Press Release

Contact: Debra Humphreys
Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs
202-387-3760 ext. 422
Humphreys@aacu.org

AAC&U Vice President Andrea Leskes to become President of Institute for American Universities

Washington, DC—October 31, 2005—Andrea Leskes, who has served as Vice President for Education and Quality Initiatives at the Association of American Colleges and Universities since 1999, announced today that she has accepted appointment as president of the Institute for American Universities (IAU). Located in southern France, IAU offers study abroad programs for undergraduates from many of the top US colleges and universities. Leskes will leave her position as vice president at AAC&U on January 31, 2006 but will continue to serve as a senior fellow for the organization.

“Andrea Leskes has been instrumental, primarily through AAC&U’s signature initiative, Greater Expectations: The Commitment to Quality as a Nation Goes to College, in developing and advancing a new vision for undergraduate liberal education,” said AAC&U president Carol Geary Schneider. “Dr. Leskes brought her considerable insight and experience in higher education to the Greater Expectations initiative that has launched a much-needed national dialogue on the future of undergraduate education and how important liberal education is in today’s world.”

Leskes has lived in France for many years, served as vice president for academic affairs at the American University of Paris and as an academic administrator for several US-based institutions; she is also a published French-English translator. “While Dr. Leskes will be greatly missed by the staff and membership of AAC&U, this appointment seems a perfect opportunity for her to combine her international experience and deep understanding of American higher education. The Institute for American Universities will benefit enormously, I am confident, from Dr. Leskes’ leadership,” added Dr. Schneider

Leskes’ appointment as a senior fellow at AAC&U will allow her to maintain her involvement with the next phase of Greater Expectations work. In June 2006, Dr. Leskes will direct AAC&U’s Institute on General Education as she has done for the past five years.

The Institute for American Universities, one of the oldest and largest education abroad programs in Europe, has its academic headquarters in Aix-en-Provence. The institution has served as an academic center for more than 700 colleges and universities and more than 12,000 students in its nearly fifty year history. Currently IAU runs four programs for US undergraduates studying abroad—three in English and one in French (in Avignon). Students can enroll in arts and sciences courses and also in two studio arts programs (one at the advanced level run in collaboration with the Maryland Institute College of Art).

“I hope to bring IAU’s considerable experience in educating American students abroad into the national conversations about preparing graduates for a global world,” said Leskes. “I invite colleagues from the many colleges and universities involved in AAC&U’s work to contact me about creating new partnerships for study abroad in the wonderful region of southern France,” she continued. “I am grateful both to the IAU Board for offering me this exciting new opportunity and to Carol Schneider for the six stimulating years at AAC&U.”

“IAU is fortunate to attract Dr. Leskes, who has held positions at preeminent colleges and universities and has a profound understanding of undergraduate education and international studies,” said Donna Manning, chairperson of IAU’s board of trustees. “She will bring the energy, experience, and vision to strengthen and grow IAU as it enters its second half century.”

“While we are saddened that Dr. Leskes will be leaving her position as vice president, we are grateful for her past leadership and service,” said AAC&U board chair and president of Wheaton College, Ronald Crutcher. “I expect to see all AAC&U member institutions, and higher education more broadly, carrying on the work Dr. Leskes initiated with Greater Expectations.”

AAC&U’s president, Carol Schneider, announced that a search for Dr. Leskes’s successor will begin this year.

Greater Expectations

The multi-faceted Greater Expectations initiative, under Dr. Leskes’s leadership, opened a broad national dialogue on the aims of education in the 21st century. Stakeholders from the higher education, secondary education, accreditation, business, and policy communities helped forge a new vision for learning better aligned with the needs of contemporary society and the diverse range of today’s college attendees. Leskes was the principal author of the influential report Greater Expectations: A New Vision for Learning as a Nation Goes to College released in 2002. Through that report and a series of complementary studies, Greater Expectations put a spotlight on a redefined and reinvigorated liberal education as the most powerful and appropriate college education for a complex 21st century world.

“Under Dr. Leskes’ expert leadership, the Greater Expectations initiative has helped spur positive institutional reforms at hundreds of colleges and universities and influenced nearly all aspects of AAC&U’s projects and continuing programs,” remarked Schneider. “She leaves a compelling legacy that will move the Association and the nation forward as we meet the challenges of educating a new generation of college students.”

Leskes’s leadership has been key to the success of many AAC&U projects, publications, and meetings. AAC&U now sponsors two separate summer institutes to support colleges and universities working to advance the Greater Expectations vision. Leskes also developed a consulting consortium—The SAGE Group (Strategies for Achieving Greater Expectations)—that has provided scores of institutions with one-on-one assistance in implementing the Greater Expectations vision. She will be completing the first phase of the Greater Expectations work with a series of publications on general education, assessment, and coherent educational practices in the next two months.

The institutional and curricular renewal begun as part of the Greater Expectations initiative will continue through the Association’s varied avenues of work. In one important new venture to build public demand for the type of empowering and practical education advocated by Greater Expectations, AAC&U recently launched a national campaign called Liberal Education and America’s Promise: Excellence for Everyone as a Nation Goes to College. This campaign is an effort to put the liberal education outcomes articulated in Greater Expectations at the center of both campus dialogues and broader public understanding of what really matters in college.

For information about AAC&U’s Greater Expectations initiative, including its publications, and other ongoing AAC&U programs, see www.aacu.org.

AAC&U is the leading national association concerned with the quality, vitality, and public standing of undergraduate liberal education. Its members are committed to extending the advantages of a liberal education to all students, regardless of academic specialization or intended career. Founded in 1915, AAC&U now comprises more than 1,000 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.