Media Contact:
Dr. Hiller Spires, 919/515-6286
Anna Turnage, College of Education, 919/513-0034

Sept. 15, 2004

System President to Address Meeting Global Challenges in Higher Education

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Molly Broad

UNC System President Molly Corbett Broad will be the featured speaker for a forum hosted by The William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation on “Building a Nation of Learners: The Need for Changes in Teaching and Learning to Meet Global Challenges,” from 1 to 3 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 24, in room 216 of Poe Hall on the North Carolina State University campus.

IBM Vice President Barry Eveland, Dr. T.J. Bryan, chancellor of Fayetteville State University, and Dr. Sam Houston, president and CEO of the N.C. Science, Mathematics and Technology Education Center, will join Broad to discuss the widening skills gap between traditional college training and the skills required for today’s workforce.

The discussion will focus on a report and recommendations from the Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF) of which Broad is a member and co-chair of the group’s Learning and Technology Initiative. The organization, made up of more than 70 business and university leaders from across the country, states in its report that America’s higher education institutions must adopt new approaches to learning to respond to the demographic, economic and social forces affecting education and the workplace. The report also makes a number of policy recommendations about how higher education can achieve this goal.

“The findings and recommendations in this report support the Friday Institute’s mission of research and development to improve education in the 21st century,” said Institute Director Dr. Hiller Spires. “The Friday Institute provides the kind of atmosphere in which breakthroughs in teaching and learning can flourish.”

The NC State College of Education is building the 33,000-square-foot, $10 million privately funded building adjacent to Centennial Campus Middle School on NC State’s Centennial Campus. The institute’s mission is to create innovative teaching and learning solutions that address critical educational needs of learners across North Carolina. The facility is scheduled to open in 2005.

The forum is sponsored by NC State’s William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation and the Bettye MacPhail-Wilcox Administrative Technology Fund. The purpose of the periodic Friday Forums is to bring educators and the general public together to address educational issues that have widespread impact.

- turnage -