By Pamela R. Rorie, Continuing Educator Officer
Real estate instructors, school officials and publisher representatives braved cold and icy conditions to attend the Commission’s 2016 Real Estate Educators Conference in Cary on February 15-16 at the Embassy Suites. Despite the inclement weather, the annual event drew an enthusiastic crowd of approximately 180 participants.
Commission Chair Cindy Chandler welcomed the group and introduced other Commission members attending the day-and-a-half conference. Commission Executive Director Miriam Baer initiated the morning session with a State of the Commission presentation, which highlighted “front burner” issues and described recent accomplishments and future projects.
Bruce Moyer, Director of Education and Licensing, and Janet Thoren, Director of Regulatory Affairs and Legal Counsel, jointly presented The Road Ahead, which informed educators of actions to be taken as a result of findings by the Instructor Task Force, and plans to substantially change the format of the North Carolina Real Estate Manual, and restructure Commission rules governing education programs.
Corean Hamlin, Education and Licensing Officer, explained the importance of specific and student-focused learning objectives in Are We There Yet? GPS for Your Classroom. Deborah Carpenter, Education and Examination Officer, recognized with Certificates of Achievement prelicensing schools and instructors whose students had exhibited outstanding performance on the license examination for the past year.
The North Carolina Real Estate Educators Association (NCREEA) held its spring meeting during the first-day luncheon and NCREEA President Arvil Price presented the Association’s “Program of the Year” award to Deborah Long for her continuing education elective course, You’ve Been Served: Real Estate Lawsuits That Changed the Business.
Chandler and Price jointly presented the Commission’s newly established Larry A. Outlaw Excellence in Education Award and the Association’s Educator of the Year award to educator and attorney Mel Black. The Outlaw award was established in memory of the late Commission Director of Education and Licensing who retired in 2014 after 35 years of service. Commission Vice Chair George Bell and former Chair Everett “Vic” Knight were also in attendance for the presentation.
Moyer began the afternoon session with comments relating to state-specific exam topics and other issues associated with the licensing exam and Hamlin explained the process of reviewing requests to waive the examination requirement. The first day concluded with a presentation by Moyer about the Instructor Performance Improvement Plans and a Continuing Education Update from Continuing Education Officer Pamela Rorie, who recounted the growth and improvements in the continuing education program over the past 22 years and announced the topics for the General and Broker-in-Charge Update (GENUP and BICUP) courses for the 2016-2017 license year.
Dr. Lawrence J. Fabrey, Senior Vice President of Psychometrics with Applied Measurement Professionals, Inc., opened the conference’s second day with an overview of the company’s history and a discussion of revisions to the licensing exam.
The conference concluded with a Case Studies & Open Forum conducted by members of the Commission Regulatory Affairs Division: Director Thoren, Assistant Director Charlene Moody, Deputy Legal Counsel Fred Moreno, Associate Legal Counsel II Eric Mine, and Associate Legal Counsel I Robert Patchett, who presented various application and disciplinary case scenarios and answered questions from the audience.
The Commission thanks North Carolina’s real estate educators for their continued interest and support, and congratulates Deborah Long and Mel Black for their achievements.
This article came from the May 2016-Vol47-1 edition of the bulletin.