Although many adult students turn to online degree programs due to their flexibility and convenience, a majority of prospective adult learners prefer to take classes on traditional brick-and-mortar campuses. This chapter examines how public research universities create pathways to degree attainment and boost degree completion rates among adult…

Today's programs and delivery methods in continuing education for the adult student are evolving due to changing needs, competition, and new markets and technologies. The marketing infrastructure, including staffing, budgeting, and processes such as customer relationship marketing and market research, must be in alignment with changing needs.

Central to many of the current developments in higher education is prior learning assessment (PLA). In the past several years, with new and ambitious degree completion goals for adults, the United States is witnessing what can only be called a surge of interest in PLA.

Experiential learning techniques can be helpful in fostering learning transfer. Techniques such as project-based learning, reflective learning, and cooperative learning provide authentic platforms for developing rich learning experiences. In contrast to more didactic forms of instruction, experiential learning techniques foster a depth of learning…

Religious institutions wear many hats. In addition to meeting spiritual needs, they also serve as educational, cultural, political, and social centers. Like the world in general, many of them have responded to societal changes. They have expanded their contextual, geographical, and physical boundaries. Also, as demonstrated throughout this…

Looking back on the use of distance education tools by religious groups, one word that stands out is change. The old adage "We've never done it that way before" will become less valid as religious bodies find themselves in the midst of a world inundated with online possibilities that call them to question how they interact with members and…

Since the military became an all-voluntary force (AVF), men and women have chosen to serve as a career, viewing it as a way to accomplish their life goals. Whether these goals include advancing in rank or transitioning into civilian life, service members find themselves needing additional training and/or education while serving. Although the…

Innovation in doctoral degree program development and delivery provides an effective counterpoint to the expert-apprentice model established in the Middle Ages. The author outlines the importance of innovation in reaching adult learners and describes an innovative hybrid PhD program designed to allow aspiring doctoral adult-age students to pursue…

Adult professionals are continuing their learning over the lifespan entering graduate school in their thirties, forties, fifties, and, even sixties. Knowledge is the new economic currency today and the increasing rate at which new knowledge is generated in the global world requires continuous learning. The author describes Fielding Graduate…

Ableism is discrimination on the grounds that being able bodied is the normal and superior human condition. In contrast, being "disabled" is linked to ill health, incapacity, and dependence. These understandings become institutionalized in the beliefs, language, and practices of nondisabled people and create barriers to equitable social…

This article queries how one type of human difference--alterity, the experience of multiple distinct consciousnesses, or "alters," by one person--is pathologized in American culture. This experience is inscribed as a mental illness, labeled now as dissociative identity disorder (DID) and formerly known as multiple personality disorder (MPD). In…

This article invokes the spirit of "Sophia" as metaphorical guide for an ongoing reclamation of wisdom spaces and describes a path for educators and practitioners that can assist in the recovery of wisdom in the face of increasing pressures of measurable outcomes within the field of lifelong learning. The authors first examine wisdom within adult…

The sites of adult education practice are multiple, and museums feature regularly among these sites (Chadwick and Stannett, 1995, 2000). This chapter explores the potential of museums as sites for critical "public pedagogy." It foregrounds the role of adult educators as co-interrogators with adult learners of what is generally perceived as…

What does it mean to provide community-based health education that respects adults of diverse cultures and ways of being in the world? How does one nurture meaningful learning opportunities that awaken possibilities as a catalyst for understanding, conversation, and action? In this article, nurturing place, sharing power, heart listening, talking…

In both the United States and Canada, higher education faculty have access to voluntary faculty development activities through continuing professional education departments, but rarely are preparatory programs available for those preparing to become faculty. Faculty development initiatives are only infrequently grounded in adult education…