THE WIT, THE WILL ... AND THE WALLET
Supporting Educational Innovation, Shaping Our Global Futures
January 20-23, 2010
Washington, DC
HIGHLIGHTED SESSIONS
Liberal Education Outcomes and Economic Success: Exploring the Connections
Many American leaders in government, business, and philanthropy argue that our nation’s economic future depends on increasing the numbers of Americans with college degrees. This session moves beyond this important “access and completion” goal to explore not only the numbers, but the actual connections between what college graduates need to learn, what today’s workplace and economy demands, and the goal of maintaining our nation’s democratic and economic vitality. Presenters will discuss new data from AAC&U’s LEAP initiative on what skills and abilities employers are now seeking in college graduates and the historic and continuing connections between educational attainment, economic growth, and democratic vitality.
Richard M. Freeland, Commissioner, Massachusetts Department of Higher Education and President Emeritus, Northeastern University; Debra Humphreys, Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs, AAC&U
Greater Expectations and New Investments: Community Colleges and America’s Promise
"Time and again, when we have placed our bet for the future on education, we have prospered as a result – by tapping the incredible innovative and generative potential of a skilled American workforce.”
-- President Obama
In July 2009, President Obama set the expectation that by 2020, the United States will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. In announcing the American Graduation Initiative, he called for support to “reform and strengthen community colleges from coast to coast so that they get the resources students and schools need – and the results workers and businesses demand.” In this session, a distinguished panel will weigh the odds for this bet for the future.
Gail O. Mellow, President, City University of New York La Guardia Community College; Mary Spilde, President, Lane Community College; and Jane Wellman, Executive Director, Delta Project on Postsecondary Costs– all members of AAC&U’s Board of Directors
What Are We Learning About Student-Centered Higher Education from the Bologna Process?
In 1999, Europe began a significant higher education transformation effort that focuses on student learning outcomes and awarding degrees based on what students know, understand and are able to do. Paul Gaston, author of The Challenge of Bologna, will encourage the participants to learn from the Bologna Process, and, taking those lessons, improve American higher education. Both Tim Birtwistle and Sybille Reichert are experts on European higher education and policy and will share their perspectives on what has and has not worked in Europe and encourage American higher education leaders to improve upon the Bologna methodologies and approaches. The session will involve active participation of the audience.
Tim Birtwistle, Visiting Fellow, Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies and Emeritus Professor of the Law and Policy of Higher Education, Leeds Law School; Sybille Reichert, Higher Education Policy Consultant, Zurich, Switzerland; and Paul L. Gaston, Trustees Professor of English, Kent State University and author of The Challenge of Bologna: What United States Higher Education Has to Learn from Europe, and Why It Matters that We Learn It (Stylus Publishing, 2010)
This session is sponsored by the Lumina Foundation for Education
The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities
Author Frank Donoghue will discuss his book, The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities, in which he shows how the growing corporate culture of higher education threatens its most fundamental values by erasing one of its defining features: the tenured professor. The fate of the professor, Donoghue shows, has always been tied to that of the liberal arts—with the humanities at its core. The rise to prominence of the American university has been defined by the strength of the humanities and by the central role of the autonomous, tenured professor who can be both scholar and teacher. Yet in today’s market-driven, rank- and ratings-obsessed world of higher education, corporate logic prevails. Donoghue sheds light on the structural changes in higher education—the rise of community colleges and for-profit universities, the frenzied pursuit of prestige everywhere, the brutally competitive realities facing new Ph.D.s —that threaten the survival of professors as we’ve known them.
Frank J. Donoghue, Associate Professor of English, The Ohio State University and author, The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities (Fordham University Press, 2008).
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Creating Interdisciplinary Campus Cultures: A Model for Strength and Sustainability
With increased support from professional associations, educational organizations, and funding agencies, "interdisciplinarity" has become a keyword in discussions ofinstitutional change. The author of Creating Interdisciplinary Campus Cultures will provide an overview of thechallenges and practical strategiesfor interdisciplinary change. Published by Jossey Bass and co-sponsored by AAC&U, thisunique resource is the only book focused on creating and sustaininginstitutional support forinterdisciplinary work. The book givesadministrators and faculty the tools they need to craft persuasive arguments, make informed decisions anchored in the literature,and devise changes in policy and procedures that will foster successful and sustainable interdisciplinary research and education.
