As part of its $100 million global Unlocking Opportunity Initiative, Yum! Brands is providing more than $800,000 in funding to launch the “Accelerating Growth” programs, which is in addition to the $3.5 million commitment the company made to launch the Yum! Center for Global Franchise Excellence in 2021. The goal of Yum! Brands’ Unlocking Opportunity Initiative is to create opportunities for education and entrepreneurship for employees, frontline restaurant teams and communities around the world.

The two new “Accelerating Growth” education tracks will launch in the summer and fall 2024 semester and will focus on training attendees to upskill their franchising education.

“Yum! Brands is passionate about the franchise business model, and capable franchise leaders are the lifeblood of every successful franchise system. As the franchisor of choice for the industry, we are thrilled to partner with the University of Louisville and address a need of the industry – training a new generation of leaders to take on senior management roles in franchise businesses,” said Wanda Williams, head, Global Franchising, Yum! Brands. “Since its launch in 2021 as part of our Unlocking Opportunity Initiative, the Yum! Center for Global Franchise Excellence has helped prepare hundreds of students for successful careers and business ownership opportunities by building knowledge about the franchising industry.”

Two new education tracks will be offered as part of the “Accelerating Growth” program, which will develop the skills necessary to run and grow a large franchise business: a six-month Level 1 program designed to train general managers and area coaches for a vice president role, and an advanced one-year program customized to prepare vice presidents for a role as president of a franchise organization. Both programs include online and experiential education, and the advanced program also includes a final simulation and development of a business plan.

“The ‘Accelerating Growth’ program is an exceptional addition to the multilevel franchise education offered by our center at the University of Louisville and is yet another way we can create opportunities for professionals across the franchising industry. We are incredibly grateful for Yum!’s continued support for the center and this opportunity to expand the center’s programs,” said Kathleen Gosser, director of the Yum! Center for Global Franchise Excellence and assistant professor in the .

Since the launch of the Yum! Center for Global Franchise Excellence at UofL, total enrollment has exceeded 900 students – 418 undergrad, 50 graduate-level and 500 executive education enrollees.

In addition, the center launched the annual Yum! Franchise Accelerator Fellowship in 2022, a collaborative effort between UofL, Howard University and Yum! Brands, which offers a unique opportunity for four MBA students from the two universities. Participants in the annual program are granted $10,000 scholarships and receive personalized training and mentorship from industry experts during an immersive educational journey centered around the franchise business model. Each accelerator program culminates in a pitch competition featuring a $10,000 cash prize, while establishing winners as top candidates for promising franchising careers. The Yum! Franchise Accelerator Fellowship is open to all eligible students regardless of race, color, national origin, sex, disability or age.

UofL Brandeis School of Law’s Jamie R. Abrams and UofL School of Dentistry’s Valerie Harris and Marija Sasek, worked together to design a law-dentistry medical malpractice expert witness deposition simulation for law and dental students.

Abrams says work to develop the project began several years ago, and the team launched the simulation while she was a visiting professor at the University of Baltimore in Fall 2020.

“COVID-19 helped pull the trigger. We wanted to seize the moment in which remote teaching was standardized��and��give students a novel experience in that isolated moment when building professional community was more important than ever,” Abrams said.

University of Baltimore law students and University of Louisville dental students spent one month in their respective courses preparing for the simulation. Law students studied negligence, products liability and lawyering skills to prepare to take and defend the depositions of medical experts – the dental students. Dental students studied dentistry standards of care, patient care ethics and practice management to prepare to testify as dueling expert witnesses for the plaintiff or the defendant in the civil lawsuit.

In October 2020, the groups convened via Zoom for a live deposition simulation that included participants from multiple cities, universities and departments.

The final program divided students into a dozen deposition groups, each containing upper-level mentors, faculty observers and UofL School of Law alumni facilitators for a total of more than 200 participants. The students spent two hours conducting each step of the deposition. The expert witnesses for both sides presented their affirmative testimony and then were subject to cross examination by the opposing side. Students received support from their mentors, along with feedback from the alumni observers.

Harris says it was truly a unique opportunity for the 120 UofL dental students to understand what it is like to be part of a deposition – to know how to present themselves and what questions they could be asked.

“It was a pleasure to work across disciplines and consider how we approached learning for both law and dental students,” Harris said. “It was a robust learning experience for me.”

“It brought the two professions to life individually and at their intersections. By role playing as professionals instead of students, it also built a stronger professional identity, pride and camaraderie in the respective disciplines,” Abrams said.

The simulation was based on Abrams’ book published by West Academic, .

The large-scale collaboration now serves as a template for future interdisciplinary teamwork bridging subject matter content and skills. A second virtual dental-law simulation to include all first-year UofL law students and fourth year UofL dental students – about 250 people – is scheduled for this October. This will be the first time UofL law students have taken part in the exercise.

