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UNO Leaders Show NU System Regents the Future of Teaching, Working, and Learning

Chancellor Joanne Li, Ph.D., CFA, led the presentation during Friday’s Board of Regents meeting on UNO’s campus.

  • published: 2023/04/07
  • contact: Office of Strategic Marketing and Communications
  • email: unonews@unomaha.edu

University of Nebraska at Omaha leaders offered the University of Nebraska (NU) System an inside look on Friday at how UNO is leading the way to shape how Nebraskans will teach, work, and learn in the very near future.

The presentation to the NU System Board of Regents on UNO’s campus in the Barbara Weitz Community Engagement Center highlighted how anticipating and rapidly responding to the needs of employers across the state through experiences and academic programming will meet the state’s workforce demands.

UNO Chancellor Joanne Li, Ph.D., CFA; Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Phil He, Ph.D.; College of Information Science & Technology​ Dean Martha Garcia-Murillo, Ph.D.; and Associate Vice Chancellor for Innovative and Learning Centric Initiatives​ Jaci Lindburg, Ph.D., guided regents through UNO’s innovative workforce development and student performance strategic priorities.

For Chancellor Li, that future begins with embracing change and being brave enough to do things differently.

“Expanding the workforce requires us to abandon business as usual,” Li said. “We need to draw underserved communities to higher education. We need to acquire talent from somewhere else. We have limited resources, so we will need to identify strategy areas to grow. We’ll stay focused on meeting the demands of the future economy, while recognizing the need of education is shifting, and the profile of a learner is evolving.”

The Future of Teaching

To ensure UNO stands out among universities across the country, UNO will take new and innovative approaches to teaching that are responsive, experiential, and competency-based, according to He. Specifically, educators are moving rapidly to focus on more than 50 academic programs that feed into high-wage, high-demand, and high-skill careers.

“We are moving along at the speed of business. We are helping to produce the future workforce for Nebraska,” He said.

He also highlighted UNO’s statewide impact through experiential learning, which is supported by more than 1,000 community partners across the country – 850 of which are in Nebraska.

On the horizon for UNO is a goal to become a national leader in competency-based education, which will position students to be employment-ready through a shortened time to credential completion, and curriculum driven by the needs of the workforce.

“That competency-based education will challenge our mindset about traditional education, that is classroom-based, sitting in a seat, in-person,” He said.

“We want our curriculum to be nimble enough to allow our learners for us to meet them where they are. We want to make them employment-ready,” He added.

The Future of Learning

For the portion of the presentation on the future of learning, Garcia-Murillo put the spotlight on the importance of internships and how programs such as Career Connect and the Learn & Earn Initiative are the future of learning.

The ultimate objective? Connect every student with a paid internship.

“We don’t want our students to just have one, but maybe two or three internships, because the more they have, the more confident they will be in their fields,” Garcia-Murillo said.

IS&T’s approach to deepening relationships between students and future employers through Learn & Earn covers a student’s full academic journey. In a student’s first year, they will participate in job shadowing, while year two focuses on a micro-internship, and years three and four will engage students in yearlong internships. Garcia-Murillo said in addition to benefiting the students, it will also be an effective tool in retaining talent in-state.

“If all of our students have those internships and one of those great jobs, they’re going to get embedded in our community,” she said.

The Future of Working

How will universities be responsive to workers who want to grow their skill sets? According to Lindburg, who presented on the future of work, a solution is found in micro-credentials.

Micro-credentials are shorter, non-credit programs that are focused on helping learners at any age or stage in their professional development to not only develop new skills, but also enhance existing skills quickly.

“UNO is doing everything we can to align what we are offering with what is most needed here in Omaha, in the region, the state, and beyond,” she said. “We’re enthusiastic and we’re passionate about supporting workforce development effort.”

During her presentation, Lindburg gave examples of how individuals might utilize micro-credentials, including how an operations director could seek out skills in technical management to help manage rapid growth, or how a utilities manager could use a counterterrorism micro-credential to help their organization fend off cyber-attacks.

“Micro-credentials are really helping us increase our agility, partner for resource development, and also help with an individual’s social mobility throughout their career,” Lindburg said.

Following the presentation, Regent Elizabeth O’Connor of Omaha – a UNO graduate – acknowledged Chancellor Li for the university’s “extraordinary work” in workforce development.”

“We have heard repeatedly from leaders across Nebraska, from the Governor to the unicameral, the Chamber of Commerce, that [addressing] the risk of losing workforce in Nebraska is a top priority,” O’Connor said. “I can’t emphasize enough how encouraging it is to have UNO responding to this need in such a concrete and proactive way, but most importantly it prioritizes the student.”

On Thursday, the Board of Regents and President Ted Carter received a daylong tour of UNO’s campus. Board of Regents Chairman Tim Clare thanked the university for the experience – a sentiment Carter also echoed.

“I’m pleased we had an amazing illustration of what is going on on the campus and how that is impacting not only the university, but the state, nation, and the world,” Clare said.