Fall Conference Round Up

by | Nov 7, 2014 | Community news

We have been on the road a lot lately! CollegeSource was present at more than 10 conferences already this fall, with a few more still to go. We love being able to connect with clients, meet new people, learn about and discuss what’s going on in the industry, and show off our products and what we’ve been working on to improve them for our users. Here are some perspectives, gathered from CollegeSource representatives who attended each show:
The NACADA conference saw over 3,000 academic advising professionals from schools around the world descend on Minneapolis, MN. The four-day conference was packed with sessions and we had a good deal of traffic in the vendor area. Feedback was positive as many folks stopped by to express their pleasure with TES and CSO. This year CollegeSource featured Transferology™ in its session. Not only was the product demo well received, but we received lots of great questions. Interaction at this show is important to us as we don’t get as many opportunities to talk with academic advisors as we do staff from registrar’s offices. Many of our products, Transferology and the u.achieve Suite in particular, live and breath in the hands of advisors who use them in helping students to better plan and get more out of their academic careers.
Kentucky ACRAO continues to be a vibrant statewide conference. TES usage is high in the state (more than 8,000 logins per participating school in the last 12 months) and the KnowHow2Transfer.org initiative is still going strong since the launch in June of 2012. (See the related article). Kentucky’s transfer efforts, going forward, are focused on developing further degree pathways, each of which represents an idealized degree progression beginning with an Associate’s Degree at one of the Kentucky Community and Technical College campuses and finishing with a Baccalaureate Degree from one of the state’s public universities.
AACRAO’s Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM) conference was held in Los Angeles at the end of October. It was great getting to see some familiar faces in the crowd! CollegeSource presented on Transferology and got to show off some of the new enhancements that were released just a few weeks earlier. A special thanks goes out to Lygia Smidt from California Polytechnic San Luis Obispo who also presented with us on the u.direct Academic Planner and shared how her school has implemented the planner and is using the course demand data to help with new processes on campus. We really appreciate when users are willing to share their stories and want to say thanks again to Lygia for making the trip up to promote u.direct and for spending some time hanging out with our team in LA!
CoHEsion is an organization coordinated by users of Ellucian solutions to provide “unity among members” and “an independent voice of Eullcian customers.” The conference in Austin, TX was designed to give Ellucian users an opportunity to network, participate in sessions, and meet with vendors offering solutions designed to work in tandem with Ellucian products. With over 300 attendees, the conference provided CollegeSource with a great opportunity to connect with existing clients and share information about CollegeSource products and services with the Ellucian community.
TACRAO in Waco, TX was very special this year as our own Ron Hootman was honored for his years of service to the organization and the higher education institutions in Texas. Ron was very dedicated to getting as many Texas institutions to subscribe to TES® as he could during his tenure. Tim Horzmann, one of our newest CollegeSource employees also attended, and this was his first conference as an employee and not a college staff member. Tim chatted with many TACRAO members and demoed the CollegeSource products. Here’s to another year of TACRAO under our belts! The level of camaraderie among members makes it one of our perennial favorites to attend.
The MSACROA conference featured attendees from the Middle States region of AACRAO (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and the DC area). Held this year in scenic Niagara, NY., the Falls were just steps away. Our “Will my courses transfer” session went extremely well, with lots of good back-and-forth interaction. This is great news because while we have thousands of students from the states covered by MSACROA looking at transfer information in Transferology, the network is a little underserved by subscribers in that area. (The handful of schools who are the first ones to subscribe from the MSACRAO region are receiving, and will continue to receive, a LOT of interest because of their forward-thinking adoption policies.) Feedback at our booth was very positive as many folks stopped by to express their continued pleasure with TES. We are really looking forward to next year’s conference and charting the growth of subscribers in that area.
The NEACRAO conference was held in historic Newport, RI once again this year. The venue was fantastic, centered at the Newport Marriott, nestled in the wharf area of town. Serving the New England states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, the interactions were promising for the growth of the Transferology network. Again, feedback was overwhelmingly positive as many folks stopped by to express their pleasure with TES and indicate their interest in Transferology. Next year’s conference will be held in the same great venue, so we are looking forward to attending again and building on the new relationships that we started in the region.

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