Spring 2025 Newsletter

Early-Bird Discount Available for CAEL Annual Conference

The intersection of learning and work define the road for success for adult learners, and for four days this fall, all of those roads will lead to Memphis, Tenn., site of CAEL’s 2025 Annual Conference, taking place Nov. 11-14. Registration is now open for this signature event for connecting people and programs from throughout the education-employment ecosystem. Secure your place—and an early bird discount—by completing your registration before June 1.

For the fourth consecutive year, CAEL’s Conference has seen record-breaking attendance, and 2025 promises to be our most dynamic event yet. With our popular hybrid format, we’re delivering the best of both worlds—engaging in-person experiences and accessible virtual sessions. Here are just a few highlights you can look forward to:

• Onsite events at the historic Peabody Hotel.
• 175+ expert speakers covering critical topics at the intersection of learning and work.
• Keynote presentations, roundtable discussions, and premier networking opportunities.

Submit Your Nominations for CAEL’s Annual Awards

Recognition as a CAEL Annual Award winner is a mark of distinction, and we invite you to help us honor individuals and institutions making a lasting impact on adult learners. Submit your nominations for one of our five distinguished awards:

• Learner of the Year.
• Morris T. Keeton Award.
• Pamela Tate Rise Award.
• Adult Learner Impact Award.
• CAEL Community Impact Award - Open to organizations in the Memphis metropolitan area and the greater Mid-South region.

Don’t miss this chance to recognize outstanding contributions to adult learning! To learn more about the awards and check out the 2024 Award Winners, visit cael.org/cael-conference

CAEL and Apprenticeships for America Announce Joint Membership 

CAEL and Apprenticeships for America (AFA), a national nonprofit coalition working to expand access to high-quality apprenticeship programs, have announced an agreement creating seamless links between their memberships. Effective through May 31, 2025, CAEL members can sign up for a complimentary AFA membership valid through Dec. 31, 2026. During the same period, AFA members can purchase a CAEL individual membership at a 50% discounted rate. Organizational and institutional discounts are also available.

CAEL members who join AFA will have access to the following resources AFA offers members to increase their capacity to help current and future workers prepare for the evolving job landscape:

• AFA newsletter/digest.
• AFA-hosted informational webinars.
• AFA analysis of government proposals (legislation and regulation).
• Voice at the table as AFA works on policy development, advocacy, and communications campaigns. 
• Discounted access to AFA events.
• Opportunities to participate in working groups.

CAEL members who wish to join AFA as part of this exciting new opportunity should contact membership@apprenticeshipsforamerica.org. AFA members who wish to join CAEL should contact membershipservices@cael.org.

Military Community of Practice, Regional Convening Held in San Diego 

On March 11-12, CAEL held back-to-back events in San Diego, beginning with Military-Ready Ecosystems, a gathering of its national Military Community of Practice. Held at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) in San Diego, the meeting served as a pre-conference event for Reflection and Action: the State of the Workforce Ecosystem, co-hosted with event sponsor and CAEL institutional member National University. The events featured keynote speakers from the North San Diego Business Chamber and the Federal Reserve Bank. Additional sessions included presenters from the SEMI Foundation, Zero8Hundred, CAEL, EnGen, the Workforce Integration Network at California State University – Dominguez Hills, the District Services Support Center at Maricopa Community Colleges, the American Public Human Services Association, Grant Associates, and the Seattle Jobs Initiative. To learn more or to join CAEL’s Military Community of Practice, please reach out to Doug Heckman at dheckman@cael.org.

EPCE Marks 25th Anniversary With New Website Offering New Energy Programs and Career Navigation Resources

Celebrating 25 years of one of its national coalition programs, CAEL recently rolled out major enhancements to epceonline.org, the website for the Energy Providers Coalition for Education (EPCE). CAEL administers EPCE, the energy sector’s leading source of 100% online degrees and other credentials for the future and incumbent workforce. Improvements to the website were supported by the GitLab Foundation, which has provided funding to CAEL to attract diverse talent to the energy industry including to help enhance the EPCE website (read more).

Annual Member Survey Supports Commitment to Continuous Improvement

Each year, CAEL surveys its membership, which includes more than 5,000 individual and hundreds of institutional members, to gain insight about evolving needs within a changing education-employment ecosystem.  

The diversification and growth of our membership community means it’s more important than ever that the perspectives and voices of our members be seen and heard. We just completed our analysis of the annual survey results, which showed that CPL, credit mobility, career pathways, and industry partnerships remain key areas of focus for our members. 

In listening to member needs, the CAEL membership team is already at work developing resources, planning virtual workshops and webinars, and designing new professional development opportunities to address key areas. The team is looking forward to unveiling these new member benefits throughout 2025.

Importantly, CAEL continues to be designated a best-in-class membership organization based on member engagement and how members view their experience. We are so honored and humbled to achieve this status each year for the past five years. Thank you, members, for allowing us the opportunity to serve you!

