Higher Education and the Recession: Challenges, Trends and Creative Solutions
Our students are impacted by the current economy. So are our institutions and even our own families. How is the economy affecting continuing education? What can we do as continuing educators to help adult learners? What are colleges and universities doing to preserve and even increase continuing education enrollments during difficult times? What does the future hold? Panel members will present current policies impacting our world of continuing higher education, and challenge us with creative ideas and trends for our future.
Transforming Organizations through Talent Management in an Age of Uncertainty
Keynote Speaker: Peter Cappelli, George W. Taylor Professor of Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Director of Wharton’s Center for Human Resources
Talent management is a simple issue. We're trying to anticipate what the needs and the demands will be for people, for human capital, into the future, and then set up some sort of plan for meeting it. It is pretty simple. It's the same problem that you see in lots of different parts of business: What do we think we are going to need? How are we going to go about meeting that need?
Today, certainty in organizations is gone. Product markets change so quickly, people hop from company to company, you can't be sure what the demands are going to be and you can't be sure what the supply is, at least your internal supply. So, we have to think about this issue differently. Continuing Educators need to think about ways to address the issue differently, for example in designing and implementing development programs in cost-effective ways. There are a series of techniques that come from other fields and disciplines specifically designed to deal with such uncertainty. How do we manage the uncertainty of the process? Financial challenges associated with managing and developing talent in organizations will be considered in this session, along with presenting different techniques from other fields and perspectives.
Peter Cappelli is the George W. Taylor Professor of Management at The Wharton School and Director of Wharton’s Center for Human Resources. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, MA, served as Senior Advisor to the Kingdom of Bahrain for Employment Policy from 2005-2005, and from 2007 is a Distinguished Scholar of the Ministry of Manpower for Singapore. He has degrees in industrial relations from Cornell University and in labor economics from Oxford where he was a Fulbright Scholar. He has been a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution, a German Marshall Fund Fellow, and a faculty member at MIT, the University of Illinois, and the University of California at Berkeley. He was a staff member on the U.S. Secretary of Labor’s Commission on Workforce Quality and Labor Market Efficiency from 1988-90, Co-Director of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce, and a member of the Executive Committee of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center on Post-Secondary Improvement at Stanford University.
Professor Cappelli has served on three committees of the National Academy of Sciences and three panels of the National Goals for Education. He was recently named by Vault.com as one the 25 most important people working in the area of human capital, one of the top 100 people in the field of recruiting and staffing by Recruit.com, and was elected a fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources. He serves on the advisory boards of several companies, and is the founding editor of the Academy of Management Perspectives.
Professor Cappelli’s more recent research examines changes in employment relations in the U.S. and their implications. These publications include Change at Work (Oxford University Press 1997), a major study for the National Planning Association which found that employees paid a considerable price for the restructuring of U.S. industry and The New Dealat Work: Managing the Market-Driven Workforce (Harvard Business School Press 1999), which examines the challenges associated with the decline in lifetime employment relationships. His recent work on managing retention, electronic recruiting, and changing career paths appears in the Harvard Business Review. Talent Management (Harvard Business School Press, 2008), considers the strategies that employers should consider in developing and managing talent and was named a “best business book” for 2008 by Booz-Allen.
General Session II
All Things are Possible to Those Who Believe
Keynote Speaker: Adam Taliaferro
We often hear stories of people doing extraordinary things when faced with adversity. Some may wonder how they achieved their goals or what motivated them to keep going when the situation seemed hopeless. In all facets of life people are faced with obstacles. When adversity hits, it's how you respond that truly defines you as a person. Often there are detractors placing limitations on what we can and cannot do, but through my injury I've learned that all things are truly possible to those who believe. Through my faith, EDUCATION, and tenacity I was able to transform myself from an injured athlete to a practicing attorney. In sharing my story, I hope to help you understand that we all have that "special something" within us...you just have to believe it's there!!
