| Meetings and Institutes
Register for Fall Meetings on Personal and Social Responsibility and Integrative Learning
Register now for the first two 2009-10 Network for Academic Renewal conferences: Educating for Personal and Social Responsibility: Deepening Student and Campus Commitment, October 1-3 in Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Integrative Learning: Addressing the Complexities, October 22-24 in Atlanta, Georgia. The personal and social responsibility conference will address moving education for personal and social responsibility to the center of institutional culture and academic practice. The program will feature promising practices that develop students’ civic engagement and social responsibility in both a local and global context. The integrative learning conference will highlight the continuing importance of integrative learning and practices that allow students to apply their learning to new situations, in order to practice the skills and abilities necessary for today’s world. More information about both meetings can be found on the Meetings Web page. Both online and mail registration options are available.
Submit Proposals for 2010 AAC&U Annual Meeting
AAC&U invites you and your colleagues to submit a proposal for our 2010 Annual Meeting: “The Wit, the Will . . . and the Wallet: Supporting Educational Innovation, Shaping Our Global Future.” Efforts to sustain creative innovation and address the future of liberal learning in a context of dramatic change are evident within all sectors of the higher education community. We invite you to share your best efforts to translate educational vision into concrete practices. Proposals can be submitted online through July 20, 2009. Please see the online call for proposals for complete information.
Submit Proposals for Faculty Roles in High-Impact Practices Conference
AAC&U is now accepting proposals for sessions at its upcoming Faculty Roles in High-Impact Practices conference, scheduled for March 25-27, 2010, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The conference will highlight the new and expanding roles that faculty are playing in developing and using high-impact practices—in and beyond the disciplines—to foster student learning. These “high-impact” practices, when done well, engage students in making their own discoveries and connections, grappling with “big” questions whose importance they can see, and addressing complex problems. See the Call for Proposals for a complete list of conference themes, session formats, and details. The submission deadline is September 8, 2009.
Campuses and State Systems from Seventy-eight Institutions, Thirty-two States, and Three Countries Attend AAC&U 2009 Summer Institutes
AAC&U recently announced the colleges, universities, and state systems sending teams to its 2009 summer institutes. Teams of five or more are attending one of three summer institutes: the Institute on General Education in Minneapolis, Minnesota (May 29-June 3, 2009); the Greater Expectations Institute on Campus Leadership for Student Engagement, Inclusion, and Achievement in Burlington, Vermont (June 17-21, 2009); and the Engaging Departments Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (July 8-12, 2009). All AAC&U institutes offer campus teams a time and place for sustained collaborative work on a project of importance to their campus. For more information on AAC&U meetings and institutes, visit www.aacu.org/meetings/index.cfm.
LEAP News
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Almost One Hundred Education and Community Leaders Participate in Miami Public Forum on “Responsibility in a Time of Crisis” |
As part of AAC&U’s ongoing series of public forums held in conjunction with its LEAP initiative, Miami Dade College (MDC) and AAC&U hosted “Responsibility in a Time of Crisis” on Thursday, May 21, 2009, at MDC’s Wolfson Campus in downtown Miami. The event built on lessons learned in AAC&U’s Core Commitments initiative and brought together leaders from higher education, business, civic organizations, government, and the media to discuss strategies for cross-sector promotion of personal and social responsibility in college and in society. MDC President and AAC&U Board Chair Eduardo J. Padrón, and AAC&U President Carol Geary Schneider addressed participants, along with keynote speaker Thomas Ehrlich, senior scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Click for information about the Miami forum or more LEAP events, and read the Miami Herald article about the forum.
Project Highlights
Bringing Theory to Practice Project Invites Grant Proposals on Engaged Learning, Civic Development, and Student Well-Being
AAC&U’s Bringing Theory to Practice program requests proposals from institutions nationwide to address two new strategic emphases: (1) institutional projects related to the connections between civic development and student psychosocial well-being; and (2) how institutions can plan to sustain the projects, priorities and changes that are demonstrably successful in making more likely that students' educational experience is truly transformative. Three grant categories are available: minigrants, program or research initiative grants, and demonstration site grants. For details about the categories and how to submit a proposal, see the complete Request for Proposals online.
Web Resources for Global Learning and Campus Internationalization Now Available
The Inter-associational Network on Campus Internationalization (INCI), a group of twelve organizations of which AAC&U is a member, has developed a new collection of resources for leaders in global learning and international education. This Web portal brings together content from many of the most prominent organizations in this area of work, and is meant to facilitate access to a broad array of helpful resources on a variety of topics in global education.The portal features Web and print resources, as well as event and program listings about institutional structures, policies, and funding; faculty and staff development and engagement; global learning in the curriculum and cocurriculum; education abroad; and community engagement and outreach.
