Making Excellence Inclusive
The Making Excellence Inclusive initiative is designed to help colleges and universities fully integrate their diversity and educational quality efforts and embed them into the core of academic mission and institutional functioning. Through this initiative, AAC&U re-envisions diversity and inclusion as a multi-layered process through which we achieve excellence in learning; research and teaching; student development; institutional functioning; local and global community engagement; workforce development; and more.
Key Definitions
Diversity: Individual differences (e.g., personality, learning styles, and life experiences) and group/social differences (e.g., race/ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, country of origin, and ability as well as cultural, political, religious, or other affiliations) that can be engaged in the service of learning.
Inclusion: The active, intentional, and ongoing engagement with diversity—in people, in the curriculum, in the co-curriculum, and in communities (intellectual, social, cultural, geographical) with which individuals might connect—in ways that increase one’s awareness, content knowledge, cognitive sophistication, and empathic understanding of the complex ways individuals interact within systems and institutions.
What’s New
First Issue of Making Excellence Inclusive Newsletter February 2009 (pdf)
The Making Excellence Inclusive newsletter provides periodic updates on the work of the initiative and feature promising practices.
Teams attending the 2009 AAC&U Greater Expectations Institute will receive a $1,300 subsidy
It’s during tough economic times like these that make it more important than ever for us all— leaders in higher education and in associations, and individual educators—to be resolute in our efforts to provide a high quality liberal education to all students. AAC&U and Bringing Theory to Practice (BT to P) are doing their part to support efforts by proudly announcing travel and fee subsidies for up to thirty selected campuses to attend the 2009 Greater Expectations Institute (a total of $1300 per five-person team). AAC&U is reducing its Institute fee to $5,800 for a five-person campus team from AAC&U member institutions and to $6,500 for a five-person campus team from non-member institutions. BT to P is providing a reimbursement of up to $700 for travel or toward further reducing Institute fees for campus teams.
To learn more about the 2009 Greater Expectations Institute and to apply, please visit www.aacu.org/meetings/gexinstitute. For more information about Bringing Theory to Practice, please visit www.aacu.org/bringing_theory. Please contact Nakia Bell at bell@aacu.org or 202-387-3760 ext. 407 if you have questions about applying for the Institute.
2009 Greater Expectations Institute: Leadership to Make Excellence Inclusive (June 17-21, 2009) at the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vermont)
Apply now online
The Greater Expectations Institute is a five-day, intensive program designed for campuses working on ways to increase student engagement, inclusion, and high achievement. The Institute curriculum grows out of AAC&U's long-standing work in diversity and educational quality, most recently brought together under a major initiative, Making Excellence Inclusive. Our framework rests on two beliefs: that a high-quality, practical liberal education should be the standard of excellence for all students, and that diversity and intercultural competence are essential elements of a contemporary liberal education.
Expanding the Making Excellence Inclusive Initiative
The Association of American Colleges and Universities has received a grant from Lumina Foundation for Education to support its work on Making Excellence Inclusive. This new funding will support the scaling up of efforts already underway as part of AAC&U’s project, Give Students a Compass. Participating colleges and universities will build their capacity to support underserved students’ level of academic success by broadening their participation in a set of educational practices that research has shown to be effective. Both Making Excellence Inclusive and Give Students a Compass are part of AAC&U’s Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) campaign.
Literary Review on High Impact Practices
Outcomes of High Impact Practices for Underserved Students: A Review of the Literature (1.37 MB PDF) examines the known outcomes of five high-impact practices – learning communities, service-learning, undergraduate research, first-year seminars, and capstone courses and projects – for underserved student populations, namely underrepresented minorities, low-income students, and first-generation college students. There is evidence that these practices can lead to a range of positive outcomes (academic, personal, and civic) for the general population of college students as well as underserved students. The strength of evidence for these outcomes, however, is weakened by the limitations of existing research. In addition, little is known regarding moderating variables for each of these practices and their impact on student outcomes. Future research efforts, by seeking to mitigate these limitations, can provide insight into the potential benefits of high-impact practices for the educational experiences of underserved students.
Making Excellence Inclusive is housed in the Office of Education and Institutional Renewal, led by AAC&U Vice President Alma R. Clayton-Pedersen.
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