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Post University Five Year Vision of Education 1

Post University Five Year Vision of Education

Jeanne Penta

EDU505.90

Prof. Rebecca Waters


Empowering students and providing them with the knowledge needed to improve

personal skills and build knowledge has always been the mission of Post University. Since the

time it was founded in 1890 as the Matoon Shorthand School, Post University has adapted and

changed along with the times to ensure that their mission stands. Over the last one-hundred and

twenty-five years the school has gone from a small, one-room school, with additional option for

mail correspondence, to a multi-building campus spanning over several dozen acres across two

towns as well as additional satellite campuses throughout the state.

The original vision of Ms. Matoon was to share her typing and shorthand skills to

empower more women to enter into the workforce. She began working from her home in

Waterbury, CT where she held small, intimate classes for local residents. However, after word

began to spread of her students’ success she found that her tiny apartment would no longer

suffice. The Matoon Shorthand School was moved to a larger location in Waterbury and

renamed the Bliss & Harrington’s Business College in 1893 (About Post University - History,

2014). From there, the school had many new owners and an equal number of name changes.

From 1897 to 1931 the school was owned by Harry C. Post and was named Waterbury Business

College, but in 1931 took on the name of its owner and became Post College. The school

changed ownership to Harry’s son but remained in the Post family until 2004 when control and

ownership was transferred to a board of trustees. This board of trustees is currently made up of

four members as part of Post Education, Inc. in Delaware (About Post University - Ownership,

2014).

During the time when Harry C. Post and Harold B. Post maintained control of the school,

1897 to 2004, Post University made several innovative changes that were groundbreaking for the

times. In 1976, the school known as Post College, begins offering its first accelerated degree


programs. There was a growing need for Vietnam veterans to earn a college degree in order to

return to a productive work life. The accelerated degree program was designed specifically to

allow returning vets the ability to balance work and life while still obtaining a higher education

that would retool and refine their skills (About Post University - History, 2014). Exactly two

decades later Post University would offer this same accelerated degree program via the internet

which would change the Post brand and launch it into the world of competitive recruiting and

change the way higher education is perceived.

Post University, whether commanded by Harry Post or by Post Education, Inc., has

always been able to visualize and implement new trends and keep itself fresh. This has been the

main reason why it has not only been able to sustain, but to actually thrive and grow over the

years since it was created by Ms. Matoon in 1890. In 1990, one hundred years after its creation,

Post University partnered which Teikyo University in Japan. This was an effort to aid in

growing global issues as well as a way to grow the financial backing to grow Post University to

meet the vision of being a competitive academic institution. This partnership led to a substantial

increase in student attendance which also brought in additional tuition that allowed the school to

improve the campus and petition the New England Association of Schools and Colleges for the

right to begin offering Master’s level programs.

This innovative and forward thinking has brought attention to the university. In 2009, the

school was the recipient of the Connecticut Quality Improvement Award and in 2013 was

presented with the Gold Innovation Award (About Post University - History, 2014). Today, Post

University focuses on creating a culturally diverse learning environment for both the main

campus and the accelerated online programs. The student body consists of a near even split of

male and female students (49% male, 51% female) and continues to work on cultural and ethnic


diversity. The current breakdown is 40.72% white or Caucasian, 27.84% Black or African

American, 11.77% Hispanic or Latino, 2.08% Asian and 1.11% American Indian or Alaska

Native (Post University, 2014). The campus program focuses on students aged eighteen to

twenty-four, but the online accelerated program does not age discriminate and currently has

students enrolled between the ages of eighteen and eighty-three.

With such a diversity of students it is important for an education institution to keep in

mind the varying ways in which students are able to learn. There is no room for cookie-cutter

education due to the variety of environments students require for learning. With this in mind

Post University has used two specific technologies that were reported in the Horizon Report.

