AAC&U officers and staff regularly travel throughout the country, and occasionally the world, to speak and consult at AAC&U member schools through seminars, institutes, and workshops as well as in more informal gatherings. AAC&U staff also regularly speak on the value of liberal education at various media and public affairs events. These meetings are an opportunity for the membership to influence the direction of AAC&U's initiatives. We look forward to seeing you the next time we are on your campus.

AAC&U President Carol Geary Schneider will travel to Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana, on December 7 to speak with faculty and administrators about liberal education at Christ College, the honors college of Valparaiso University.

Alma Clayton-Pedersen, AAC&U’s vice president for education and institutional renewal, facilitated a day-long session of a two-day “Inclusive Excellence Summit Retreat” for California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo).  Senior administrators—including the president, provost, academic deans, and the vice president of student affairs—and faculty and staff leaders attended the event, held November 29-30. Clayton-Pedersen will facilitate a similar session with the student affairs staff at American University in Washington, DC, on January 9.

Terrel Rhodes, AAC&U vice president for quality, curriculum and assessment, participated in an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Higher Education meeting in Seoul, Korea, October 25–29. OECD representatives from 30 member countries, the Educational Testing Service, and the Council for the Advancement of Education met to discuss a pilot project to create an international test of student learning in higher education. Rhodes presented an alternative approach, reflecting course-embedded student work and e-portfolios as embodied in AAC&U’s current projects on the Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (VALUE) and the FIPSE-supported “Rising to the Challenge” project. Rhodes also moderated a panel on “The Promises and Pitfalls of Accountability in Higher Education” on November 14 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, as part of the Blackboard Education Leadership Forum.

Kevin Hovland, AAC&U’s director for global learning and curricular change, facilitated a session titled, "Designing Interdisciplinary Curricula for Global Learning" at the NAFSA: Association of International Educators Region VIII conference, “BELIEVE…Globally,” held in Baltimore, Maryland, November 7-9, 2007. Panelists included Shared Futures project participants Joyce Bylander and Susan Rose of Dickinson College and Gregg Moore and Ellen Skilton-Sylvester of Arcadia University.

Caryn McTighe Musil, AAC&U vice president for diversity, equity, and global initiatives, presented a lecture, “Higher Education Takes on Educating Democratic Global Citizens: How are We Doing?” as part of the Widener University Invited Lecture Series on November 12. Musil reported research findings on student perceptions of civic engagement, and highlighted the efforts of institutions in AAC&U’s Core Commitments project to integrate civic learning into general education. Musil also spoke at the launching conference for the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee for Higher Education and Research on November 21 in Strasbourg, France.  The conference, titled “New Challenges to European Higher Education: Managing the Complexities of a Globalized Society,” was part of an ongoing collaboration examining the role of higher education in promoting democratic citizenship.  Musil’s presentation was called “Promoting Universal Values in the Face of Societal Change.”  For more information on this work, please refer to AAC&U Civic Engagement.