bodner089

As always, the recent meeting of the National Association of Branch Campus Administrators (NABCA) was well worth attending. We met in Orlando, hosted by Central Florida University, from April 11-14. This was the 15th annual conference, which I believe includes the first several years, when we met as the Western Association. Next year’s conference will be hosted by Brookdale Community College, in Long Branch, New Jersey, April 10-13. I have participated in NABCA for at least 10 of the 15 years, and I was honored to serve as president, several years ago. I appreciate the effort made by a large number of individuals over the years to make the NABCA conference so valuable, as well as to encourage research on branch campuses, through our very active research committee. Personally, I suspect that the opportunity to meet and develop friendships with people working in our too-often-overlooked sector of higher education provides the single greatest value of the conference. However, par...

I maintain two blogs. The older, “Branch Campus Life,” focuses on topics related to branch campuses of colleges and universities; the newer, “Creating the Future,” explores a wider range of topics related to my interest in innovation, positive psychology, and encore careers. Links to both blogs can be found on my web site, www.drcharlesbird.com. For the first time, I want to post the same entry on both blogs. This is not something I expect to do very often, but I’d like to offer a few summary thoughts about building enrollment in online programs and on branch campuses. I see a close relationship between the two, in terms of objectives and challenges. First, although institutions have many reasons for supporting branch campuses and online programs, the most important, by far, is that they expand access and opportunity for otherwise underserved audiences. I believe in the value of education and the significance of personal dreams. Branches and online programs have enormous potentia...