2009 Greater Expectations Institute: Leadership to Make Excellence Inclusive
June 17-21, 2009 | Dudley H. Davis Student Center | University of Vermont
Institute Goals
Campus leadership teams come to the Institute to advance a specific educational change project. The Institute helps campus teams develop and strengthen learning environments and align their specific project to their institution’s mission, clarify desired outcomes, create a comprehensive vision for change, refine planning and processes, and build a culture of high expectations that fosters student and institutional learning. The Institute’s 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. AAC&U is a national resource for campuses looking to create and sustain diverse and effective learning environments; the Institute focuses on developing the collaborative leadership needed to do so.
Institute activities are designed to help each team create an action plan to implement significant educational change on campus. Individually, each team works to refine its own project goals and strategies. Collectively, participants build their leadership capacity to strengthen and sustain change efforts over time. To accomplish these goals, the 2009 Institute provides in-depth study, analysis, and resources in three areas.
Area One: Building Campus Capacity to Advance Educational Change
While campus projects will vary, all Greater Expectations Institute campus teams work on increasing the quality of learning for all students. The Institute will be particularly helpful for campuses interested in AAC&U’s work related to Greater Expectations, Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP), and Making Excellence Inclusive. Examples of projects from past Institutes include:
- reforming a first-year program to deepen the level of academic challenge and support, and engage all students with diversity and civic responsibility;
- integrating curricular and cocurricular learning to increase student engagement and success; structuring reaccreditation efforts around a comprehensive set of student learning outcomes; and
- reframing an institution’s approach to diversity so that it enhances both student and organizational learning.
Area Two: Engaging Diverse Campus Cultures and Priorities
Understanding campus cultures enables teams to more effectively design and implement successful, comprehensive initiatives. Prior to the Institute, teams will be asked to review current institutional goals, programs, and resources, and analyze how they contribute to student engagement, inclusion, and success. Once in Burlington, teams will explore the ways in which their own campus cultures may both nurture and impede their work.
Area Three: Aligning Educational Priorities with Institutional Practices and Structures of Support
Teams work on ways to connect their projects to institutional mission and practices, to use campus data for organizational learning and decision making, and to ensure campus structures support newly proposed actions or programs. The Institute helps teams leverage existing knowledge, programs, and resources; enhance communication; and identify potential collaborators to create powerful educational environments for all students.
More than two hundred teams representing all institutional types and sizes have participated in past Institutes. Overwhelmingly, they report that the experience offers significant assistance in planning and managing educational change. Once back on campus, teams regularly utilize Institute resources to build shared commitment for their educational change efforts. Some teams have developed their own leadership seminars and faculty retreats based on the Institute’s curriculum, while others have established comprehensive assessment efforts. Past participating campus teams have combined isolated projects into coherent structures of support to improve underserved student success.
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