| Meetings and Institutes
Annual Meeting to Include Special Focus on Supporting Liberal Education in a Tough Economy
AAC&U’s Annual Meeting, January 20-23, 2010, in Washington, D.C., will include a number of featured and concurrent sessions on the challenges facing institutions of higher education in a slow economy. Sessions include Can We Deliver Quality at a Lower Cost?, Leadership in Uncertain Times: What We Want and Need From Campus Leaders; and Low-Cost Strategies for Promoting Undergraduate Research at Research Universities. Special offerings from AAC&U’s Office of Advancement and Leadership Development include Taking the Lead: The Role of Private Foundations in Supporting Liberal Education; and Federal Funding for the Campus and the Curriculum: Current Perspectives from the Grant-Making Agencies. Click here for more information about these sessions. For complete details about the Annual Meeting, visit its Web page. Early registration discounts are available through November 24, 2009, both online and by mail.
Register for General Education and Assessment Meeting at Discounted Rates
General Education and Assessment: Maintaining Momentum, Achieving New Priorities, a Network for Academic Renewal conference scheduled for February 18-20 in Seattle, Washington, invites fresh thinking and new approaches to help faculty, staff, and administrators maintain momentum in general education and assessment during tough times, and reaffirms a commitment to engaged liberal education as the guiding principle for campus action. The conference will draw on AAC&U’s long-standing projects and publications on general education reform including work to bring diversity, global, and civic learning into general education and models for advancing scientific and quantitative literacy through real-world curricula and problem-based pedagogies. Online registration is now available; take advantage of discounted rates through January 25, 2010.
Nominations, Applications Invited for 2010 Wye Faculty and Deans' Seminars
AAC&U and the Aspen Institute invite nominations and applications for two Wye Seminars on "Citizenship in the American and Global Polity" to be held in summer 2010. The Wye Chief Academic Officers' Seminar, to be held June 13-17, is offered to college and university chief academic officers and will focus on what our students need to know, and what we need to teach, in a diverse, challenging, global world. The Wye Faculty Seminar, to be held July 17-23, 2010, will assist professors of every discipline and from a wide range of colleges and universities in relating their teaching to broad issues of citizenship and civil society. Both seminars address a central need of faculty members today: to exchange ideas with colleagues from other disciplines and other institutions committed to liberal education while probing ideas and values that underlie their teaching. The Wye Seminars combine vigorous intellectual exchange with time to read, reflect, exercise, and socialize on the beautiful Aspen Wye River campus in Queenstown, Maryland. More information and application materials are available from the Aspen Institute online or by calling 410-820-5374.
LEAP News
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AAC&U Launches LEAP Utah |
AAC&U announced on October 30, 2009, that Utah has become the fifth official state partner in its Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) initiative. Public and private colleges and universities in Utah have already been working on improving learning outcomes for all undergraduate students and developing new approaches to teaching, learning, and assessment using resources and guidance from the LEAP initiative. This new statewide effort will bring institutions together throughout Utah to accelerate existing campus-based projects designed to clarify, improve, and assess student learning outcomes essential for success in the twenty-first century. The effort will build on existing Utah efforts including the statewide “What is an Educated Person?” conference held each fall, the annual faculty discipline majors’ meetings, and the Tuning Process sponsored and supported by the Lumina Foundation for Education, through which institutions in the Utah System of Higher Education are clarifying credential requirements at different levels of learning in two fields—history and physics. The first event of LEAP Utah will be a public forum in April in Salt Lake City cosponsored with the Utah System of Higher Education and the Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce. For more information, see the press release and LEAP Utah.
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LEAP Campus Action Network Innovations Highlighted at Integrative Learning Meeting |
Five members of the LEAP Campus Action Network presented featured sessions at the recent Network for Academic Renewal meeting on Integrative Learning in Atlanta. At each AAC&U Network meeting, LEAP sessions spotlight the innovative work of LEAP CAN members. In Atlanta, sessions covered such issues as clarifying what we mean by integrative and applied learning, assessing integrative learning using rubrics, and providing “real-world” experiences for students within traditional classrooms. Institutions highlighted in Atlanta included Drake University, Southern Oregon University, Alverno College, Bowling Green State University, and San Francisco State University. CAN is a network of colleges, universities, and organizations that pledge to proactively foster liberal education for all students. Individuals from CAN partner institutions enjoy many benefits, including receiving free LEAP publications, attending free workshops and forums, and showcasing their promising practices at AAC&U meetings and conferences. Learn more about joining LEAP CAN.
