Sondra Kirsch and Alice Warren

As part of Women’s History Month and the 100-year anniversary of NC State Continuing and Lifelong Education, we’re highlighting Sondra Kirsch and Alice Warren who both made lasting impacts on the division.

Sondra Kirsch was known for being an energetic, tenacious, and creative leader. When she first joined NC State in 1977, she did so as a faculty member in what is now known as the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management (PRT). She believed in NC State’s extension mission and recognized the importance of providing continuing education for professionals in the parks and recreation field. 

She played a role in developing maintenance management and revenue management schools, which the continuing education division coordinated for PRT. Various PRT workshops had been held on campus and at other locations in North Carolina since 1956 but moved to Oglebay Park in Wheeling, West Virginia by the early 1970s. The Supervisors’ Management School, which Kirsch designed with input from practitioners, began in 1991 and is still in existence today, now run by the Oglebay Park staff in partnership with PRT. These professional development programs have grown to become the largest continuing education programs for PRT personnel in the United States.

In 1985-1986, Kirsch served as the first female chair of NC State’s Faculty Senate. She was a trailblazer, serving in leadership roles traditionally held by men. Before Kirsch became division leader, she had already worked with Alice Warren, who coordinated the Oglebay Park programs for the division. Warren observed Kirsch at work, building partnerships, navigating conflict, and working successfully in what was then a male-dominated university. 

In 1989, Kirsch was appointed as Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for Extension and Public Service; she was later appointed to this position permanently. While she headed the division, she helped co-found the Encore Program for Lifelong Enrichment, now called the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at NC State. Kirsch had learned about the growing nationwide trend of lifelong learning programs for older adults and took note of the programs at Duke University and UNC-Asheville. She partnered with social psychology professor Chuck Korte, who had also become aware of these programs. They involved other faculty, the association of retired faculty, and other university and community leaders in launching the program at NC State in 1991. 

Kirsch was able to bring her ideas to fruition by making strategic partnerships with others who shared her goals. She also strived to make the division a positive place to work; she instituted an annual staff retreat for employees that still exists today. 

Kirsch retired in August 1999, and by 2008 her mentee, Alice Warren, was leading the division. 

Warren led the division until 2018. As Warren described in a 2016 interview, when she graduated from high school and began her higher education, she would not have anticipated one day heading the continuing education division at NC State. Her original plan was to graduate from Peace College in two years and become a legal secretary. Her parents encouraged her to continue at Campbell and earn a Bachelor’s in Education and get her teaching certificate. 

After graduation, Warren began her career at a law firm but found herself pulled toward education. After working at Wake Tech, she completed her Master’s in Education from NC State. In June 1979, she was hired by William L. Turner, the division’s leader, and she began working in NC State’s continuing education unit. She started as a continuing education specialist and eventually had responsibility for about 50 annual programs, including two still in operation today, the Sport Fishing School and the Tax Schools. 

In her 2016 interview, Warren noted the challenges of being a woman in what was then a male-dominated field. When she started in the division in 1979, she was one of only two professional-level women and had to endure inappropriate conversations and jokes. Her method for combating discriminatory language was to say “Guys, let’s talk about something else,” and she found that a pleasant but direct approach worked to change the conversation. 

Warren had good working relationships with her male colleagues but also networked with women across campus. She considered as mentors both Sondra Kirsch and Mary Frances Hester, who was Turner’s assistant. Over time, the staffing in the continuing education unit became more equitable, and as she became a leader in the division, she believed those early experiences helped her understand how diversity benefits an organization. 

When Denis Jackson, one of her early colleagues and mentors, retired from leading the division in 2007, Warren was named interim head. She earned this role permanently in May 2008 after a national search. Kirsch and Warren both played a role in a provost initiative, the Connecting In North Carolina (CINC) faculty development tour, designed to give new faculty and administrators a better understanding of the state, its employers, and the university’s land-grant mission. Warren was particularly proud of this program, which she believed built collaborative relationships that have benefitted the university as a whole. 

Warren not only worked her way through the ranks of NC State’s continuing education division, but she also did the same with the University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA), the national association for continuing education best practices. She became active regionally and then nationally, and in 2016 she served as the association’s president. Warren’s UPCEA leadership earned her the 2014 Walton S. Bittner Service Citation and the 2018 Julius M. Nolte Award for Extraordinary Leadership. She was also awarded the 2020 William L. Turner Award for Outstanding Contributions to Extension and Continuing Education, an NC State Continuing and Lifelong Education annual award. 

Remember, you are never fully educated… You need to be learning something every day because that’s how you will survive in life and in this world.”
– Alice Warren

Both Kirsch and Warren had lasting impacts in the field of extension and continuing education and were passionate about their work. As Warren stated in a final interview before she retired,  ​​“Remember, you are never fully educated… You need to be learning something every day because that’s how you will survive in life and in this world.”

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