UofL won the Blackboard award alongside other prestigious organizations including Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins University.

The vice provost with a can-do attitude has worked in many forms of UofL academic affairs and services throughout the 35-year tenure that ended with her June 30 retirement. In recent years, Rhodes had the additional title of executive director of the Delphi Center for Teaching and Learning.

“People knew if you gave me something, it got done – and I enjoy that reputation,” Rhodes said.

“She has grown a small Delphi Center program into a juggernaut that offers expertise including instructional design, pedagogy/college teaching, higher education administration, IT, disability services, program and administrative support, conference and events services and sales, enrollment counseling, marketing and finance,” Provost Lori Stewart Gonzalez said. “The most recent addition to the Delphi Center is Military and Online Initiatives, an area that was created to lead institutional efforts to support on-campus and online military-connected students.”

Rhodes is quick to credit her staff members, who number close to 60 and who share her viewpoint that “at the end of the day, we need to do excellent work,” she said. She is proud of what they’ve accomplished together.

“The beauty of my unit is we are a service unit, and my staff thoroughly understands that,” she said.

When Rhodes arrived at UofL, she established and coordinated the freshman orientation course and soon served as director of academic services, earning her UofL doctorate along the way in counseling and college student personnel in 1994. She also had responsibility for ���Ǵڳ�’s Quality Enhancement Plan meant to enhance critical thinking skills to address real-world problems.

Over the years Rhodes assumed more and more responsibilities and assignments in the evolving areas of professional, distance and continuing education and, ultimately, the burgeoning field of online education.

And, although the processes were well in place beforehand, at no time was the importance of online education more important or visible than when UofL needed to shift to remote learning mid-spring semester 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I knew our staff and I knew we were structured in such a way we could turn on a dime,” Rhodes said. Her message to her team was simple: “We’ve got to bring our faculty online for our students.”

“This is our opportunity,” Rhodes recalled saying to a team leader. “This training has to be outstanding.”

Rhodes said the unit also assessed along the way to ensure it was meeting faculty needs and ultimately the learning outcomes for students.

“I think we rose to the occasion,” she said. “People saw the value of what we have to offer them.”

The Delphi Center also has concentrated on working with faculty within their colleges or academic departments for better coordination of ways to deliver their subjects as peers. “You make a difference with people one at a time,” she said.

Most gratifying for her has been the reaction of some professors who’ve relied on the Delphi Center expertise in refining their approach to reaching their students, not only during the pandemic shift.

“The number of people who’ve said they’ve changed the way they teach….,” Rhodes said. “Working with my staff has made them better teachers. That’s been wonderful.”

She praised the “faculty who are willing to grow and learn,” adding that most people are most comfortable with teaching the way they were taught.

“I am grateful to those who are open to learning new ways to deliver education,” she said.

Delivering online education now can even mean offering entire graduate programs that way. Rhodes credits deans and other administrators who show leadership and understanding of what it takes to market to adult students who might have some college credits but lack a full degree or who need more education through an advanced degree. Those adults often are juggling families, full-time jobs and locations outside Louisville with their need for coursework – and for them, online is the way to a brighter future and more opportunity.

Rhodes cited the online master of business administration degree and the university’s new, first fully online doctorate in social work as examples of ways UofL is trying to reach different populations and bring them to the university through online curriculum in a stiffly competitive market.

Rhodes leaves the university proud of what she has accomplished with her staff and hopeful about the future.

“I think the university is really poised to move forward, and for me that’s really exciting,” she said.

“Students pursuing the DSW through the online platform can satisfy all degree requirements in three years without disrupting their careers,” said David Jenkins, dean of the UofL Kent School of Social Work. “This program transforms experienced professionals into scholars, teachers and organizational leaders positively impacting vulnerable and marginalized populations.”

���Ǵڳ�’s has grown to more than 50, including bachelor’s, master’s and certificates, with nearly 70 total programs expected by Spring 2022. ���Ǵڳ�’s online learning experienced more than 40% growth from 2019 to 2020, enrolling 1,534 students in Fall 2019 and increasing to 2,156 students in Fall 2020. ��

“Our online programs deliver the same renowned education and degree as students would receive in-person, developed and taught by UofL faculty,” said Gale Rhodes, vice provost and executive director of the Delphi Center for Teaching and Learning. “Online students walk away with the same pride in their degree, ready to take the next step in their life and pursue career progressions.”

UofL entered the emerging field of fully-online education 20 years ago with the launch of three master’s degrees in 2001. Since then, online education at the university has made a significant impact on the communities of Louisville and beyond.

