AAC&U Annual Meeting
January 25-28, 2012
Washington, DC / Grand Hyatt Hotel

SHARED FUTURES / DIFFICULT CHOICES
Reclaiming a Democratic Vision for College Learning,
Global Engagement, and Success

The Consortium for Innovative Environments in Learning

In 2000, a group of leading liberal arts institutions from across the nation came together with the idea of creating a flexible, comprehensive system that synthesizes and disseminates key aspects of their success and serves as an incubator for new, improved, learning practices.  The impetus was the conviction that so-called “alternative” colleges and universities have much to contribute to the national dialogue on higher education, as well as to one another.  CIEL colleagues envision a consortium in which a greater number of institutions would collaborate toward three primary objectives:

• Mutual support—for continued improvement and innovation in student learning;
• Institutional sharing—of powerful practices and pedagogical approaches through collective cost-effective projects, programs, and products; and
• Outreach—to help other institutions seeking to transform learning environments and institutional structures

AAC&U is pleased to welcome CIEL members to the 2012 Annual Meeting.  The following session, sponsored by CIEL, is open to everyone.

The Uncommon Campus and Its Role in a Democratic Future
The desire to educate citizens —and to develop creative imagination and trained intelligence for tackling social, civic and public problems— has spurred educational innovation throughout the history of US higher education.  Today’s challenges—e.g., across-the-board spending cuts and the primacy of economic ends for education—are only the most recent manifestation of a long history of uncertainty.  In each time of upheaval, the question of teaching for the public good has been raised, yet these periods have also inspired brilliant thinkers and innovative schools.  How can the commitment to education for democracy and the public good found in historical experimental campuses be translated into the current climate?  What educational values and practices nurtured in uncommon settings can be transferred to more traditional educational settings? 

Patricia Karlin-Neumann, Senior Associate Dean for Religious Life, Stanford University; Kathlenn O'Brien, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Alverno College; Joy Kliewer, Director of Institutional Advancement, Fountain Valley School of Colorado; James Hall, Director of New College, University of Alabama; Eli Kramer, Student, Johnston Center for Integrative Studies, University of Redlands