Jonson, Adams Becker, Estrada and Freeman (2014) provide a Master List of Tracked

Technologies which include Flipped Classroom and Personal Learning Environments. The

flipped classroom idea has been around for some time but has been recently reintroduced to

higher education. The concept is to provide the student more ability to access teacher content

and learning materials from home instead of in the classroom. Though there is no specific model

this is commonly done through teacher instructed videos that are posted to social media sites

such as YouTube (Tucker, 2012). Students are instructed to view the video presentations in

preparation for class. This allows class time to be spent on learning and give the teacher enough

time to provide individual attention as needed. By using home time to gain first introduction to a

new concept it frees up class time for questions and reinforcement.

The Flipped Classroom technology works in direct correlation with the Personal Learning

Environment. Over the years it has been discovered that individuals do not learn the same way.

Some are visual learners while others are not. Universities and colleges have been slow to

respond to this concept in an effort to hold on to tradition but more and more of them are looking


to change. The Personal Learning Environment is just that, personal. It does not look or feel or

act a specific way but, instead, is adapted to the personal needs of the learner (Attwell, 2007).

Literature Review

College is no longer considered to be just for the high school graduate. Traditional

students and non-traditional students alike are embarking on their educational journeys during

every aspect of life and, therefore, traditional campuses and programs need to adjust to more

non-traditional standards. The number of students who are able to commit to regimented

offerings of a college campus is shrinking due to economic, technological and demographic

trends. Since the recession that began here in the U.S. in 2007 more and more college hopefuls

are required to maintain a steady and full-time job while getting their college degree. Many have

families to support as well. The economic times have changed and so must college degree

programs and the ways in which they are earned.

Educational technology is a term that has been around since the early 1960s and was

introduced by Lawrence Lipsitz after his first publication of Educational Technology magazine.

He referred to it as being the various types of technology that are, were and will be used in

facilitating the education process (Kinshuk, 2013). This term has also come to include the

explosive use and growth of computers in academic settings over the last half a century, but

more so the use of personal computers in the mid-eighties. The growth and popularity of the

Personal Computer (PC) led to the introduction of the Internet, or World Wide Web, in the early

nineties. Since then education technology has expanded to include computer based learning as

well as online education which was initially developed to help returning veterans enter back into

the civilian workplace after wartime (Kinshuk, 2013).


About the same time computers were making their way into the homes of millions of

Americans, the Vietnam War was returning soldiers back into a society they were unprepared for.

The skills these veterans had gained while fighting overseas did not translate into employable

positions back at home. Many states, including Minnesota and Connecticut, implemented

initiatives that are still applied today which aid veterans in relieving the stress of job searching

and giving them back a sense of community and belonging (Lokken, 2009).

Campuses across the country, like Post University, transformed their campuses to be

more “veteran-friendly” by removing barriers to meet the educational goals of these returning

soldiers. That meant looking ahead at the possible needs of these soldiers and accommodating

them. Studies conducted through 2007 show that peer connections and continued support are

vital to the success of military students because of the physical and emotional trauma they carry

(Concluding Thoughts, 2011). Additional studies from 2012 to 2017 are currently being

conducted and look to show the correlation between one-stop learning and online courses with

successful matriculation of these veteran students in society (Concluding Thoughts, 2011).

Since the mid-eighties there has been a shift in population due to economic strain on

society and that has caused states and college campuses to evaluate and try to predict upcoming

economic trends. In 1988 there were more than 300,000 Americans working in Japanese

companies while only approximately 100.000 Japanese were employed by companies in the US.

When the Asian economy took a turn downward many of those employed by Japanese

businesses lost their jobs along with the extremely inflated salaries that came along with them

(Wiens, 2014). This created more families below the poverty level and by 1993 the poverty rate

had grown to 23%. That was six points higher than the 14-17% reported in the 1970s and

required both state and federal legislators to come up with new plans and programs to aid with


the cost of a higher education. This added cost for enrollment needs to be taken into

consideration when schools and colleges are preparing budgets for upcoming student

registrations.

