Making Liberal Education Inclusive: The Roots and Reach of the LEAP Framework for College Learning

From 2005 to 2018, AAC&U led a national public advocacy and campus-action initiative to champion the importance of a liberal education for individual students and for a nation dependent on economic creativity and democratic vitality. At the heart of the initiative—titled Liberal Education and America’s Promise, or LEAP—was a distinctive framework for college-level learning that includes a set of broad learning outcomes, high-impact educational practices, and authentic forms of assessment. Making Liberal Education Inclusive tells the LEAP story and situates it within the broader context of AAC&U’s work over the two previous decades to break down the dividing lines between a “true” liberal arts education and career-related fields, integrally connect liberal learning with the wider world, and combine liberal education with inclusive excellence and equity.