The past biennium saw strong growth, driven by high-impact partnerships that increased educational access for Oregonians. Highlights include the following.
ONLINE LEARNING FOR OREGON HOME CARE COMMISSION
When Oregon Health Authority needed an an online learning platform for 50,000 essential care workers, they turned to OSU. Building on a multi-year partnership led by College of Public Health’s Center for Health Innovation, PACE worked with OHA’s Oregon Home Care Commission to develop a solution. As a result, we are accelerating OHA's commitment to provide accessible, flexible training options and advance career mobility for essential workers.
VACCINE EDUCATION MODULE FOR HIGHER ED STUDENTS, STAFF AND FACULTY STATEWIDE
As part of a multi-institution partnership led by OSU Student Health Services, PACE provided rapid development of a self-paced vaccine education module now in use by many colleges and universities across Oregon. Our work played an important part in the state's effort to ensure a safe return to campuses for students, staff and faculty in fall 2021.
GATES FOUNDATION-FUNDED DATA SCIENCE INITIATIVE
Along with OSU colleagues from the Center for Genome Research and Biocomputing, the PACE team worked on an interactive online training for the multi-state Data Science for the Public Good coalition. Consistent with the OSU Strategic Plan's call to provide transformative educational experiences, this training equips stakeholders to improve social and economic mobility through data-informed collaboration, analysis and policy making.
MULTIMEDIA DEVELOPMENT FOR IOWA STATE PUBLIC SCIENCE AND HEALTH INITIATIVES
As an extension of a past collaboration, researchers from Iowa State University sought PACE's support on two important initiatives for its stakeholders: the Public Science Collaborative and Recovery Iowa. This effort taps PACE's diverse capabilities—website and multimedia development, user experience design, SEO and marketing—to support public good initiatives beyond Oregon's borders.
In support of our college partners' core missions, PACE distributed over $1.7 million in noncredit program revenue over the past two fiscal years.Total annual distribution:
2021: $892,431
2020: $826,568
2019: $1,128,516
2018: $981,636
Note: PACE saw certain high-growth programs relocate to another unit at the end of FY19.
FY21 DISTRIBUTION BY COLLEGE
Five colleges account for the bulk of our annual revenue distribution.
College of Agricultural Sciences: $521,169
College of Education: $231,009
College of Forestry: $38,379
College of Liberal Arts: $54,523
College of Public Health: $75,408
CERTIFICATE FOR EDUCATORS AND CORPORATE TRAINERS
PACE's fast-growing collaboration with Oregon State's College of Education exemplifies our partnership model: The 2021 fiscal year saw unprecedented demand for a diverse professional certificate portfolio resulting from this integrated approach. Our instructional design and learning experience design offerings welcomed participants from organizations such as Nike, 3M, the US Air Force, E&J Gallo, General Mills and VMWare, among others.
ENVIRONMENTAL AND AGRICULTURE PROGRAMS
PACE provides over 70 innovative training courses for rangeland managers, agricultural producers, fire ecologists, land stewards, foresters, pesticide applicators and others natural resource professionals. These programs, offered in partnership with the College of Agricultural Sciences and College of Forestry, reflect Oregon State’s commitment to supporting people and the planet.
ESSENTIAL HEALTH WORKER CERTIFICATION AND DEVELOPMENT
PACE’s fastest growing programs include online certification courses for Community Health Workers across Oregon. CHWs play increasingly vital roles in supporting the health and well-being of their communities. OSU's certification program equips workers to provide informal counseling and support, conduct outreach programs and more. CHW programming, led by the College of Public Health, also includes ongoing professional development.
INNOVATIVE TECHNICAL WRITING TRAINING
PACE successfully launched a new Technical Writing Certificate in partnership with the School of Writing, Literature and Film and completely filled the program during the first cohort. This series trains writers from a variety of backgrounds to explore or launch technical writing careers. As a profession, technical writing offers a median salary of $74,650 and options for remote work.
OREGON BUREAU OF LABOR AND INDUSTRIES
Through a partnership with the Extension and Engagement division's DEI team, we developed inclusion training now in use state-wide by the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries for apprenticeship organizations state-wide. As a result, these organizations now rely on OSU's framework to help foster a more supportive culture across industries for thousands of Oregonians.
OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY VOLUNTEER DIVERSITY TRAINING
We partnered with our division's DEI team to develop diversity training for the thousands of volunteers supporting OSU programs each year. The online experience provides critical context related to volunteers' work in diverse communities. It will help ensure volunteer efforts align with the University's priorities in relation to diversity, equity and inclusion.
CREATING INCLUSIVE COMMUNITIES AND CONFRONTING BIAS
Our team helped support OSU's Office of Institutional Diversity in designing and implementing a new online program: Creating Inclusive Communities and Confronting Bias. PACE's multimedia and instructional design teams worked with leaders across the university to produce high-quality interactive courses that the University community will engage with as part of this foundational training.
DISABILITY ACCESS SERVICES TRAINING FOR XAVIER UNIVERSITY
Xavier University of Louisiana sought solutions from PACE to provide self-paced Disability Access training to its faculty. PACE facilitated a collaboration with OSU's Disability Access Services team to customize its existing online modules for use by Xavier. The result? A Xavier-branded online course that allowed our partners to scale disability training with limited resources.
The past biennium saw PACE enrollments rise sharply: In fact, registrations increased by 5x relative to the preceding two-year period. By optimizing content and program partnerships, PACE was well positioned to help meet increased public demand for online learning in the pandemic’s wake.
Moreover, strategic decision-making around our marketing and outreach efforts helped ensure that our relevant programs reached prospective learners during this time.
2021: 21,921
2020: 71,388*
2019: 8,302
2018: 9,315
* At the onset of the pandemic “shutdown,” our programs benefited from cultivated media exposure focused on accessible online learning.
TRAINING AND INFRASTRUCTURE FOR OSU EMPLOYEES AND STUDENTS
During the 2021 fiscal year, PACE significantly expanded support for university partners. With Human Resources, our team launched an update of online training for all student, staff and faculty employees. We also began providing infrastructure and services to support registration and reporting for nearly all other employee training. Finally, through a partnership with the Academic Success Center, we also continued to provide customized registration and support for student “study tables” for specific courses.
INNOVATIVE LEADERSHIP IN UNIVERSITY ENGAGEMENT EFFORTS
In the wake of COVID, PACE played a vital role in helping University partners maximize technology-driven engagement. Highlights included an award-winning COVID prevention campaign and a newsletter campaign with over 100,000 subscribers. Our bi-weekly gardening newsletter is produced by a team from PACE, Extension Communications and Master Gardener and has had great success: leading to a six-fold increase in sales for Trees to Know, thousands of registrations for Master Gardener webinars and over 27,000 people engaging with Extension garden calendars in FY21.
Our success in growing non-credit enrollments and launching effective workforce development is a credit to our team's marketing and outreach efforts. These efforts leverage our team's digital expertise to strengthen and maintain relationships with individual learners and organizations alike.
160,000+ active opt-in subscribers to newsletter publications and program messaging.
Six-fold increase in sales of faculty publication.
Enrolled learners representing more than 900 employers, including Amazon, American Airlines, Siemens, and The Home Depot, among others.
Expanded state-of-the-art customer relationship management platform.
Over 4.2 million engagement emails sent.
Interested in partnering with PACE?
From program management and instructional design to targeted marketing and multimedia development, we're here to help your college find success in noncredit programming.
