Continuing Education's innovation and creativity garner three national awards

Earlier this month, Continuing Education was awarded three honours for creativity and innovation in its programming and communications work. The awards were from the Canadian Association of University Continuing Education (CAUCE), a professional association of deans, directors, senior administrative personnel and practitioners whose professional careers are in university continuing education in Canada.

The program award — Non-Credit Programming Over 48 Hours — recognized the Bioengineering Summer Institute, built in partnership with the Schulich School of Engineering (SSE). The pilot program ran last summer and is now fully implemented.

• Photo above: Bioengineering Summer Institute students test a desktop luge track. Photo by Nicole Dunsdon, Schulich School of Engineering

To design the program, Continuing Education worked with a team of SSE faculty members and graduate students, and sought feedback from a panel of high school students, the program’s intended audience. The outcome of the collaboration is an engaging four-week program for high school graduates who do well in biology and are looking for the physics foundation to enter first-year engineering.

Design challenge garners two awards

The Continuing Education communications and marketing team won two Design and Marketing awards in the category of Advertising – Out of Home for their ‘Questions’ campaign. The design challenge for this campaign was to quickly and efficiently reach commuters with the key message to look at UCalgary Continuing Education for answers to their learning needs.

The campaign included a dozen questions designed to engage viewers and spark curiosity about Continuing Education course topics such as ‘How do you fix a dangling participle?’ and ‘How do you inspire and motivate employees?’. The questions linked to short answers on a special landing page .

The campaign was implemented before the fall and winter peak registration periods and included transit posters, online and print advertisements. Compared to the previous year, direct visits to the Continuing Education website during these peak periods increased by almost 20 per cent in the fall and close to 50 per cent for the winter registration period. Enrolments also increased compared to the previous year during the campaign.

Sheila LeBlanc, continuing education director, says, “Congratulations to everyone involved in these award-winning achievements. In these uncertain times, it’s important, now more than ever, that we remain dedicated to creating innovative programs and innovative ways to promote these programs.”

The Canadian Association for University Continuing Education (CAUCE) is a professional association of deans, directors, senior administrative personnel and practitioners whose professional careers are in university continuing education in Canada. Membership in CAUCE is on an institutional basis with most benefits of membership also extended to professional and affiliate members.

University of Calgary Continuing Education provides high-quality educational opportunities to lifelong learners, thereby strengthening our communities and our university.