More than 1,000 educational leaders convened at AAC&U's 88th annual meeting in late January to address the academy's obligations in the wake of September 11th and to highlight ways in which colleges and universities are reinventing and renewing their commitments to liberal education as the best preparation for 21st-century challenges. Held in Washington, D.C., "Changing Students in a Changing World-Culturally Diverse, Economically Divided, Globally Interdependent" featured Benjamin Barber and James A. Joseph, both of whom received standing ovations for their presentations. In his featured address, Dr. Joseph called on higher education "to cultivate a commitment to public values as a means of constructing webs of connections in the face of a fractured world community." Dr. Joseph is the director of the United States-South Africa Center for Leadership and Public Values at Duke University and the University of Capetown. In his closing plenary, Dr. Barber, The Gershon and Carol Kekst Professor of Civil Society at the University of Maryland, College Park, explored the kind of education needed in a global polity that "has transferred sovereignty from elected, accountable, public leaders to private, self-chosen, business leaders accountable to few."

For the dates of future annual meetings,
visit http://www.aacu.org/meetings/annualfuture.cfm.

To see information about the 2002 meeting, visit
http://www.aacu.org/meetings/annual.cfm.

Alan Wolfe and Beverly Daniel Tatum were speakers at AAC&U's pre-conference symposium "Liberal Learning and the Challenge of Uncommon Values." Dr. Wolfe is Director of the Boise Center for Religious and American Public Life, Boston College, and author of Moral Freedom: The Search for Virtue in a World of Choice. Dr. Tatum is interim president of Mt. Holyoke College and author of Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? The upcoming issue of Peer Review will highlight this topic and feature presentations from the symposium.

Through the "Presidents' Campaign for the Advancement of Liberal Learning," (CALL) college presidents throughout the country are pledging to educate the public about the value of liberal education. Presidents from more than 250 institutions including Bucknell University, Miami-Dade Community College, Syracuse University, Mt. Holyoke College, University of Richmond, and Washington & Lee University, have already signed the "Presidents' CALL" which was presented and discussed at AAC&U's board of directors at the Presidents' Forum during the annual meeting in late January. The CALL is a campaign to unite college and university presidents throughout the country to educate those within and those outside of higher education about the value of a liberal education for all college students in the twenty-first century, whatever their chosen field or vocation. This campaign is designed to further AAC&U's efforts to make excellence in liberal education an equal opportunity commitment for every student and a democratic society. AAC&U will still accept CALL signatures through the end of February, in anticipation of the formal launch of the CALL in early March.

Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past received the 2002 Frederic W. Ness Book Award at AAC&U's annual meeting in January. The book, by University of Washington scholar Sam Wineburg, was chosen for the award by a panel of education leaders as the book that best illuminates the goals and practices of a contemporary liberal education.

For more information, see http://www.aacu.org/communications/wineburg.cfm.

General Education and the Assessment of Student Learning: A Working Conference on Issues, Models, and Faculty Leadership will be held February 21-23, 2002. There is still time to register for this meeting, the first of AAC&U's 2002 Spring Network for Academic Renewal meetings. Designed to advance practical approaches to achieving learning-centered general education in a range of institutional contexts, this meeting will convene in Dallas, Texas.

Learning Communities: Promising Practices for Deepening Learning and Community Engagement will take place in Atlanta, Georgia from April 4-6. Deadline for early registration fees is March 4th.

Spirituality and Learning: Redefining Meaning, Value, and Inclusion in Higher Education will take place in San Francisco from April 18-20. Deadline for early registration fees is March 18th.

For complete program information, secure online registration, and information about accommodations for all Network Meetings,
visit http://www.aacu.org/meetings/nar.cfm.

SENCER (Science Education for New Civic Engagements & Responsibilities)
Applications for the 2002 Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities (SENCER) Summer Institute are due February 15, 2002. The Institute, to be held at Santa Clara University in California from August 2-6, 2002, will engage participating teams in a series of on-going collaborations designed to bolster and sustain undergraduate science education reform. SENCER is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Asheville Institute on General Education
Designed to provide institutional teams a time and a place for sustained collaborative work on general education, the Twelfth Annual Asheville Institute on General Education is scheduled to take place on the University of North Carolina-Asheville campus from June 1-5. The deadline for applications is March 15. Applicants will be notified of their acceptance by March 31.

