{"id":112436,"date":"2015-05-14T20:26:11","date_gmt":"2015-05-15T02:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/flcs-continuing-ed-breathes-last-gasp\/"},"modified":"2015-05-14T20:26:11","modified_gmt":"2015-05-15T02:26:11","slug":"flcs-continuing-ed-breathes-last-gasp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/flcs-continuing-ed-breathes-last-gasp\/","title":{"rendered":"FLC\u2019s Continuing Ed breathes last gasp"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Gigi
Gigi Baty, second from left, director of Fort Lewis College\u2019s Continuing Education Program, joins Bob Over, the founder of its Professional Nonprofit Management Certification Program, and advisory board member Tim Walsworth, executive director of the Business Improvement District, in congratulating Annie Satariano, the first person to receive a certificate from the program. FLC has announced the closing of Continuing Ed effective June 30.<\/span>Steve Lewis\/Durango Herald file photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

After nine years and lots of ups and downs, Fort Lewis College\u2019s Continuing Education program will come to an end June 30.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s seen a decline in enrollment for several years and took a hit in 2008 from the economic downturn that it never recovered from,\u201d said FLC spokesman Mitch Davis. \u201cIt just wasn\u2019t financially sustainable anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

The changing world of technology also impacted the program significantly, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been a worldwide explosion in online education, so people didn\u2019t need to come on campus anymore,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re very appreciative of everything Gigi (Baty, the director) has done. It\u2019s been as successful as it has been and has lasted as long as it has because of Gigi.\u201d<\/p>\n

In December, the Continuing Education program announced it would cease offering personal-enrichment courses and would focus on its professional development and nonprofit management programs. Narrowing the focus didn\u2019t solve the underlying problem, Baty said.<\/p>\n

\u201cContinuing Ed is cash-funded and always has been,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we\u2019re a small community at a small college with a specific mission without the resources to make it work. And I just talked to a colleague at (Metropolitan State University of Denver), and they\u2019re struggling, too, even with the whole metro area to draw from.\u201d<\/p>\n

The nonprofit management and professional development programs are seeking new homes, she said.<\/p>\n

abutler@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

College looks for other organizations to pick up programs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":112437,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5843],"tags":[132,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-112436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-living","tag-fort-lewis-college","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112436"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=112436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}