State and Federal government spends a good deal of time studying and anticipating both

economic and demographic trends in the United States because it is these trends that help

determine what programs they will need to offer. Educational programs are always being

evaluated and re-evaluated because economic and demographic trends are always changing and

almost always coincide with one another. For instance, the US Census Bureau anticipates trends

to show an expected increase in population by almost 54% over the next decade or two. This

would bring numbers of U.S. citizens from 226 million to more than 350 million by the year

2025 (Murray, 2007). Educators and institutions for higher education need to pay attention to

these estimates because they may have a direct impact on how they structure their programs. A

substantial increase in population, when paired with a downturn in economic growth will leave a

much higher number of people with little to no money in the budget for education. This means

that colleges and universities may need to set up a plan to prepare for the fact that many of their

potential students will be relying on alternate forms of tuition assistance.

Many schools rely on alumni and philanthropic donations to help cover the costs for

some enrolled students to attend classes. However, during an economic downturn, corporations

that might otherwise donate to local campuses may shy away in favor of higher profit margins.

In 2008, during the economic downturn, there was more than $40 billion in philanthropic

donations towards education. Only one year later, in 2009, there was a ten percent drop in those

donations and speculators insist it was a direct result of the economy (van Fleet, 2010). This


meant that the U.S. government was forced to give out more in federal loans to students looking

to pursue or finish their degrees than they had in past years.

Federal funded tuition assistance has been available for some time now but has never

before been in such demand. Schools for higher learning must work with state and federal

government guidelines to ensure that the changing demographics do not alter or hinder a student

from receiving the assistance they need to receive their degree. Whether there is an increase in

marriages, same-sex relationships and fertility or a decrease in divorce, immigration and

cohabitation there will always be a need for educational funding outside of standard practices.

Therefore, there will always be a need for futuring in order to determine where and when those

trends may occur. This is the only way an institute for higher learning such as Post University

will be able to keep up with the other established colleges and universities and continue to offer

quality programs and degrees.

Futuring Techniques

Post University has been providing education for more than one hundred years and that

would not have been possible if the future of education was not constantly taken into

consideration. Futuring is important in almost any aspect of life and business but no more so

than in higher education. Universities must compete for quality students while continuing to

provide educational programs that meet the needs of modern students. This would not be

possible if futuring were not to take place. As a result, Post University uses many techniques to

gain insight into the future of education in an effort to remain current and relatable to potential

students. Two of these techniques are scenarios and scanning.


Scenarios

Scenarios are known to be an effective way to forecast future trends in an attempt to

predict potential outcomes. They are successful because they aid in identifying what may

happen and deal with uncertain situations. Futurists use scenarios to analyze problems and

determine which consequences may or may not arise and will often use one or all of five

scenario building variations.

The first, continuation, suggests the possibility of things continuing on the way they are

currently. The second variation is to be optimistic and predict that trends will have a

considerable amount of improvement from where they are currently. The opposite of that would

be pessimistic and considers the idea that things may actually get much worse. The final two

follow along the same lines as optimistic and pessimistic, however on a much larger scale.

Disaster variation takes into account the ideas that things can or will go terribly wrong while

miracle presumes that things will go amazingly well. Once these variations are considered and

scenarios are established then each one is given a probability percentage based on the likelihood

it may actually occur. At this stage the futurist will consider the cost for each scenario and

determine important outcomes to consider so that decisions can be made (Kirkwook, 2014).

Scanning

A second technique commonly used is scanning which assures that any changes, whether

social, political, environmental or technological, are analyzed by using data that already exists

(Sobrero, 2004). Environmental scanning uses both research and observational-based data from

local, state and even national centers. The use of scanning can help identify even the smallest

indications of change; however, it is not effective unless there is a level of ongoing monitoring to


review the impact of the changes and their effects. Companies and organizations can take

advantage of their wide customer base to gain knowledge and use scanning to determine

satisfaction which adds valuable local perceptions.