Second Iteration of Bridging The Talent Gap Survey Completed With Detroit Regional Chamber

Last August, the Detroit Regional Chamber, a CAEL institutional member, commissioned CAEL's Bridging The Talent Gap (BTTG) Employee Survey on behalf of Henry Ford Health. The Chamber first arranged for a BTTG survey for Henry Ford Health in 2022. The most recent survey saw participation surge more than 700%. This boost in responses enabled the capture of deeper insights into why more team members were not using education benefits and ways to support those interested in furthering their education (read more). Learn more about Bridging The Talent Gap here.

GROWWTH Program Is Helping Grow the Reach of Build Better Careers

In 2022, CAEL was awarded a $15.7 million grant under the Truist Foundation's Where It Starts initiative. Through this partnership, CAEL is leading Build Better Careers, a six-year national initiative to put underserved adult learners on pathways to success. Build Better Careers projects that it will help more than 6,000 people access career-boosting postsecondary education and higher-wage jobs in five regions, including Memphis, where the Growing Relational and Occupational Wealth for West Tennessee Households (GROWWTH) program is among CAEL's regional partners. The collaboration is helping Build Better Careers improve economic mobility through career pathways in the finance and insurance industries and beyond (read more.)

Work-Based Learning + Microcredentials = Rewarding Career Pathways for High School Students In Lafayette, Ind.

A partnership among CAEL, Greater Lafayette Commerce, and Skyepack (a career curriculum and platform provider) is solidifying the link between Career+ Pathways™ microcredential learning outcomes and employability in health care and manufacturing, two high-growth sectors in Lafayette, Indiana. Launched in 2022, Career+ Pathways™ was initially available to more than 15,000 students enrolled at 21 schools in a seven-county area of west-central Indiana, and it has since expanded to serve regions throughout the state. The program is founded on the principle that giving high school students more routes to career success strengthens regional talent pipelines. Read more about how chambers like Greater Lafayette are integrating career exploration and work-based learning for high schoolers to set a gold standard for education and training partnerships.

New Research From CAEL Examines Accreditor CPL Policies

We are very pleased to share with you our new research report, Accreditor Policies on Credit for Prior Learning (CPL): Guidance on CPL Provided by the Formerly Regional Accreditors, Career-Based Accreditors, and Faith-Based Accreditors.

At a time when postsecondary institutions are designing and expanding their CPL program offerings, it is critical to keep in mind any parameters that are established by various policy-makers, including relevant accreditors. This research report focuses primarily on the CPL policies of the accreditors once known as “regional accreditors”: 

• Higher Learning Commission (HLC).
• Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE).
• New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE) (formerly NEASC).
• Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU).
• Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC).
• WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC).
• Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC).

In addition, there are some details about CPL policies established by Career-Related Accreditors and Faith-Related Accreditors. This new publication is a nice companion to the state CPL policy database that CAEL and ACE released earlier this year.   

Our thanks go to the staff of the regional accreditors who helped us make sure that our representation of these policies is accurate — and also to those who gave us sneak peeks of some future changes to those policies.

CAEL Presents at Lumina’s Third Annual HBCU Adult Learner Summit

CAEL participated in the third annual Adult Learner Summit, as part of the Lumina Foundation NC HBCU ALI grant initiative. Previously hosted by Winston Salem State, this year's one-day event at Johnson C. Smith University featured adult learners and staff from six North Carolina colleges, including three of the Lumina HBCU ALI grantee participant schools: Winston Salem State, Johnson C. Smith, and Elizabeth City State University; Livingstone College, Benedict College, and Central Piedmont Community College were also represented. The event was a student-planned and led event sponsored by JCSU's Golden Bull Adult Student Success Organization (GBASO)

CAEL's Dr. Gloria Mwase and Dr. Alicia Myrick led sessions on Empowering Adult Learners: Strategies for Support, Success, and Self-Advocacy. The event also featured a panel exploring the experiences of JCSU’s Golden Bull Adult Student Success Organization and a keynote address from Adam Nichols, an adult learner and recent graduate of JCSU who shared his impairing story of success as an adult learner and the impact that adult learner focused policies and program had on his journey.

New Issue — and Future Issues of PLAIO

For those wanting to dive in deeper on credit for prior learning — and learn about what is happening globally with CPL, please check out the new issue of PLAIO (PLA Inside Out). This issue is dedicated to the Validation of Prior Learning (VPL) Biennale, which was held last May in Ireland with the theme of People, Validation, and Power: Democracy in Action?

