The School of Extended Studies (SES) at Portland State University works with PSU's schools and colleges to develop and deliver continuing education and summer programs to local, regional, and international audiences. Continuing education offerings focus on the education and training needs of professionals, while summer session and degree completion offerings serve a wide range of students oriented mostly to acquiring a degree. Continuing Education Summer Session generate significant enrollments of 58,000 each year. Approximately 16,000 of these are summer session enrollments; the balance are credit offerings associated with off-site masters in education, business and social work as well as continuing professional development for teachers and administrators, and non-credit offerings serving professionals in education, community development, business, and the arts. Working with other academic units, SES strives to be innovative and flexible and responsive to the needs of constituencies. Programs are often designed using advisory boards representative of constituent interests along with faculty from related departments.
This connection with constituencies allows the school to customize programs, many of them delivered off-site for school districts and businesses. Some examples of PSU's urban outreach are:

Intel:
PSU's Professional Development Center worked with Intel Corporation to develop a unique onsite Project Management Program for systems design engineers. PDC's existing Project Management Program was restructured to better fit Intel's needs for an intensive seminar which was tested for an audience of engineers and continues to be modified through enrollment feedback to best suit Intel's needs. The program is currently listed in the Intel University catalog as the preferred seminar in project management for engineers.

Masters Degree in Curriculum and Instruction , in partnership with the Graduate School of Education:
Continuing Education for Education, a joint program with the School of Education and SES, has worked with multiple school districts in Oregon to identify needs and contracts for both instruction and recruitment of students. Two of the programs (Newberg and Woodburn) were outgrowths of a specific district coming to CEED to request an in-house masters program in curriculum and instruction. Before each program begins, programmers meet with faculty liaisons and onsite coordinators to develop a theme best suited for the school district that allows the infusion of a variety of perspectives and disciplines. Self reflection from students and faculty has been incorporated to provide benchmarks throughout the program to ensure the relevance and quality of the coursework.

Oregon Community Development Training Institute, with the College of Urban & Public Affairs:
"Doing Community Development in a Regional Context," a summer community development training program, has been designed to meet specific needs for practitioners. Community development professionals were surveyed and focus groups were conducted to identify the need for the program along with input and advice from an advisory group made up of practitioners. A faculty adviser and graduate assistant from the School of Urban Studies and Planning aid in further shaping the learning objectives, course content, and providing assistance with selection of speakers. The two curricular tracks of the Institute, Affordable Housing Development and Management and Sustainable Community Economic Development, were based on the survey and focus group responses. Alumni of Extended Studies Community Development Institute are assisting with recruitment activities for the institute.

Managing VA Health Care in 2000 and Beyond, with the School of Business:
The program, delivered as part of the Executive and Corporate Programs for the School of Business, is designed in cooperation with the executive leadership of the VA Hospital, and is for them as well. It involved extensive needs assessment and curriculum design with the VA leadership group, and combined presenters they identified with faculty from the School of Business and The College of Urban and Public Affairs. Subject areas identified are organizational effectiveness and best practices of management as it relates to the health care industry. 120 hours of instruction per participant for Spring, Summer and Fall terms will be provided.

ADEC Staff-Wide Training, with the School of Business:
ADEC, is a national company that manufactures dental chairs. They had purchased a very sophisticated system to track inventory internally, parts flow/orders, and shipping, called the Enterprise Resource System. At the time they purchased this system, no one on staff was trained to use it. We contracted with ADEC and used faculty from PSU's School of Business to provide training for every employee at the plant, starting first with 100 managers, and them the general staff, between 500 and 600 workers. The training contract was fulfilled over one year, and was recently completed.