Frank Wolf, Dean of Continuing Education

With the growth in the number of adults reentering the education marketplace and demand for more traditional "continuing education" programs increasing, Continuing Education (CE) was created in 1995. The new, separate division was charged with the development of new programs of instruction to bring new audiences to the University as well as the enhancement of long-established non-credit programs.

CE offers a variety of continuing education programs to a wide array of students. Its programs benefit those interested in graduate level courses, studying abroad, mastering English-as-a-second language, and high school students.

"Continuing Education has grown in every possible sense of the word," said Frank Wolf, Dean of Continuing Education. "Over the past six years we have engaged in a very ambitious cycle of program creation that has resulted in an impressive list of programs that we didn't have before."

In 1995 CE included programs such as the Summer Session, American Language Program, Special Students Program, Computer Technology and Applications, Summer Program for High School Students and the Columbia Study Abroad Programs in Paris and Italy. At that time there were approximately 3,000 applications per year for the various Continuing Education programs. Today that number exceeds 6,000.

Within two years of its creation, Continuing Education undertook a self-study, identifying its strengths and weaknesses. This study resulted in the recommendation, which was endorsed by the faculty of Arts and Sciences, that Continuing Education should grant degrees, offering masters and certificate programs in applied professional fields.

CE now offers 278 credit courses and 141 non-credit courses to over 7,700 students. Numerous new programs have been instituted over the past few years, including post-baccalaureate certificate programs in business, psychology, classics, Teaching of English-as-a-second language and second majors in most arts and science disciplines. In addition, CE now offers an Executive Information Technology Management (EITM) program; a new E-commerce track in Computer Technology and Applications; study-abroad programs in Berlin and Beijing; a number of distance learning courses in English-as-a-second language and Information Technology, as well as seven new summer programs for high school students.

Last year a downtown center was opened at 100 William Street to accommodate enrollment growth in information technology programs. Beginning in January, Continuing Education will offer a non-credit program in fundraising management.

In September 2002, Continuing Education, in conjunction with the Graduate School, expects to begin its first Master's program in Strategic Communications.

All continuing education schools are expected to serve student needs while generating revenue. In 1995 CE's revenues were about $17 million. Six years later its revenues are over $25 million. CE has exceeded its tuition targets in five of the last six years and is an important source of revenue for the Arts and Sciences. Its $750,000 over-target revenues for 2001-2002 are being used to finance the renovation of the Language Resource Center in Lewisohn Hall.

The impressive growth in Continuing Education is attributable to Dean Wolf's strategic vision involving ambitious and energetic program development. This level of growth has not come without challenges.

"The biggest challenge of my job is to articulate and implement a vision for Continuing Education which is consistent with the conservative culture of Columbia," says Wolf. "My goal is to offer programs of high quality which enhance the visibility of Continuing Education at Columbia in the city and to expand the contribution we make to the education of people in the metropolitan area."

Over the past six years Dean Wolf has worked to develop a single identity for all of the CE programs by combining the publications of formerly separate programs and promoting them through a unified strategy of advertising, direct mail and public relations. During this time professional marketing staff were hired to seek out the "continuing education" market and a separate Information Center was recently created to handle and source all inquiries from prospective students, allowing Admissions staff to focus their resources exclusively on students who are engaged in the application process.

Continuing Education has taken full advantage of the Internet. It promotes all of its programs on the web and provides student services via the Internet, including course syllabi, orientation materials and chat rooms. CE was the first in the University to offer an online application. It is about to become the first whose interactive application will be linked to Columbia's mainframe student information system. Finally, Continuing Education offers online open houses for some of its programs.

Overall, Dean Wolf believes that as a result of the reorganization, Columbia has the best of both worlds, having a selective college of liberal arts for non-traditional students (General Studies) and a separate division for Continuing Education offering programs to distinct and growing constituencies.