Post University uses the students, staff and faculty to gain information for scanning and

monitoring the learning environment they provide. The use of student feedback questionnaires

as well as student and professor assessments enables the Corporate Management Team to assess

the current situation as well as aid in determining what new ideas can be implemented. These

questionnaires are anonymous and encourage students and staff to be open about things that are

working and those that are not. These are also a great way to be exposed to new ideas and

upcoming trends that match the needs of the student which will increase retention and graduation

rates (Student Complaint Resources and Procedures, 2014).

Futuring, no matter how it is done or which technique is used, is imperative for the

success and continuation of any organization but specifically the future of education. Without

the use of techniques like scanning and using scenarios universities might not be prepared for the

ever changing world of education. If schools are not able to keep up with the trends regarding

all of these then they will falter.

Vision/Plan

Post University has never clung to tradition. Instead, the higher education institution has

always strived to adapt and evolve in order to consistently reinvent themselves and the way they

educate their students (Post University, 2014). There is no reason to believe that Post will not

continue this track over the next five years as well.


By the year 2019, Post University will have seen more than 30,000 students graduate

from one of its many campus and online programs of study. Current enrollments will grow into

the tens of thousands because of the ingenuity and dedication to education that is held so highly

within the establishment. There will be a diversity within the student body that has yet to be

seen. Attention will focus on enhancing the academic experience by bringing in motivated

students from foreign cultures as well as domestic. There will be a concentrated effort to bring

in Asian and European exchange students so that American students get a feel for what it is like

outside of their borders (Post University, 2014). This, along with the renewed accreditation from

the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), will bring the school to a level

that will allow them to focus on becoming an Honors level institution.

In order to make it to the desired level and become an honors university, Post will need to

keep up with the technology and trends that these students are used to. In five years, Post

University will branch out from the standard business classes and begin offering students honors

level programs that will enable them to work in environments outside of what is currently

available. Since its humble beginnings Post University has only offered business degrees.

However, this new scenario shows class offerings in Nursing, Chemistry, and Political Sciences

(Post University, 2014). It also shows newer classrooms that have been updated with the

technology needed to bring new students. Networks will be updated so that collaborations can

be made with other students and professors outside of the campus setting and interactive

programs will be introduced so that lecturers and professionals in these careers can correspond

with students in real time from across the country. Students will have access to professional

expertise from any state possible and the networking possibilities are endless.


Meeting these challenges will not always be easy and there will always be challenges

when trying to meet these goals, but as long as the vision continues to be focused on the future

then everything will work itself out. Post University will have to keep constant focus and try to

anticipate the challenges that are ahead. Some of these challenges may include:

Financial backing and investor support

Lack of physical space for growth on the forty acre campus grounds

Approval for changes from the city of Waterbury and the town council

Unanimous Board approval

Post’s reputation as being a small/private business school and not a state college

Although there are these challenges, there are also some opportunities that Post University

should be willing to take advantage of. These opportunities may help them overcome the

obstacles and challenges. Some things Post can focus on are:

Recent NEASC re-accreditation (2014)

Collaborations with Philadelphia University

Employee/Staff/Faculty/Community support to grow the campus

Low cost tuition

Growing online academic program

Increasing brand name

All of these opportunities can be used to market for Post University in an effort to gain the

momentum needed to grow the institution and meet the challenges for the five year vision. If

they are unable to transform into a future oriented organization then they will succumb to the

competitive nature of those schools that do. Online learning is a hot market right now and


students are looking for the best in what is available. With so much to choose from it is

important to keep in mind what the students are looking for and offer it. Schools that do not

have a vision for the future will be stuck in tradition and initially loose out.

Plan for Change

There are many ways in which Post University can plan for the future and make the

changes needed to become focused. First and foremost is the technology. This is what the future

is and this is what students want. Updating servers, computers and equipment is essential to

keeping current students satisfied, but also to entice new students to join. New students bring in

new revenue and retention of current students boosts graduation rates. Next is environment. The

campus is a home-away-from-home for students and they want to feel comfortable. Faculty

should be welcoming and the campus should be well kept and clean. Finally, if Post University

wants to become future focused they will need to continue to educate themselves. New

technology is popping up all the time and it is important for a college to stay relevant if they

want to connect with the students of the future. Keep up on the latest trends by following

Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Have staff on hand that monitor these trends and constantly

connect through online resources. Friends tell friends about what they see and a university that

is connected is talked about.

