The Professional Development Institute (PDI

The 2022 Department of Defense (DoD) Voluntary Education Professional Development Institute (PDI) held May 24-26, delivered training to over 200 in-person and 300 virtual attendees from the VolEd workforce assigned at locations from across the globe. The PDI is hosted annually by DoD Voluntary Education and the Defense Activity for Non-Traditional Education Support (DANTES) to equip the Services’ VolEd Education Services Officers (ESO) and Counselors in their support of the Military Services’ efforts to shape, recruit, train, educate, and retain a diverse workforce to execute current and future missions. This year’s PDI was hosted at the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI) Training Facility at Patrick Space Force Base in Cocoa Beach, Florida, from May 24-25, with an optional Service Day on May 26, 2022.

After pandemic-era virtual events, DoD VolEd and DANTES were excited to welcome back attendees with one of our largest PDIs to date! The training was delivered by 29 speakers and consisted of five general sessions and 14 concurrent, breakout-style sessions. In addition, and unique to this year’s PDI, all five general sessions were provided as a hybrid option to accommodate virtual attendance. This allowed a no-cost option for the Services to have counselors and ESOs receive the same quality of training and ask questions live using Zoom for Government.

The 2022 PDI boasted three-panel events: 1. Trends in Higher Learning Update with representatives from DoD VolEd Policy, academic industry, and higher learning institutions. 2. A military community college panel that had presidents, deans, and representatives from all three uniformed colleges (Army University, Community College of the Air Force, and U.S. Navy Community College) and 3. Education Office Management Panel led by current ESOs of top-performing offices representing the four Services. This panel served how to holistically pull together and practically implement what counselors learned during the PDI.