Press Release

CONTACT: Debra Humphreys
(202) 387-3760 (ext. 422)
E-mail: humphreys@aacu.org

Carnegie Corporation of New York Awards $727,000 Grant to the Association of American Colleges and Universities
to Support Next Phase of Greater Expectations Initiative

Washington, DC—December 15, 2001—The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) has received a grant of $727,000 from Carnegie Corporation of New York to support the next phase of its Greater Expectations Initiative. A previous $1 million grant awarded in 2000 by Carnegie Corporation supported the creation of a Center for 21st-Century Liberal Arts Education as part of the initiative.

Greater Expectations: The Commitment to Quality as a Nation Goes to College is AAC&U's far-reaching, multi-year signature program that is systematically defining outcomes and discovering strategies to improve undergraduate student learning. The Center for 21st-Century Liberal Arts Education, as the campus-based action component of Greater Expectations, focuses on teaching practices, curricular design, and institutional change across consecutive levels of study (from high school, through general education, to advanced study in a major field).

"We're delighted to extend our partnership with Carnegie Corporation," remarked Andrea Leskes, Greater Expectations project director and AAC&U vice president for education and quality initiatives. "We are discovering an impressive array of exciting examples from colleges and universities across the country-examples of how to enhance learning by all students as we prepare them for the complexities of our contemporary world."

AAC&U launched the Center in 2000 with the competitive selection of 16 leadership institutions. These educationally distinctive campuses, reflective of a wide range of institutional types, form part of a Consortium on Quality Education.

Future Carnegie-funded Greater Expectations activities include the following:

• A Forum on 21st-Century Liberal Arts Education Practice will gather promising practices that help students reach high levels of accomplishment in core educational capacities. As it examines, for example, the ability to integrate knowledge across disciplines and solve complex, unscripted problems, the Forum will sponsor regional reflective seminars for college and high school faculty.
• The 2002 Summer Institute on Campus Leadership for Sustainable Innovation will build faculty and administrative expertise at learning-centered institutions. It will assist teams from participating colleges and universities build a campus infrastructure to support greater student achievement. Forty-one colleges and universities attended the inaugural Institute held in July 2001.
• As a group, the campuses in the Consortium on Quality Education will share their experiences and mentor others committed to enhancing learning-centered undergraduate education.

Additional projects in the Greater Expectations Initiative include a national panel that will issue a major report on aims and purposes for a 21st-century ndergraduate college education. Building on the panel's two years of work, the report will include recommendations for providing a high quality college education to today's more diverse cohort of college students and ways to link higher education with the best aspects of school reform.

Carnegie Corporation of New York joins The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education of the Department of Education in supporting the Greater Expectations family of projects.

For more information on Greater Expectations, see www.aacu.org/gex/index.cfm.

AAC&U is the leading national association devoted to advancing and strengthening liberal learning for all students, regardless of academic specialization or intended career. Since its founding in 1915, AAC&U's membership has grown to more than 1000 accredited public and private colleges and universities of every type and size.

AAC&U functions as a catalyst and facilitator, forging links among presidents, administrators, and faculty members who are engaged in institutional and curricular planning. Its mission is to reinforce the collective commitment to liberal education at both the national and local levels and to help individual institutions keep the quality of student learning at the core of their work as they evolve to meet new economic and social challenges.

For additional information about AAC&U programs and publications, visit www.aacu.org.