Press Release

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

AAC&U Announces Staff Appointments for New Senior Positions Leading Assessment and Global Learning Initiatives

Kevin Hovland Becomes Director for Global Learning and Curricular Change;
Ross Miller Assumes Role of Senior Director of Assessment for Learning

Washington, DC—August 1, 2007—The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) announced today that it was promoting two staff members to newly created positions.  Ross Miller has been appointed Senior Director of Assessment for Learning in AAC&U’s Office of Quality, Curriculum, and Assessment.  Kevin Hovland has been named Director for Global Learning and Curricular Change in AAC&U’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Global Initiatives.  These appointments emerge from AAC&U’s ongoing strategic planning efforts.  Miller’s appointment reflects AAC&U’s continued commitment to educational leadership for assessment approaches that deepen student learning and allow students the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to apply their learning to real world settings.  Hovland’s appointment reflects AAC&U’s expanding curricular and faculty development efforts designed to better prepare students for global interdependence and responsible citizenship. 

“While AAC&U plans to release its new five-year strategic plan in fall 2007, it has made clear that work on student learning assessment and global curricular development will be signature themes of AAC&U’s work in the next five years,” said AAC&U President Carol Geary Schneider.  “I am very pleased to be able to announce the promotions of two outstanding AAC&U staff members to take leadership roles in these ongoing efforts.”

Kevin Hovland began working at AAC&U in1992 and, most recently, has developed and led several campus-based projects as part of AAC&U’s multi-project initiative, Shared Futures: Global Learning and Social Responsibility.  He is currently the director for a curriculum and faculty development project, “General Education for Global Learning.”  This project was originally launched with support from the Henry Luce Foundation.  An additional grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education recently enabled AAC&U to expand the work of campuses in the project to make science requirements a more central part of their global general education curricula and use general education in science to help students understand the connections between their global learning and ethical citizenship.

Hovland is also the author of AAC&U’s recent publication, Shared Futures: Global Learning and Liberal Education and directs program planning for AAC&U’s annual meeting.

Ross Miller has worked at AAC&U since 1999 and played a leading role in the influential project, Greater Expectations: The Commitment to Quality as a Nation Goes to College.  He is currently coordinating a new e-portfolio development project as part of AAC&U’s Liberal Education and America’s Promise campaign.  This initiative, Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (VALUE), is funded with a grant from the State Farm Companies Foundation.  Ross is also the author of several AAC&U publications on assessment and learning and serves as assistant director of AAC&U’s yearly Institute on General Education.  He co-authored with Andrea Leskes, General Education: A Self-Study Guide for Review and Assessment and Purposeful Pathways: Helping Students Achieve Key Learning Outcomes, both of which were published in AAC&U’s Greater Expectations series of publications.  Miller is also the author of the forthcoming publication, Assessment in Cycles of Improvement—a publication that emerged from the Teagle Foundation supported initiative, Engaging Faculty with the Assessment of Liberal Education Outcomes.

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 1,150 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 on the AAC&U Web site.