Criterion Five: Engagement and Service Core Component 5b: The organization has the capacity and the commitment to engage with its identified constituents and communities.

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	Adult Education The provision of Continuing Education and certification programs occurs throughout the academic units and extends the reach of UMKC to working adults and others seeking continuing education credits.
The College of Arts and Sciences provides two opportunities for adult education. Through the Cockefair Lecture Series, professors present non-credit, 90-minute courses for three to four weeks each semester. When first launched, this program drew about a dozen individuals but now each course reaches 30-50 people. The College’s Program for Adult College Education (PACE) is specifically designed for adults in the workplace. This program meets one evening each week and four weekends each semester, with the average PACE student earning 12 credit hours in three courses per semester. PACE blocks can lead to either a Bachelor of Arts degree or a Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree. The School of Law [SOL] has an active Continuing Legal Education Department, which sponsored 53 programs in 2008 that provided continuing education for nearly 5,000 people. Several of these programs are annual events, such as the Kansas City Estate Planning Symposium, co-sponsored by the Estate Planning Society of Kansas City, Eastern Kansas Estate Planning Council and Kansas City Chapter of Financial Service Professionals. The Missouri Society of Professional Engineers has dramatically expanded its requirement for continuing education beyond the baccalaureate degree. Licensed professional engineers in both Missouri and Kansas must now acquire and document 30 contact hours of continuing education during each licensing period (two years) to renew their PE license. In response, our School of Computing and Engineering [SCE] has organized and produced continuing education courses offered at Kansas City’s local engineering firms. Black & Veatch currently offers two CE classes (on-site) in power engineering and quality control; Lathrop & Gage offers two CE classes on site in the areas of licensing and contracts; Burns & McDonnell offers one class on site in the area of construction law. In addition to these large on-site programs, SCE offers other classes in coordination with professional societies such as Structural Engineers Association of Kansas and Missouri to promote ongoing education of our local engineering community. Participation in these programs has grown steadily during the last four years, with more than 200 engineers taking advantage of this opportunity in the last year. Looking toward the future, we are exploring the production and implementation of additional continuing education in both the Departments of Civil and Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. As the only ABET accredited engineering school in Kansas City, SCE needs to provide continuing education opportunities for local professionals. In this capacity, SCE is using local professionals in an advisory role to help define and refine our continuing education courses in order to ensure the relevance of these courses to the local professional community. The School of Medicine [SOM] assumes a pivotal role in graduate medical education within the Kansas City area, partnering with all of the city’s major health care institutions. This year, 450 residents and fellows are in UMKC’s 41 sponsored programs, all of which are fully accredited. UMKC employs 331 of these residents and fellows, Children’s Mercy Hospital employs 101, and Western Missouri Mental Health Center employs 18. The SOM’s Continuing Medical Education [CME] program addresses the learning needs of local and regional physicians (and when appropriate, the needs of physicians outside the central region of the U.S.), regarding advances in research, evidence-based patient care, professionalism, scholarly activities and leadership. The Continuing Nursing Education [CNE] program for practicing nurses and other health professionals is provided by the School of Nursing [SON]. Throughout the year, the CNE committee meets periodically to review the program’s objectives, which are established annually prior to the academic year. The committee publishes an annual report with a summary of outcomes and recommendations for the following year’s objectives. [See recent CNE Annual Reports in the Resource Room.] During academic years 2006-07 and 2007- 08, CNE alone offered more than 200 course hours to more than 2,000 nursing and medical professionals. In addition to CNE, the SON collaborates with Sigma Theta Tau (the International Nursing Honor Society), Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics, and Truman Medical Center to provide continuing education programs. Certificate programs offered through the SON include a post-master’s certificate in nursing education. This certificate program has a two-fold purpose: to focus on the skills and knowledge necessary to become a nurse educator, and to increase the number of nurse educators, whose critical shortage directly affects the current nursing shortage.
The School of Education’s [SOE] extensive array of continuing education programs serves several hundred educators each year, enabling them to remain up-to-date about such issues as the use of technology in classrooms, serving the needs of diverse students, and improving math and science education. Some major programs include the Truman Library summer programs (including this year’s “1948: A Year of Decisions”), Greater Kansas City Writing Project Summer Institutes, Kansas City Missouri School District Teacher Inquiry Teaching and Learning Workshop (in association with Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute [KCALSI]), and Leadership Institute for Prospective Principals (LIPP).