Penn State To Host National Quality Forum, April 30-May 2

3-27-2000
University Park, Pa. — A select group of college and university leaders and their partners from business and industry will meet at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel April 30 to May 2 to identify new ways to more effectively navigate in a world of increasing globalization and technological change.

Penn State, in cooperation with the University of Wisconsin, the University of Maryland, and Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is hosting the Total Quality Forum IX where presidents, chancellors, provosts, deans of business and engineering and CEOs will share ideas and identify innovative strategies for collaboration.

"Teams from academe and business and industry will share best practices and develop opportunities for collaboration as they consider how to more effectively move ideas into the marketplace and from the marketplace into the learning space," said Penn State President Graham B. Spanier.

While past forums have focused on the use of Total Quality Management with a workshop format, this year’s Forum will focus on opportunities for action through dialogue. Following each keynote speech, panels of academic and business leaders will lead informal discussions to generate opportunities for partnership and co-operation..

• Among the main topics and their presenters are:
• "Moving ideas Across Boundaries into the Classroom and Into the Marketplace," presented by Drexel University President Constantine Papadakis,
• Leadership for Transformational Change, presented by North Carolina State University Chancellor Marye Anne Fox
• The Value of Partnerships and Collaboration, presented by Joseph Bordogna, deputy director of the National Science Foundation.

• Corporate/University Partnerships: New Ways of Working and Learning Together, presented by Larry Kittelberger, senior vice president and CIO, Lucent Technologies
• The Future of University/Corporate Partnerships in a World of Increasing Globalization and Technological Change, presented by Hellene Runtagh, Executive Vice President, Universal Studios.

Some of the panel topics will also cover such issues as how to incorporate new technologies into learning, the plusses and minuses of industry-university partnerships and what partnerships can do to help move ideas into the marketplace. Each of these, in turn, will be followed by smaller working groups on specific aspects of these subjects.

Forum supporters from business and industry include Baxter International, Incorporated; Cargill; Corning, Incorporated; Ford Motor Company; General Motors Corporation; Honeywell; Milliken & Company; Motorola, Incorporated; The Procter and Gamble Company; Texas Instruments, Incorporated; 3M; and Zerox corporation.

The national Quality Forum will be followed by Penn State’s annual Quality Expo on Tuesday, May 2, from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m., also at the Penn Stater. The Expo will showcase ways in which more than 50 academic and administrative units of the University improve effectiveness, increase efficiency or improve responsiveness to their clients. Exhibitors will also share information about assessment, strategic planning, benchmarking and inter-unit collaborative efforts.

Last year’s national Total Quality Forum, held at the University of Wisconsin, drew more than 200 participants from 62 universities and 34 companies. The first Forum was sponsored by Xerox in 1989 and drew representatives from 20 colleges and universities. Penn State’s Quality Expo typically draws several hundred participants and visitors.

For more information on both the national Quality Forum and the Penn State Quality Expo, contact Carol Everett, associate director, Center for Quality and Planning, 814-863-8721, , or go to http://www.psu.edu/president/cqi/expo2000/ .