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LEAP Forum in Georgia Focuses on College Learning for Our Shared Future |
More than one hundred people participated in a LEAP forum on College Learning for Our Shared Future in Atlanta, Georgia on October 22. At the interactive forum, participants discussed the learning Georgia’s students will need to meet twenty-first century challenges—economic, civic, global, personal. Speakers included LEAP National Leadership Council members Deborah Traskell, executive vice president of the State Farm Insurance Company, and George D. Kuh, Chancellor’s Professor and director of the Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research. A panel also featured State Senator Seth Harp, Provost Johnnella Butler of Spelman College, Associate Superintendent Sue Snow of the Standards-Based Learning Division at the Georgia Department of Education, and Deputy Commissioner Freida Hill of the Technical College System of Georgia. The forum included a series of discussion sessions and display of posters highlighting ways that Georgia institutions are developing new practices that improve student achievement of key learning outcomes essential for twenty-first-century success. The forum was part of a series of LEAP events being held across the country as part of AAC&U’s efforts to provide advocacy and leadership for liberal education for all of today’s college students. LEAP public forums will also be held in Portland, Oregon, and Salt Lake City, Utah, in early 2010.
Project Highlights
Core Commitments Releases Institutional Matrix to Map Education for Personal and Social Responsibility
AAC&U’s Core Commitments initiative is pleased to offer its Personal and Social Responsibility Institutional Matrix for institutions interested in mapping and understanding their commitment to education for personal and social responsibility. The matrix is a tool for examining five dimensions of personal and social responsibility that are central to the initiative (e.g., striving for excellence, academic integrity, and ethical reasoning), and includes an asset-gap analysis sheet, guiding questions about campus change, information about characteristics of each dimension, and an explanation of how to use the matrix on campus. The matrix is available as a PDF download.
Report Explores How Higher Education is Meeting its Civic Purpose
The first of three reports from AAC&U’s Core Commitments initiative attempts to answer the question, How well is the academy educating students for personal and social responsibility? Civic Responsibility: What Is the Campus Climate for Learning? provides insights about the civic commitments and practices of today’s colleges and universities and draws on data from a unique campus climate assessment tool administered to 24,000 students and 9,000 faculty, administrators, and student affairs professionals at twenty-three colleges and universities in fall 2007. The survey includes questions about the importance of campus learning, the degree to which students are encouraged to develop civic awareness and skills, and practices that advance students’ civic commitments. Civic Responsibility is ideal for on-campus and campus-community discussions about the aims of education and civic engagement. Purchase a copy online.
Other AAC&U News
Join AAC&U Associates Now, Receive Benefits through December 2010
AAC&U's Associates Program is designed to connect colleagues and peers at AAC&U member institutions across the country and around the world. Through special opportunities, AAC&U Associates learn from each other and use AAC&U resources to ensure that liberal education remains at the center of campus planning and programs. Associates Program dues are just $60 per calendar year. Associates receive all the benefits enjoyed by their AAC&U Campus Representatives, including subscriptions to all AAC&U’s print and online periodicals (Liberal Education, Peer Review, Diversity & Democracy, On Campus With Women, and AAC&U News), notice of calls for proposals for institutes and meetings, and invitations to apply for grant-funded projects and to participate in special AAC&U events. AAC&U also draws on Associates to become opinion leaders by writing for our periodicals, leading workshop and meeting sessions, and serving on our Network for Academic Renewal regional planning committees. Now is a great time to join, since the benefits start immediately and will continue through December 31, 2010. Learn more about the program.
AAC&U Cosponsors Conference on Creating Inclusive Campus Environments for LGBTQ Students
AAC&U is one of several partnering organizations for the 2010 conference, Expanding the Circle: Creating an Inclusive Environment in Higher Education for LGBTQ Students and Studies. In this conference, we will address factors that have contributed to excluding lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) issues from academic study and student life, and also explore strategies to make our campuses more inclusive for all students. Register online by November 15 to take advantage of the early registration rate for this conference. The conference will be held at the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco from February 25-28, 2010. More information is available online at www.ExpandingtheCircle.com.
AAC&U Mourns Loss of Former Colleague and Member President William R. O’Connell, Jr.
AAC&U notes with great sadness the loss of William R. O’Connell, Jr., who passed away on Monday, October 19, 2009, in Williamsburg, Virginia. O’Connell served as president of New England College, an AAC&U member institution, from 1985 to 1995. From 1979 to 1985, he served as vice president at AAC&U, which was then called the Association of American Colleges. O’Connell was a dedicated educator and educational leader committed to improving undergraduate education for all students. He was on the leadership team that produced AAC&U’s groundbreaking 1985 publication, Integrity in the College Curriculum, which set an agenda for the association’s work on curriculum, faculty development and assessment for the next decade.
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Annual Meeting
The Wit, The Will... And the Wallet:
Supporting Educational Innovation, Shaping Our Global Futures
January 20-23, 2010
Washington, DC
Network Meetings
General Education and Assessment: Maintaining Momentum, Achieving New Priorities
February 18-20, 2010
Seattle, Washington
Faculty Roles in High-Impact Practices
March 25-27, 2010
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
For more
information on meetings, visit www.aacu.org/meetings/index.cfm
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