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.

Carol Geary Schneider, AAC&U president, will speak at the College of William and Mary on April 2 during the college’s Liberal Arts University Conversation series. Schneider will speak about “The Changing Understanding of Liberal Education.” On April 27-28, Schneider will attend the launch of Excelencia in Education’s new initiative, Ensuring America’s Future by Increasing Latino College Completion. President Schneider will also give the keynote address at the LEAP Public Forum in Salt Lake City on April 14, 2010, which will also feature presentations from the commissioner of higher education, the superintendent of schools, and Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert.

Alma Clayton-Pedersen, AAC&U vice president for education and institutional renewal, will serve on the general education self-study review board at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, on April 5-6. On April 8, Clayton-Pedersen will give a presentation titled, “Toward Making Excellence Inclusive: Issues of Diverse Faculty Sourcing, Recruitment, and Retention” at the Conference Board Diversity in Higher Education conference, held at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. On April 12, Clayton-Pedersen will give a keynote address on Making Excellence Inclusive at the Noel-Levitz Symposium on Recruitment and Retention of Students of Color, held in San Diego, California. On April 21-22, Clayton-Pedersen will meet with various faculty and administrative groups at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, to discuss Making Excellence Inclusive.

Susan Elrod, director of Project Kaleidoscope, represented AAC&U and PKAL at a joint meeting of teacher-researcher professional development and education programs sponsored by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities on March 2-3, in Washington, DC. Elrod was also an invited participant to the National Academies’ Climate Change Meeting, March 15-16, in Washington, DC, which included principal investigators funded to carry out work on climate-change education.  On March 21 and 22, Elrod represented AAC&U and PKAL at the Cooperative Education and Internship Association national conference in Boston, Massachusetts, and participated in a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-sponsored session on STEM connections to community college "earn and learn" programs.

Debra Humphreys, AAC&U vice president for communications and public affairs, presented a keynote speech, “What Really Matters in College—in the Classroom and Beyond: Raising the Bar for Students and Ourselves,” at Northern Virginia Community College on March 19, for the college’s Student Services Day of Learning.

Terrel Rhodes, AAC&U vice president for quality, curriculum, and assessment, participated in a Western Association of Schools and Colleges accreditation visit to California State University Stanislaus on March 1-3. On March 31, Rhodes visited Mississippi Valley State University to lead a workshop on the process of general education reform. On April 11-12, he will give a plenary address at the Atlantic Assessment Conference in Cary, North Carolina.