The latest and greatest LERN News on what LERN has planned for you coming up. Photo: The LERN staff hold a retreat in Puerto Rico earlier this year. New Chair Extends Dashboard Jill Korsok, Director of Orange Community Education in Pepper Pike, Ohio, became the new Chair of the LERN Board of Directors this spring.

For you, and your community, the new online class starts September with Betsy Flanagan, Fortune 500 consultant, as instructor. “Introduction to ChatGPT” is one of the new UGotClass courses starting this fall.  The difference between UGotClass and the for-profits is the instructor. Click Here for the course description and agenda. Check out Betsy Flanagan’s resume:

The 5 big new directions for 2024 were outlined by the 50 best experts and 1,491 professionals leading the field at the LERN conference, now the most important week of the year. These were the hottest topics for discussion and exploration, and research by LERN for your program.

A dashboard with the 6 most vital statistics is now available. You can now find out where your program stands. Compare your program to the average. Even more importantly, compare your program to the Top 25% of programs. And compare your program’s stats to the LERN recommendation.

“AI is the wild west,” summarized Danessa Gray of Bremerton, Washington. Most professionals agreed with that statement. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has clearly arrived for the field of lifelong learning programming and continuing education.

Here’s the 3 hottest marketing tips of the year, as voted on by your colleagues at the big LERN Annual Conference.

With 1,491 people participating, the LERN Annual Conference was a huge success. The average participant attended 8.6 sessions, up from 7 sessions attended last year.

Organizations may have the answers to their own staff shortages, according to two surveys of current staff.

The registration wave continued. Registrations are back to the pre-pandemic normal. As usual LERN members had 10% higher registrations than non-members.

Leaders are needed more than ever. There’s a leader demand at work for the field of lifelong learning and continuing education. Your leadership is also welcome for the community and your off-work time with community organizations, efforts, tasks and groups.

March 2024 will see two in-person conferences. Both are focused on a more intimate setting ideal for networking and face-to-face interaction and discussion.

Will the human race end soon due to climate change? In the first ever poll of professionals in the field, here is what you say. And what LERN plans to do.

Exciting new professional development opportunities for fall are led by our new LERN C.E. Model Institute that premiered this spring.

Vaccinations for your program participations has created a huge issue for the field. The two major topics: 1.Whether to mandate vaccinations for in-person class participants; and 2.Coping with the resulting revenue problems for programs accepting non-vaccinated people for in-person classes.

Your Must-Read article this month is “Blow Up the Silos,” the new Recommendation from LERN that was created by your fellow LERN leaders and colleagues.