Give Students a Compass Project Meetings Held in Oregon
Susan Albertine, AAC&U senior director of LEAP state initiatives, and Alma Clayton-Pedersen, AAC&U vice president for education and institutional renewal, met with LEAP and Compass leaders at the Oregon University System—seven public institutions—at Portland State University on May 19 as part of the LEAP Give Students a Compass project. On May 20-21, Albertine and Clayton-Pedersen visited Southern Oregon University and met with Compass campus leaders. Give Students a Compass: College Learning, General Education and Underserved Student Success is a multistate collaborative to re-map educational aims, educational practices, and assessment strategies for general education in three public state systems: the California State University System and the state higher education systems of Oregon and Wisconsin
AAC&U and PKAL Invite Nominations and Applications for New PKAL Director
AAC&U, in collaboration with the staff and board of Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL), has begun a search for a new PKAL Director. See the position announcement for details. With this new leadership, PKAL will formally move to AAC&U with which it is now a partner. The search and the PKAL/AAC&U alliance build on a year of active collaborative planning by both organizations’ boards of directors and senior staff. The partnership is supported by a successful fundraising effort led by Daniel Sullivan, member of both AAC&U’s and PKAL’s boards of directors and president of St. Lawrence University. PKAL’s founding and current director, Jeanne L. Narum, has announced her intention to retire as PKAL director by the end of 2009, when she will become an AAC&U senior fellow and PKAL director emerita, advising in the evolution and expansion of PKAL and contributing to the literature on transforming undergraduate STEM learning. See November 2008 press release for more information about the PKAL/AAC&U partnership.
Other AAC&U News
New AAC&U Survey Finds Colleges Moving Away From Pure “Cafeteria-Style” General Education Requirements
Findings from AAC&U’s recently completed national survey of its members reveals that only 15 percent of colleges now rely solely on a “distribution” model for their general education requirements. More than two-thirds of AAC&U members now use a general education model that combines course choice with other integrative features like learning communities or thematic required courses. The survey also reveals that nearly all campuses either are already assessing (52 percent), or are planning to assess (42 percent), cumulative learning outcomes in general education beyond grading in individual courses. The survey was completed by chief academic officers at 433 colleges and universities of all sorts (public and private, two-year and four-year, large and small). See two reports on the member survey findings and a press release summarizing the findings on general education.
AAC&U Convenes Educators, Funders, and Policymakers to Discuss K-16 Alignment and Achievement
AAC&U and Achieve, an independent, bipartisan education reform nonprofit based in Washington, DC, cohosted their first convening on the subject of school through college alignment on May 12, 2009, in Chicago, Illinois. Participants included school and postsecondary leaders from several states, policy makers, leaders from major foundations and federal funding agencies, accreditors, and education association leaders.The meeting opened with participant commitment to a common set of principles for alignment of the essential learning outcomes shared through the LEAP campaign and the cross-disciplinary proficiencies Achieve has identified through work on the American Diploma Project (ADP). The day-long convening concluded with an agreement to pursue an alignment project and set of consensus principles involving state and national partners.
AAC&U Issues Statement of Remembrance of Ronald Takaki
AAC&U recently issued a statement of remembrance honoring Ronald Takaki’s far-reaching legacy as an educator and historian. In part, it notes that, “as a pioneering chronicler of our nation’s continuing struggle to form that ‘more perfect union,’ Takaki helped launch an intercultural education movement that has transformed the academy and significantly developed higher education’s capacity to educate all students for meaningful participation in our diverse democracy.” The statement notes further that “Takaki’s work is, if anything, even more relevant in 2009, as it is a patient, evidence-based reminder that our progress toward a more open and mutually respectful society has never been smooth. It has always included—and includes today—contestations that are themselves a reaction to milestone accomplishments.”
New Book on Broadening Participation in Undergraduate Research Features Chapter by AAC&U Director of Programs
A new book, Broadening Participation in Undergraduate Research:
Fostering Excellence and Enhancing the Impact, published by the Council on Undergraduate Research, features a chapter by Nancy O’Neill, AAC&U’s director of programs in the Office of Education and Institutional Renewal. The book features institutions that are maximizing the impact of undergraduate research—one of the high-impact practices that research shows have a positive effect on student success—by including underrepresented ethnic and racial minorities, students with disabilities, women, students of lower socioeconomic status, first- and second-year students, and others not traditionally involved in the development of new knowledge.The book includes strategies for designing and implementing sustainable undergraduate research programs on diverse campuses. For more information and to order the book, visit the CUR Web page.
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Summer Institutes
Greater Expectations Institute
June 17-21, 2009
Burlington, Vermont
Engaging Departments Institute
July 8-12, 2009
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Network Meetings
Educating for Personal and Social Responsibility: Deepening Student and Campus Commitments
October 1-3, 2009
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Integrative Learning: Addressing the Complexities
October 22-24, 2009
Atlanta, Georgia
Other Meetings
Annual Meeting
The Wit, The Will... And the Wallet:
Supporting Educational Innovation, Shaping our Global Futures
January 20-23, 2010
Washington, DC
For more
information on meetings, visit www.aacu.org/meetings/index.cfm
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