Additional information and PDF version of the application are available at http://www.aacu.org/meetings/asheville.cfm.

Campus Leadership for Sustainable Innovation
The 2002 Institute on Campus Leadership for Sustainable Innovation, part of the Greater Expectations Initiative seeking to improve student learning, will be held from July 23-28, 2002, in Leesburg, Virginia. The Institute enables leadership teams to work intensively on extending existing innovations in liberal education to support greater student achievement. Applications are due March 15.

For an in-depth description of the Institute and to download an application cover sheet, visit http://www.aacu.org/meetings/sustainableinnovations.cfm.

Heather Deneen Wathington was recently named as Director of Programs for AAC&U's Office of Diversity, Equity, and Global Initiatives. Before coming to AAC&U, Ms. Wathington served as research associate at the University of Michigan on a grant project entitled, "Preparing College Students for a Diverse Democracy," working to determine cognitive, social, and democratic outcomes for students at ten large public institutions. She also served as the Graduate Research Assistant to the Kellogg Forum on Higher Education for the Public Good designed to strengthen the civic capacity of higher education institutions.

The first of four Greater Expectations Working Groups on Liberal Arts Education Practice met recently to investigate the area of inquiry-based learning. Bob Shoenberg, senior fellow at AAC&U, leads the group. It includes John Harris, Associate Provost for Quality Assessment, Samford University; Sharon Hamilton, Chancellor's Professor of English, Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis; Madelaine Marquez, Director, Center for Innovative Education, Hampshire College; David Ruff, Director of School Reform, Southern Maine Partnership at the University of Southern Maine; Nancy Shapiro, Director, K-16 Partnership for Assessment, Teaching, and Learning, University System of Maryland; and Barbara Leigh Smith, Co-Director, National Learning Communities Project, The Evergreen State College.

The group discussed writing experiences in the schools and the kinds of assignments that prepare students for college-level liberal learning; writing projects in first-year college courses intended to develop students' abilities for more advanced college-level inquiry and analysis; expectations for advanced college performance in a range of fields that place emphasis on written analysis and argument; ways of incorporating increasingly sophisticated inquiry-based projects at different levels as a basis for assessment and accountability; and uses of education technologies in fostering writing-based inquiry capacities.

The Forum on 21st-Century Liberal Arts Education Practice is directed by Barbara Hill, senior fellow at AAC&U. The three other Working Groups will focus on civic and social responsibility; global preparedness; and integration of learning.

The Greater Expections national panel shared a draft of its report and solicited feedback at the recent AAC&U annual meeting.

For further information about the entire Greater Expectations initiative, see http://www.aacu.org/gex/index.cfm.

Results of the AAC&U Membership Survey are now available on AAC&U's Web site. The summary reports on members' perceptions of AAC&U's curricular initiatives and opinions of the association's quarterlies. This survey was sent to a representative sampling of AAC&U campus representatives and was conducted during the spring of 2001.

To download a PDF of the survey results,
visit http://www.aacu.org/membership/membersurvey.cfm.

Research on assessing the impact of diversity on student learning and development, religious pluralism at home and abroad, and technologies to enhance diversity work are some of the topics planned for Diversity & Learning: Education for a World Lived in Common. A call for proposals for this fourth biennial conference will be posted online February 22. The meeting is scheduled to take place October 24-27, 2002, in St. Louis, Missouri. For a description of the conference, visit http://www.aacu.org/meetings/diversityandlearning/index.cfm.

Assessing Campus Diversity Initiatives: A Guide for Campus Practitioners provides tips and tools for designing and developing effective diversity evaluations. Edited by Mildred Garcia, Cynthia Hudgins, Caryn McTighe Musil, Michael T. Nettles, William E. Sedlacek, and Daryl Smith.

Gender, Science, and the Undergraduate Curriculum: Building Two-Way Streets
emerges from the work of ten institutions involved in AAC&U's curriculum and faculty development project, Women and Scientific Literacy: Building Two-Way Streets. Edited by Caryn McTighe Musil.

For ordering information, see
www.aacu.org/publications/

General Education and the Assessment of Student Learning, February 21-23, 2002

Learning Communities: Promising Practices for Deepening Learning and Community Engagement, April 4 - 6, 2002

Spirituality and Learning: Redefining Meaning, Value, and Inclusion in Higher Education, April 18 - 20, 2002

To register, see http://www.aacu.org/meetings/nar.cfm