Online programs allow UofL to reach beyond Kentucky, with 36% of students living outside the Commonwealth, excluding the reciprocity Indiana counties. Military-connected students make up 20% of online learners, making higher education attainable even while students are deployed overseas. Military-connected designation encompasses Active-Duty, Coast Guard, Reserve, National Guard, veteran or dependent.

“As we move into 2021, the non-traditional student population remains a high priority for the university. Our focus is to reach these students and provide them the opportunity to receive high-quality, market-driven online education that aligns with employer demands,” Rhodes said.

In academic year 2020-2021, UofL launched 13 new programs in market-demand areas including analytics, business administration and health administration. ���Ǵڳ�’s MBA program became available as a completely-online option in 2019.��

Online education is appealing to non-traditional learners and working professionals, as it allows them to balance work, life and education without having to deprioritize the things that matter most.

“I needed flexibility, there’s no way I could earn an education in-person. I needed a program where I could also go pick up my son from daycare or go to work,” said Sasha Hill, UofL online engineering management student.

The is awaiting final approval by the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary ����ֱ��, and will begin accepting applications in July. Learn more about online social work programs through this .

She also happens to be Mrs. Kentucky 2017 and will compete in the Mrs. America Pageant in Las Vegas in August.��

UofL News had a chance to talk to Thompson about how she manages her busy schedule and how her involvement in pageants allows her to��provide guidance and resources to middle and high school students to help them understand the importance of taking education seriously at an early age.

UofL News: What brought you to UofL?��

Tyiana Thompson: I wanted to work here because I wanted to work for an intellectually prominent university that is dedicated to delivering quality educational opportunities to its students. ����

UofL News: What is your favorite thing about UofL? About your job, specifically?

Tyiana Thompson:��My favorite thing about UofL is how it continues to be a pillar within the Louisville community and the state of Kentucky. No matter what we are faced with, UofL stays committed to the true meaning of education and all that it entails.

My favorite thing about my job is having the ability to facilitate positive change within people and the institution. Every day I support individuals reach their goals to improve themselves and their family. I help people reach goals they thought they never could. Additionally, I strategically create and implement processes to make that journey easier for the student. ��

UofL News: How has your job/higher education in genaral changed since you came on board?

Tyiana Thompson:��I have been in post-secondary education for 11 years. I started out in the private for-profit sector which is vastly different from public education from a business approach standpoint, but similar in objectives ��– delivering educational opportunities to those who pursue it. My job has changed quite a bit since I came on board and that is because education in general has changed. Institutions are paying more attention to enrollment trends and recognizing that we cannot delay our response to the market. Honestly, the stymied mentality of public institutions has really put many universities in a tough spot. Now, we see the rise of public institutions investing more in non-traditional ways of delivering education.

I work in online learning, and that is something that many universities view as less desirable in terms of growth investments. Data shows that online deliverables have very little negative impact on traditional programs. In fact, investing in online strategically enhances the university and the bottom line. Accessibility is something that is really important, there is a large market for individuals who want to pursue starting and/or furthering their education but can’t come to class 3 to 4 days a week. That is a major trend in education right now, giving the student what they want, how they want it.��

UofL News: How long have you been involved in pageants? What made you get involved?��

Tyiana Thompson:��The Mrs. Kentucky pageant was the first pageant I have ever done. So, the Mrs. America pageant will only be the second pageant I have ever done. I’m nervous to say the least.��

Every year I look for ways to develop myself and get more involved in community initiatives. Last year as I was researching different avenues, I came across the Mrs. Kentucky pageant. What drew me to participating was the fact that it is a married woman pageant that highlights women who have families, successful careers and are involved within their community. That is the talent portion of this pageant!

It also had awards in areas such as community involvement and career accomplishments. I actually won 5 of the 10 sub category awards, career achievement, best interview, contestant choice, photogenic and most ticket sales. I’m most proud of winning career achievement because my career is very important to me. It was nice to be recognized. ��

UofL News: What are some of your fondest memories of being named Mrs. Kentucky?

Tyiana Thompson:��One of my fondest memories was when all of the women were on stage in their beautiful gowns right before they announced the winner. You could see the sense of accomplishment on everyone’s faces and the family support in the audience cheering us on; it was a surreal moment. For me, it was topped off with winning the contestants’ choice award. That award meant that I made a positive impact on the amazing women I grew to know throughout that crazy, amazing experience.

UofL News: What do you want to accomplish next?

I want to win Mrs. America! I would love to have a national platform to provide guidance and resources to middle and high school students to help them understand the importance of taking education seriously at an early age – specifically, minority and disenfranchised populations.

UofL News: What do you do in your free time?��

Tyiana Thompson:��I don’t have a lot of free time right now. My involvement within the community has quadrupled. I spend most evenings and weekends attending charity events or speaking with youth groups. My husband and I squeeze in some travel when we can.

Photo credit: Andrew Kung