While playing football for Penn State in a game against rival Ohio State, Adam Taliaferro made a routine helmet to helmet tackle that would change the course of his life. He had broken his neck—a similar injury suffered by Christopher Reeves. He lay motionless on the field. Given only a 3% chance of ever walking again, Adam had very different ideas and today he not only walks, but he walks well. Though, playing football is no longer in Adam's future his inspirational tale of recovery has been followed by many around the nation, leading authors Scott Brown and Sam Carchidi to chronicle his remarkable story in their 2001 book Miracle in the Making. Adam is now an attorney at the Philadelphia based law firm Montgomery, McCracken, Walker, and Rhoads, LLP. He specializes in labor/employment and higher education law, adivising employers and institutes of higher education on various legal issues. Adam has also started his own foundation named the Adam Taliaferro Foundation that provides financial assistance to individuals affected by spinal cord injuries. Through his foundation, Adam continues to provide hope for so many people who feel that there is no reason to hope at all.
General Session III
Transformation and Belief: Sides of the Same Coin
Keynote Speaker: Rosanne Taylor, founder, primary program developer
and lead trainer for the RCTaylor Group
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Sometimes it’s a simple question – asked by a Mom -- that sparks transformation of great magnitude. In 1986, at the end of a highly visible career with a global corporation, Rosanne Taylor found herself in the midst of great personal and professional change. Life stepped in unexpectedly and she had to make quick, yet thoughtful decisions about her future. She followed the advice from significant others in her life and went on to combine her passions for people and learning. As an entrepreneur, she launched her own business that has since had profound impact on organizations around the world, and most of all on the people within them.
Rosanne has worked with individuals, corporations and governments at all levels helping people tap their potential and develop plans for achievement. Honesty, integrity, fair play, a sense of humor, and a focus on personal human development are the cornerstones of her business. She believes that to transform ourselves from where we are to where we want to be, we start with belief…belief in self, belief in others and belief in sharing. With examples of work from years of experience, this creative keynote session speaks to the transformational nature of our human potential.
Rosanne founded the RCTaylor Group in 1986 and is the primary program developer and lead trainer for many of the programs RCT offers. A strong believer in the “power of people,” she likes to think of herself as a “tour guide”--helping people tap into their hidden potential and discover the “wonders” of who they are and all they can be.
The hallmark of her success is the ability to “capture the culture” of an organization. To ensure results, Rosanne developed the RCT adult learning process called POSITUDE®. POSITUDE® focuses three human development areas: skills and knowledge (like most training) plus the attitudes that can affect the success of applying what has been learned. The emphasis on attitudes and the resulting behaviors is often ignored. Changed behaviors enable people to do, say, or demonstrate something different.
Originally from the South (South Philly that is), Rosanne completed her undergraduate degree at Immaculata College and graduate work at Wilmington Graduate College.
She is an inductee in the Who’s Who of American Business Women and Immerging Business Leaders of America. Her organization has been selected four times for inclusion in the Philadelphia 100 Fastest Growing Businesses.
Talent management is a simple issue. We're trying to anticipate what the needs and the demands will be for people, for human capital, into the future, and then set up some sort of plan for meeting it. It is pretty simple. It's the same problem that you see in lots of different parts of business: What do we think we are going to need? How are we going to go about meeting that need? 
We often hear stories of people doing extraordinary things when faced with adversity. Some may wonder how they achieved their goals or what motivated them to keep going when the situation seemed hopeless. In all facets of life people are faced with obstacles. When adversity hits, it's how you respond that truly defines you as a person. Often there are detractors placing limitations on what we can and cannot do, but through my injury I've learned that all things are truly possible to those who believe. Through my faith, EDUCATION, and tenacity I was able to transform myself from an injured athlete to a practicing attorney. In sharing my story, I hope to help you understand that we all have that "special something" within us...you just have to believe it's there!!
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Sometimes it’s a simple question – asked by a Mom -- that sparks transformation of great magnitude. In 1986, at the end of a highly visible career with a global corporation, Rosanne Taylor found herself in the midst of great personal and professional change. Life stepped in unexpectedly and she had to make quick, yet thoughtful decisions about her future. She followed the advice from significant others in her life and went on to combine her passions for people and learning. As an entrepreneur, she launched her own business that has since had profound impact on organizations around the world, and most of all on the people within them.