Press Release

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

Association of American Colleges and Universities and Campus Compact Develop Center for Liberal Education and Civic Engagement

Charles Engelhard and Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundations Provide Initial Funding

Washington, DC—January 17, 2003—The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and Campus Compact announced plans today to establish the Center for Liberal Education and Civic Engagement designed as a catalyst and incubator of new ideas, research, and collaborations. The Center will support and encourage leadership and scholarship on the intellectual and educational connections between civic engagement and liberal learning. The Charles Engelhard and Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundations will provide initial funding for this effort.

AAC&U and Campus Compact believe that civic engagement is essential to liberal education and fundamental to responsible democratic citizenship. The center these organizations are jointly creating will be a resource to strengthen and broaden understanding of civic engagement and to make civic engagement in a diverse and interconnected world more central to faculty work and student learning in higher education. The Center will also support research-including applied or "action" research related directly to community needs. It will model and promote collaborations among educational institutions and external communities.

"AAC&U has collaborated for years with Campus Compact and worked extensively on the issue of civic engagement as a key outcome of a 21st century college education. With this project, two leading organizations will join together to take our collective work on this issue to a new level," said Caryn McTighe Musil, AAC&U vice president for diversity, equity, and global initiatives. "We are also deeply grateful to Don Harward, president emeritus of Bates College, who first saw the potential for such a Center and the collaboration between AAC&U and Campus Compact." Harward has worked with both organizations to shape plans for the Center. As a newly appointed AAC&U senior fellow, Don Harward will also serve as a key senior consultant on the project.

"AAC&U and Campus Compact-as two national organizations both committed to making civic engagement a high priority in the new academy-are pleased to join the strengths of our organizations together to advance an agenda increasingly recognized as essential to the future of higher education and the health of the nation's democracy," said AAC&U President Carol Geary Schneider and Campus Compact Executive Director Liz Hollander.

"Several recent AAC&U initiatives have called for higher education to focus national attention on the goals of college learning in the 21st century," said AAC&U board chair, Troy Duster, professor of sociology, New York University and chancellor's professor, University of California, Berkeley. "AAC&U has consistently argued that we must expand our vision of college learning beyond just a vocational or professional focus to encompass students' civic and ethical responsibilities in a diverse democracy and fractured global community. This initiative will join together the resources of two strong and influential organizations to bring this vision to reality."

The Center will promote its goals through projects and initiatives that include sponsored research, seminars for collaborating scholars, community and institutional conferences, workshops, and publications featuring models that illustrate the best practices now in place. Because of the scope of the Center's agenda, a biennial "theme" will be used to help focus the Center's projects. For the period 2003-2005, the Center's theme will be: Journey Towards Democracy: Power, Voice, and the Public Good.

For updated information on the Center's activities, see www.aacu.org.

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.

Information about AAC&U membership, programs and publications can be found at www.aacu.org.

Campus Compact is a national coalition of more than 900 college and university presidents committed to the civic purposes of higher education. To support this civic mission, Campus Compact promotes community service that develops students' citizenship skills and values, encourages partnerships between campuses and communities, and assists faculty who seek to integrate public and community engagement into their teaching and research.