Edgewood College launches Corporate Learning Center
Addresses business need for on-the-job management training

Madison, Wis. - To help businesses address the shortage of well-trained managers, Edgewood College today announced the launch of its Corporate Learning Center, with funding from the Oscar Rennebohm Foundation. Through the Corporate Learning Center, small and midsized organizations can now gain direct access to Edgewood College faculty, who will apply their academic expertise and business experience to the specific needs of each company.

Edgewood College’s incoming president, Dr. Daniel J. Carey, said, “The business community today faces an ongoing challenge: a shortage of well-trained managers. With the Corporate Learning Center, Edgewood College is reaching out to partner with businesses, to help them meet this challenge.”

“We have the educational resources to do it,” Carey said. “Edgewood College’s faculty is recognized for bringing together strong academic expertise and broad professional experience. The Corporate Learning Center draws on these rich resources to forge innovative partnerships with the business community. This initiative is a natural outgrowth of Edgewood College’s mission, which includes the core values of partnership and community. This certainly includes the business community.”

Educating managers is key to companies’ success

“I believe a commitment to lifelong learning and professional development is essential to the success of any organization today,” Carey said. “With the Corporate Learning Center, we are focusing primarily on the unmet needs of small to midsized companies in our local community and the region, and on the personal development of high-quality managers and leaders. As a liberal arts college, we know that well-rounded and educated leaders and managers are the foundation of a company’s success.”

Patrick Coyle, the owner of Coyle Carpet One (Madison) and a Rennebohm Foundation board member, said, “The Rennebohm Foundation recognizes that this is an innovative program that absolutely pinpoints a need in this market. Middle management is a challenge in this region, and this program provides on-the-job training to teach managers. The Corporate Learning Center learns about your individual business and comes up with learning programs specific to you. No one else that I’m aware of in the area is doing this, and it’s on target with a real business need.”

Curt Hastings, the chairman of J.H. Findorff & Son (Madison) and a Rennebohm Foundation board member, said, “This is a great way for Edgewood College to get its people out there to help the business community. The Corporate Learning Center will be a community asset, especially for small and midsize businesses. As our founder J.H. Findorff said, ‘Companies don’t build. People build.’ People are the foundation of every company. Everyone needs management skills, in addition to their technical skills.”

Businesses gain direct access to experienced faculty

Elaine Beaubien, professor of business at Edgewood College and principal of Management Training Seminars (Waterloo, Wis.), said, “I’m excited about the Corporate Learning Center because now we can give small to midsize companies access to the knowledge and experience of faculty that larger corporations hire for thousands of dollars a day.”

Beaubien, who has been a corporate trainer for 30 years, helping clients like Harley-Davidson, Oscar Mayer, Rayovac, St. Marys Hospital Medical Center, Quad/Graphics, CUNA, and others, said, “The Edgewood College faculty bring companies a fabulous blend of academic rigor and practical application, of strong academic credentials and broad professional experience. And unlike public lectures, the Corporate Learning Center is customer-driven, so services are tailored to the needs of specific customers. This is the kind of management training companies really need: the practical application of fundamental principles and current thinking to a company’s specific challenges.”

Daniel A. Schroeder, professor of psychology at Edgewood College and president of Organization Development Consultants (Waunakee, Wis.), said, “The foundation of our approach with the Corporate Learning Center is to sit down with customers to directly assess their needs. This allows us to provide customized learning programs, so people make fuller use of their individual capabilities and companies become stronger players in their specific markets.”

“Through the Corporate Learning Center, we can harness the college’s resources more systematically than before, to become an even stronger community resource,” Schroeder said. “Edgewood College’s faculty are both content experts and experienced practitioners. This is not an ivory-tower approach. Faculty are now available to businesses as a resource, as executive performance coaches, as trusted advisors to executives and managers. This creates an open, reciprocal relationship, an exchange between colleagues, and an ongoing partnership.”

Learning programs are customized for each business

The Corporate Learning Center’s services are designed for flexibility and customization. For example:

• Assessment of the individual, team, organization, program, or company needs, through observation, interviews, focus groups, and surveys.

• Implementation of learning programs such as:

  • Coaching with one-on-one discussion, practice, and assignments.

  • Seminars with small groups.

  • Customized training, using performance-based instruction, focused on actual projects.

• Consultation on issues such as communication processes, group and team dynamics, planning and strategizing, problem solving and decision making, leading and influencing change, work settings and work methods.

• Program evaluation, including internal and external measurements of the program’s effects.

• Conferences at Edgewood College, where participants meet and share with others who are interested in a particular topic.

Start up supported by Rennebohm Foundation

Edgewood College is now in the process of hiring a director for the Corporate Learning Center. Recognizing the Rennebohm Foundation’s $250,000 gift to help fund start-up costs, Edgewood College’s outgoing president, Dr. James A. Ebben, said, “We are very grateful to the Rennebohm Foundation for their continuing support of Edgewood College’s educational mission. To mention just one example, it’s thanks to them that the Rennebohm Library brings a wealth of learning resources to students. Now thanks to this latest gift, our Corporate Learning Center will offer a wealth of teaching and learning resources to businesses throughout the region.”

For more information about the Edgewood College Corporate Learning Center, please contact John Uselman, Vice President for Institutional Advancement, at 608-663-2245.

About Edgewood College

Edgewood College, located on the shores of Lake Wingra in Madison, Wis., is a Catholic, independent liberal arts college with approximately 2,400 undergraduate and graduate students, pursuing more than 40 academic and professional programs. Edgewood offers masters degrees in business, education, nursing, and other fields, and a doctoral program in education leadership.

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