Julie Thompson Klein, Professor of Humanities, Wayne State University and author of Creating Interdisciplinary Campus Cultures: A Model for Strength and Sustainability (available in January 2010 from Jossey-Bass)
Give Students a Compass, Year Two: Orienteering for Systemic Change
The affiliation of public universities in statewide systems is both blessing and curse. Curriculum redesign efforts may be stymied by the additional approval layer of a central bureaucracy. Conversely, state systems may be able to link institutions into “networks of change,” encouraging local experimentation, facilitating the exchange of ideas, and promoting statewide adoption of best practices. In the second year of our work with three state systems—campuses, systems, and AAC&U working together—we are ready to share what we have learned. The Compass Project is pleased to report and discuss our work to remap general education and promote high-impact teaching, learning, and assessment as we make excellence deeply inclusive.
Susan Albertine, Alma Clayton-Pedersen, Ken O’Donnell (Associate Dean, Academic Program Planning, California State University Office of the Chancellor), Rebecca Karoff (Senior Academic Planner, Office of Academic Affairs, University of Wisconsin System), and Shawn Smallman (Vice Provost for Instruction and Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Portland State University and Compass Project Liaison to the Oregon University System)
What Do We Know about Education for Personal and Social Responsibility? Findings from a National Research Collaborative
As part of its initiative, Core Commitments: Educating Students for Personal and Social Responsibility, AAC&U convened directors of major national higher education studies to discern what it is we know—across the research landscape—about these important outcomes of college. This Personal and Social Responsibility Research Collaborative was charged with conducting a “cross-walk” among the national surveys and studies of students and faculty that explore issues of personal and social responsibility. In this session, several members of the collaborative will discuss the preliminary findings, including convergences and gaps across the existing data, recommendations for future research, and implications for campus practice.
Alexander Astin, Allan M. Cartter Professor of Higher Education Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles and Founding Director of the Higher Education Research Institute; Charles Blaich, Director of Inquiries, Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts, Wabash College; Alexander McCormick, Director of National Survey of Student Engagement, Indiana University Bloomington; Eric L. Dey, Professor, Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, University of Michigan and Research Director, Core Commitments; Moderated by Nancy O’Neill, Assistant Director, Core Commitments, AAC&U
From AAC&U’S Initiative “The Educated Citizen and Public Health”
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A Vision of Education for Health 2020
The Educated Citizen and Public Health initiative was designed to help colleges and universities integrate public health perspectives within a comprehensive liberal education framework, based on the understanding that knowledge of public health issues is a critical component of good citizenship and a prerequisite for taking responsibility for building healthy societies. We are pleased to welcome Dr. Howard Koh – the recently confirmed Assistant Secretary for Health – who will explore the intersections between higher education, public health, and civic engagement.
Howard Koh is on leave from Harvard University where he served as Professor of the Practice of Public Health and as Director of the Harvard School of Public Health Center for Public Health Preparedness, which promotes education about bioterrorism, pandemic influenza, and other emerging health threats. Throughout his career, Dr. Koh has developed innovative interdisciplinary approaches to promote and protect the health of communities. His interests span the dimensions of science, research, education, communication, policy, advocacy, and leadership.
Moderator: Richard Riegelman, MD, Professor of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Medicine, and Health Policy, The George Washington University School of Medicine
Liberal Education and Essential Competencies for Future Physicians
What kinds of competencies should undergraduate students demonstrate to be accepted into medical school? What kinds of tests can measure those competencies? The Association of American Medical Colleges is in the second year of a multi-year review of the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT). A 21-member committee is conducting the review and considering recent calls for new information about applicants' mastery of natural science content; behavioral and social sciences and humanities content; and professional competencies like cultural competence, communication skills, and professionalism. A new test will be introduced no earlier than 2013. Members of the committee will describe the review goals, seek input from AAC&U members, and explore how efforts to re-imagine traditional pre-medical requirements by creating more flexible, interdisciplinary courses that meet broad sets of competencies may change undergraduate curricula as well as the MCAT exam.
Richard Riegelman, MD, Professor of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Medicine, and Health Policy, The George Washington University School of Medicine; Saundra Herndon Oyewole, Chair of the Biology Program, Trinity Washington University; Scott Oppler, Director of MCAT Development and Research, Association of American Medical Colleges
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