November 20, 2009
President Bassett joins new Presidents' Trust for liberal education
Clark University President John Bassett reported today that he has been asked to join a new Presidents' Trust formed by the Association of American Colleges and Universities.
President Bassett and a national group of 81 other college and university leaders are forming this Trust to advocate for liberal education and its value in today's world. The Presidents' Trust is a leadership group within AAC&U's national initiative, Liberal Education and America's Promise (LEAP): Excellence for Everyone as a Nation Goes to College.
"Responsible citizenship, rewarding lives, and meaningful careers," said Bassett, "will be greatly advanced by a rigorous liberal education, but one also connected to effective practice and to knowing how to address America's challenges outside the academy."
Members of the LEAP Presidents' Trust are leaders from all sectors of higher education and are committed to advocating for the vision, values, and practices that connect liberal education with the individual and societal needs of the twenty-first-century. Through regional and national meetings and their own advocacy efforts, Trust members will engage with campus members and those outside of higher education about the core purposes and practices of liberal education. They are all also providing leadership for advancing reforms in the practice of liberal education both on campus and with other groups and organizations with which they are affiliated.
In 2009-10, the core priority areas for the Presidents' Trust include:
- Making the economic case for liberal education
- Making—and fulfilling—the civic case for liberal education
- Engaging first-generation families and new Americans with the meaning and value of liberal education
- Integrating liberal arts and professional preparation on campus
- Charting a new direction for assessment and accountability
"President Bassett is already providing valuable leadership speaking out and ensuring that Clark University students are receiving the kind of college education that will best prepare them for success in today's competitive global economy—an engaged and practical liberal education," said AAC&U President Carol Geary Schneider.
"As the nation is setting new goals for increasing college attainment, we need to focus like a laser beam on the kinds of learning that build both economic vitality and civic commitment," said Schneider. "Members of the Trust, including President Bassett, are helping to redirect the national dialogue to address these critical issues. In this new global century, his leadership will help ensure that all college students in all majors receive the kind of excellent education they deserve—one that provides them with broad knowledge, sophisticated intellectual and practical skills, a well-developed sense of personal and social responsibility, and the capacity to apply learning to new problems."
The Presidents' Trust advocates for a 21st-century vision of liberal education that combines the best of that philosophy of education's traditional focus on broad knowledge, analytic reasoning, and rigorous contextual study with newer approaches to helping students integrate and apply their learning in new settings. The Trust believes that a 21st-century liberal education empowers individuals with core knowledge and transferable skills and cultivates social responsibility and a strong sense of ethics and values. Characterized by challenging encounters with important issues, a liberal education prepares graduates both for socially valued work and for civic leadership in their society.
With its emphasis on inquiry-based learning and the opportunity to research significant contemporary issues, Clark University is defining the course for linking liberal education and effective practice to prepare graduates who can address the challenges of a rapidly-changing world. At Clark, a student's pursuit of liberal education is understood as a developmental and socially situated process that engages students actively in constructing knowledge. Clark graduates will be liberally educated people who possess and can demonstrate the following five characteristics:
- Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Natural World
- Intellectual and Practical Skills
- Personal and Social Responsibility
- Ability to Integrate Knowledge and Skills
- Capacities of Effective Practice
In March 2009, Clark convened a first-of-its-kind National Conference on Liberal Education and Effective Practice, co-sponsored by Clark's Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise and the Association of American Colleges and Universities.
Learn more about liberal education and effective practice at Clark.
About Clark University
Clark University is a private, co-educational liberal-arts research university with more than 2,200 undergraduate and 900 graduate students. Since its founding in 1887 as the first all-graduate school in the United States, Clark has challenged convention with innovative programs such as the International Studies Stream, the Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the accelerated BA/MA programs with the fifth year tuition-free for eligible students. The University is featured in the book, "Colleges That Change Lives."
About LEAP
Liberal Education and America's Promise (LEAP) is an initiative that champions the value of a liberal education—for individual students and for a nation dependent on economic creativity and democratic vitality. The initiative focuses campus practice on fostering essential learning outcomes for all students, whatever their chosen field of study. LEAP is AAC&U's primary vehicle for advancing and communicating about the importance of undergraduate liberal education for all students. LEAP seeks to engage the public with core questions about what really matters in college, to give students a compass to guide their learning, and to make a set of essential learning outcomes the preferred framework for educational excellence, assessment of learning, and new alignments between school and college.
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 1200 member institutions—including 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.