PLAIO is an online international journal on theory, research, and practice in prior learning assessment. Longtime CAEL members Nan Travers and Alan Mandell (both of SUNY - Empire State College) have been the driving force behind PLAIO since 2012, and editors now include CAEL members Carl Burkart (SUNY Empire State) and Susan Forseille (Thompson Rivers University, Canada). The advisory board includes CAEL’s Becky Klein-Collins and CAEL members Rusty Dolleman (University of Southern Maine), Meredith Hatch (Achieving the Dream - member organization), and Charlotte Nitardy (Metro State University) – along with representatives from Austria, Iceland, Australia, Korea, Bolivia, the West Indies, South Africa, Kenya, and Ireland. There are currently calls for contributions to the next two issues of PLAIO:

• Issue #9’s focus is: PLA Responses to Urgent Social Realities: Access to Education and Work for Refugee, Migrant, Displaced, and Stateless People. Submissions are due June 1, 2025; see here for more information.
• Issue #10’s focus is PLA as a Strategic Key to Human Resource and Sustainable Labor Market Development. Submissions are due Jan. 15, 2026. See here for more information.

CAEL Completes Series of AARP-Supported Policy Briefs

With the support of AARP, CAEL completed a series of three briefs dedicated to helping policymakers identify strategies for better serving older adult learners and workers and realize the many benefits of doing so. 

• Leveraging a Lifetime of Knowledge: How Credit for Prior Learning Can Help Older Adults and Veterans delves into the transformative potential of credit for prior learning (CPL) for older adults and veterans, shedding light on how recognizing prior learning can accelerate the educational and career goals that deliver the greatest impact for this key adult learner subpopulation. 
• Aging Workforce, Rising Potential: Policy and Employer Action for Older Workers explores why employers should prioritize upskilling and reskilling their older employees.
• Age is Just a Number: State Policy Approaches to Supporting Older Adult Learning examines the current state of older adult learners in postsecondary education, delving into the challenges they face and highlighting policy challenges and bright spots. All three are available for download from CAEL’s research library.

In Case You Missed It: Highlights of CAEL’s Thought Leadership Across Multiple Platforms

From guest op eds to hosted webinars, thought leadership is a key vehicle for advancing CAEL’s mission and vision. To stay abreast of the latest, you can subscribe for updates, read the CAEL newsletter, and attend our annual conference and other events. But as a member of the CAEL community, you’re also probably busy supporting the education-employment ecosystem with thought leadership of your own. To help you catch up on anything you may have missed, we have outlined some key items in our latest summary of Thought Leadership Highlights. It contains links to more than 30 recent webinars, articles, research reports, and other platforms highlighting important issues around credit for prior learning, serving and understanding adult learners, industry-education partnerships, and what they mean for the future. Download the highlights.

Expert in Education, Philanthropic and Government Affairs Sectors Joins CAEL’s Regional Office in Pittsburgh

Dana Levine Kunzman has joined CAEL’s Pittsburgh office in a consulting role. Levine Kunzman will boost the CAEL’s growing capacity in the region, including fundraising and workforce partnerships involving key sectors such as finance and banking, information technology, and manufacturing. Levine Kunzman’s previous roles include vice president of strategic innovation at the State System of Higher Education Foundation (PASSHE), where she was instrumental in the success of the foundation’s joint initiatives with CAEL. CAEL maintains a dedicated office in Pittsburgh to support the cross-sector partnerships it is developing to define skill set requirements and ensure education and training options are optimally aligned with quality jobs.

New Microcourse and Instructor-led Professional Development Programs Available 

Registration is open for the next cohorts of CAEL’s professional development opportunities. Courses begin April 21 for the following online programs:

• From the Ground Up: Building the Foundations of a CPL Program
• Career and Education Advising
• Assessing Prior Learning
• The Workforce Ecosystem: Building Partnerships for Community Growth

On May 6, CAEL will offer From Passion to Pitch: Empowering CPL Champions to Advocate, Align, and Amplify Their Programs, a new virtual workshop. And another new offering, Adult Learners are not Unicorns! Create a Disciplined and Successful Adult Learner Recruitment Strategy, will kick off July 21. Learn more.

Member and group discounts apply to all courses.

In addition to the above instructor-led training, CAEL offers nine microcourses that are open to all members, including the brand new Workforce Ecosystem: Building Partnerships for Community Growth. Introduced last month, this course explores how employers, postsecondary education and workforce development entities must act in partnership to provide high-quality job training as the country experiences a significant increase in short-term occupational skills training programs tied to in-demand employment, particularly for historically underrepresented communities.

Follow CAEL’s professional development and training page or sign up to receive future announcements.

Opportunity To Join the Value Data Collaborative - And Ensure That It Focuses on Adult Learners!

Here's an interesting new opportunity to contribute to research on adult learners from the Institute for Higher Education Policy:

The Value Data Collaborative is an innovative initiative that empowers participants to conduct original research, dive into analytics and data infrastructure, collaborate with peers, and drive meaningful changes in higher education policy and practice. The Institute for Higher Education Policy is actively seeking proposals from state higher education agencies, institutions, and systems interested in harnessing the power of data to understand and improve postsecondary value. Interested teams should apply by June 20, 2025.

Click here to view the RFP.