I'd love to share what we've done. And if any of this helps you, that's great. And that's what I think a lot of our member institutions and corporations have been like.

Eric McGee: Yeah. And I think the thing that's really interesting about the membership at UPCEA is it's not one type of institution that is a member, right? There are a lot of flagships, you know, land grants, very large institutions. Some of those very large institutions may have different sizes of continuing education or online education departments. Some of them might be very large traditional schools and very small online programs. Other schools, Penn State or something like that, might be a very large land grant or public institution and a very large online program. And then you've got some small private schools in there as well, everything from community colleges to the large institutions. Everyone is there and everyone is kind of equally welcoming and sharing information. It's a really great community, I think is definitely a word for it.

Matt Norsworthy: Exactly. And everybody's learning from each other. So to tack on to what Eric was saying, we also have institutions coming from South America, institutions that came to conferences all the way from Europe. It's cool. I mean, even though there are different policies and different, you know, political realms, when you take that into account, they are still wanting to learn what these other institutions are doing. So even if we're not apples to apples, we can still learn from each other, different ideas that they may be able to take back to their home institution, regardless of what size, what country, what language.

Joe Sallustio: Maybe a question for both of you guys. What are the trends right now? You know, what are the sharing and caring topics right now? Is it online education? Is it AI? Is it ethical use of AI? Like, what are those things that the community is talking about right now at UPCEA? Eric, would you like to start or do you want Matt to start?

Eric McGee: I mean, I would say all of those things, right? Definitely very much online. And as Matt mentioned last year, they did the first online credentials program. I think that was a huge success, way more than I think most people thought that it was going to be, that they were going to be able to sell that out, you know, for the first time running that conference. So online has been really big. A lot of conversations around that credentials, alternative credentials, certificate programs have continued to dominate the conversation. Of course, in the marketing realm, AI is certainly there. And I think we'll continue to be a topic of conversation as well.

Matt Norsworthy: Yeah, I would agree. And we have a lot of, you know, sessions at our conferences, people who are focused are becoming, I don't want to necessarily say experts, because I can't say that any one person is an expert. It's constantly evolving.

Joe Sallustio: Except for you. I was gonna say that. Where's my button? Where's my button?

Matt Norsworthy: I would disagree with you. I promise. I promise you. Right. But you know, in terms of AI, in terms of alternative credentials, what can we do to be able to give credit to, you know, an individual based on experience based on, you know, so you're talking about PLA, prior learning assessment, prior learning, which is a huge, huge, huge issue across higher education, how credits don't transfer. And it's just really a disservice to students, because we're not doing what we need to be right away. And we're trying to bring those folks who are involved in that, those folks who have done research on that, those folks who are implementing that in their institutions into our community, you know, present what you have, even, you know, even your, you know, you're going to have some roadblocks, you're going to have some failures, you're going to have some moments, tell us what happened. That's how institutions learn from each other is to find out what were some of those roadblocks you had to overcome in order to implement that. And then how have you incorporated, you know, AI into anything? How are you doing stackable credentials? And then of course, obviously, we all want enrollment. If you build it, they will come is not necessarily the model. We can build it. If you build it, they will not come. You've got to build it and then make sure they come and how can you market it and what are other institutions doing to, you know, do just that very thing?

Joe Sallustio: So do I - if I'm interested in joining UPCEA, do I join as an institution and I get X amount of others that get to become members? Can I join as an individual if my institution doesn't want to join? Could I do either? What's the best way to attack this? What's the advice that you give me?

Matt Norsworthy: So obviously, as hopefully has been, you know, recognized just in this podcast, but UPCEA is all about community. As a community of communities, we want the entire institution, we want the entire corporation. Tell it like it is. Right. We only want, you know, this to be shared within your own institution. So we don't want to necessarily limit it to one person. So, unfortunately, join institutionally. We do not have individual memberships, but we want the entire institution. And when the institution does join, it doesn't matter where you are. If you are faculty, staff or administration within that institution, everybody has access to create that user account. There's no limit on it.

Joe Sallustio: So I'm looking for professional development opportunities and as an institution, I need to find ways to get people training in different areas. Is this something that could satisfy professional development for me where there's, you know, we talk about idea exchanges, are there any formalization of PD activities that I could say, look, you know, here's a webinar that UPCEA offers and all that?

Matt Norsworthy: Exactly. And we also have certificate programs, we have workshops, we have full-on certificate programs and courses that you can take in online leadership, for example.

Joe Sallustio: It's a great way to maximize my PD budget.

Matt Norsworthy: My institution is joined. We even have individuals from member institutions who are working on dissertations and are coming to be able to gather the research.

Joe Sallustio: That's a great idea. Right?

Matt Norsworthy: We have individuals who are trying to, you know, increase their level in the field. Yeah. And they want to participate either by focusing on their, you know, dissertation research process, or it's kind of coinciding with both career and academic goals. So it works out to be a win-win for those folks as well.

Joe Sallustio: What else do you guys want to say about UPCEA? Open mic, Eric, to you first.

Eric McGee: It's a wonderful organization. Really have always appreciated the camaraderie in the community, the network, and it's a great organization to be a part of. We enjoy it as a company. I enjoy it individually and definitely recommend if you have not previously made it to an UPCEA conference, recommend you do that. And as Matt said, it does expand beyond just the conferences and the events. That day-to-day interaction that you get through the network and the conversations is really priceless, I think.

Joe Sallustio: Nailed it. Yeah. Matt, words to you. What do you want to say about UPCEA and close this out?

Matt Norsworthy: I would just say that, to back up everything Eric said is exactly right. Getting involved to whatever extent, having your institution join and then getting involved. You can get full blown. I have heard some people who say that there are two things that they do in the morning. When they get up, they check the scores of their favorite team and then they log into the website at UPCEA to check on what messages have gone out in our core system. So when you have that level of community, it's gotta mean something. It's obviously important and it's, you know, for all of us in higher ed, it's very important to have that community, have that extra resource, because everything that helps, it makes it better.

Joe Sallustio: You heard it here, ladies and gentlemen, my guest co-host, he's on the mic. Will it be the last time we hear from him as co-host? You'll have to keep tuning in and find out. He's Eric McGee. He gets an applause. Senior Director of Marketing and Corporate Communications at Education Dynamics and our main contact here in New York. Thanks for everything you did to help us get here and get set up. We appreciate you so much. And our guest today, ladies and gentlemen, he's Matt Norsworthy. He's Director of Integrated Solutions and Business Development at UPCEA. Matt, we hope you had a good time.

Matt Norsworthy: It's been great. It's been great, especially with the whole co-host feature. I feel like I'm, you know, in a special moment here.

Joe Sallustio: You know, this is going to be a celebrated podcast. It's going to be celebrated across the world. Ladies and gentlemen, you just ed-uped.