Call to Action

The most important resource Post University has is their current student body because

they are working the program. The second most important resource is the staff and faculty

because they are the ones talking to those students on a regular basis. Talking with the staff and

student body is the first step that should be taken to focus on the future. Surveys should be


distributed to all students, staff and faculty that ask specific questions regarding satisfaction,

improvements and suggestions for improvement.

Diversity is a common request and has a great impact on the way people see a program,

group or organization. Diversity adds substance and relatability to a campus program and can be

a major deciding factor when choosing a college or university. Since this five year vision

focuses a lot on bringing diversity back to Post then it makes sense that it should be one of the

first steps taken as well. One easy way to do this is to set up a host program where employees of

Post University are encouraged to bring a high school exchange student into their home. This

allows the student the chance to study abroad through high school but also introduces them to

Post University since it does not have an international name like some other Ivy League schools

do.

Conclusion

There has been a substantial amount of change over the past one hundred and twenty-five

years. Traditions and mainstays are a thing of the past and universities and colleges must keep

up with current trends as well as future ones in an effort to remain relevant. If they are unable to

do so then they will falter and disappear. Educational institutions are a part of history and

steeped in tradition but it is the future of education that will truly define them and determine their

longevity. What schools do today will determine how prepared they are for tomorrow.


Appendix


References

About Post University - History. (2014, September 6). Retrieved from Post University:

http://www.post.edu/maincampus/history.shtml

About Post University - Ownership. (2014, September 6). Retrieved from Post University:

http://www.post.edu/maincampus/ownership.shtml

Post University. (2014, September 6). Retrieved from Peterson's College Search:

http://www.petersons.com/college-search/post-university-000_10000680.aspx

Student Complaint Resources and Procedures. (2014). Retrieved September 17, 2014, from Post

University: http://www.post.edu/studentcomplaintprocess.shtml

Attwell, G. (2007). The Personal Learning Environments - the future of eLearning? eLearning

Papers, vol. 2 no. 1, ISSN 1887-1542.

Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Estrada, V., & A, F. (2014). Austin, Texas: The New Media

Consortium. NMC Horizon Report: 2014 Higher Education Edition, 34-35.

Kinshuk, K. H.-W.-S. (2013). Trends in Educational Technology through the Lens of the Highly

Cited Articles Published in the Journal of Educational Technology and Society. Journal

Of Educational Technology & Society, 16(2), 3-20.

Kirkwook, H. P. (2014). Futuring. Retrieved September 17, 2014, from Reference for Business:

http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Ex-Gov/Futuring.html

Lokken, J. P. (2009). A Statewide Approach to Creating Veteran-Friendly Campuses. New

Directions For Student Services, (126), 45-54.


Murray, S. R. (2007). State Education Spending: Current Pressures and Future Trends. National

Tax Journal, 60(2), 325-345.

Sobrero, P. M. (2004, June). The Steps for Futuring. Retrieved from Journal of Extension:

http://www.joe.org/joe/2004april/index.shtml

Tucker, B. (2012). The Flipped Classroom - Online instruction at home frees class time for

learning. Retrieved from Education Next:

http://educationnext.org/files/ednext_20121_BTucker.pdf

van Fleet, J. (2010). Corporate giving to eduation during economic downturns: General trends

and the difficulty of prediction. International Journal Of Educational Advancement, 9(4),

234-250.

Wiens, A. E. (2014, September 30). Demographic and Economic Trends: Implications for

Education and Industry. Retrieved from Eric:

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ585118.pdf

(2011). Concluding Thoughts. ASHE Higher Education Report, 37(3), 113-116.

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myschoolshed.files.wordpress.com · Web viewprograms. There was a growing need for Vietnam veterans to earn a college degree in order to return to a productive work life. The accelerated