For Immediate Release

Contact:              
Debra Humphreys, Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs
202.387.3760, ext. 422
Humphreys@aacu.org

AAC&U Announces 16 Colleges and Universities Chosen to Test New Degree Qualifications Profile as Catalyst for Assessing and Improving the Quality of Student Learning, Facilitating Effective Student Transfer, and Increasing College Completion Rates

Two-Year and Four-Year Colleges and Universities in Quality Collaboratives Project Will Partner in Developing Faculty Leadership and New Frameworks for Assessing Transfer Students’ Demonstrated Accomplishment of Essential Learning Outcomes

Washington, DC–January 30, 2012–The Association of American Colleges and Universities announced today 16 colleges, community colleges, and universities chosen to participate in its new project supported with funding from the Lumina Foundation and designed to advance systemic change in eight higher education state systems.  Institutions chosen to participate in The Quality Collaboratives (QC) Initiative will test ways to assure that students can demonstrate achievement of essential competencies across all areas and levels of learning, regardless of where they begin or end their educational journeys.  This project is part of Lumina Foundation’s beta testing of the value of a shared Degree Qualifications Profile (DQP).

Currently participating institutions include:

California State University, Northridge (Northridge, CA)
Pierce College (Woodland Hills, CA)
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (Indianapolis, IN)
Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana (Indianapolis, IN)                University of Louisville (Louisville, KY)               
Elizabethtown Community and Technical College (Elizabethtown, KY)               
University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT)
Salt Lake Community College (Salt Lake City, UT)                University of Wisconsin-Parkside (Kenosha, WI)                University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh (Oshkosh, WI)                University of Wisconsin-Waukesha (Waukesha, WI)                University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley (Menasha, WI)               
James Madison University (Harrisonburg, VA)               
Blue Ridge Community College (Weyers Cave, VA)                Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, VA)               
J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College (Richmond, VA)            

“I am impressed with the commitment and leadership demonstrated by these institutions, each of whom will help chart a path by which we can increase completion rates while we also raise students’ levels of achievement,” said AAC&U President Carol Geary Schneider.  “I am certain that institutions in these states and others around the country will benefit from the work these pioneering institutions are undertaking.”

Quality Collaboratives is a three-year project that is part of AAC&U’s ongoing Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) initiative. It is engaging teams of educational, assessment, and policy leaders in California, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Oregon, Utah, Wisconsin, and Virginia.  These states were chosen to participate because many institutions in them have already been working extensively within the LEAP network of projects, states, and institutions on issues of learning outcomes, curricular change, high-impact practices, and assessment.  They will all build on these prior efforts to clarify, map, assess, and improve the achievement of learning outcomes essential for success in life, work, and citizenship in the twenty-first century.

The project is built on a consensus framework of learning outcomes—articulated in the DQP—that charts levels of competence which every college student should achieve and integrate in five areas: broad and specialized knowledge, intellectual skills, applied learning, and civic learning.

Using this framework, institutions participating in the project will test a family of assessment approaches that assess learning demonstrated in samples of students’ actual work.  This family of approaches will help campuses develop educational practices that:

• help students achieve essential outcomes at appropriately high levels;
• document students’ attainment of outcomes; and
• facilitate students’ transfer of courses and competencies from two-year institutions to four-year institutions on their way to completing college degrees.

“Faculty members and academic leaders at these institutions understand that our students’ hopes for their futures depend specifically on the breadth and quality of their learning in college,” said Terrel Rhodes, AAC&U Vice President and Quality Collaboratives Project Director. “These campus leaders will be working to build institutional capacity to assess the competence of students across the complex set of learning outcomes students need to be successful as citizens and employees. Moving the quality of the degree to the center of higher education’s efforts to facilitate transfer student retention and graduation is central to this work.”

Informed by the pilot work of these participating institutions, the QC initiative will result in:

• a set of new national reporting templates and strategies for assessing student competence on essential learning outcomes for use in student transfer;
• recommended practices, models, and demonstration sites for institutionally fostering faculty leadership;
• recommended practices, policies, and examples for incorporating evidence of students’ demonstrated competence on a range of learning outcomes within transfer policies and priorities.

About AAC&U

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 1,200 member institutions—including accredited public and private colleges, community 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.

About Lumina Foundation

Lumina Foundation, an Indianapolis-based private foundation, strives to help people achieve their potential by expanding access to and success in education beyond high school.  Through grants for research, innovation, communication and evaluation, as well as policy education and leadership development, Lumina Foundation addresses issues that affect access and educational attainment among all students, especially underserved student groups such as minorities, students from low-income families, first-time college-goers and working adults.  The Foundation believes postsecondary education is one of the most beneficial investments individuals can make in themselves and that society can make in its people.  For more information, www.luminafoundation.org.