• Front Page
• News Briefs
• PLU Dialogue

Surrounded by scaffolding, Mercer University's hallmark Administration Building is one of many buildings on the campus currently undergoing renovations. (See related story in this issue.) In addition, a myriad of new buildings will be constructed on the Macon campus over the next several years. This campus improvement effort is made possible partly through the 5-year, $126 million Mercer 2000: Advancing the Vision Campaign.

Mercer students work side-by-side with local residents to clean up a downtown Macon neighborhood. Their effort is part of a comprehensive neighborhood revitalization program initiated by the Mercer Center for Community Development.

"We also challenge higher education to become engaged, through actions and teaching with its communities."
--Presidents' Fourth of July Declaration

This situation places colleges and universities in the "engine room of the knowledge society," as the economy is being "transformed from high volume to high value production."
--Michael Fitzgerald

back to the top

Articles In This Issue:

• ANAC Members Report Record Fall Enrollments
• ANAC Presidents Council Meets in Chicago
• Mercer University Center for Community Development
• ANAC PR Directors and Librarians Initiate Meetings
• Presidents' Fourth of July Declaration on Civic Education
• WWNFF Announces AmeriCorps Opportunities
• The Education-Driven Economy—A View from England
• ANAC Meeting Calendar
• ANAC News Briefs
• PLU Dialogue on New American College Paradigm

Perhaps reflecting an integrative mission that ANAC institutions articulate successfully to students—one of combining liberal arts education with career and professional preparation to enhance liberal learning—several ANAC members report record enrollments this fall. University of Redlands set a record for the fourth straight year in the number of new students enrolled, nearly 13 percent more than last year, and nearly doubled its Hispanic student enrollment—now 12 percent of new Redlands students. Hamline University reports a record full-time undergraduate enrollment that includes 420 freshmen, a 10 percent increase in its all-time high first-year number. Equally impressive, this was achieved while maintaining entering student quality and decreasing the financial aid discount rate by one percent. Valparaiso University enrolled its largest class of new freshmen in eleven years (780 students) with a slight increase in quality, and saw Law enrollment increase for the second successive year and Engineering enrollment reach its highest level since 1992. University of Hartford enrolled its largest freshman class in the past decade, part of approximately 1,600 new students living in campus residence halls. Drury College increased its total enrollment approximately 6 percent to a total headcount of 4,159 for the fall. And, North Central College enrolled its largest freshman class in history, reaching in May a freshman deposit total that exceeded the size of last year's large entering class.

The ANAC Presidents Council held its fall meeting in Chicago on September 11. Discussion revolved around ways that ANAC members might work together to benefit students and to strengthen the message regarding the contributions of private comprehensive institutions to American higher education. In the former area the presidents encouraged the formation of an ANAC international education consortium and the development of student and faculty exchanges within ANAC. Regarding the latter, conversation centered on the implications of the "regionally committed, nationally connected" character of member institutions, a status recognized early by US News and World Report in its creation of the "Regional University" category where most ANAC members are included in the first grouping in their respective region. How ANAC members collaborate regarding technology, for example, could be an issue that illustrates the regional/national identity theme. The presidents reaffirmed ANAC's membership policy of remaining of limited size (not more than twenty-five institutional members) and the seeking of a geographical balance of members from all parts of the country. They also encouraged increased collaboration with the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and initiatives to expand faculty and staff interaction and professional development through ANAC.

As a reflection of their commitment to their local regions, ANAC member institutions have partnered in a variety of large scale community development undertakings. One such project, the Mercer University Center for Community Development's effort to revitalize the deteriorating "Central South" neighborhood adjacent to the University and downtown Macon, has just received a $400,000 federal Housing and Urban Development matching Community Outreach Partnership Centers (COPC) grant. Mercer is just one of twenty-two colleges and universities nationally to receive a COPC grant (of 150 applicants) which support technical assistance, training, and applied research for community-based organizations and local governments. In laying the groundwork for the project, Mercer facilitated creation of the neighborhood advocacy group, Willing Workers Association of Central South, and worked closely with the City of Macon, the Macon Housing Authority, the Bibb County Public Schools, and local churches and United Way groups.

According to Peter Brown, a Mercer faculty member and Center Director, the Central South project is intended to be a model that will be extended to other deteriorating inner-city Macon neighborhoods. The project has the goals of building community infrastructure capacity, meeting community educational and life skill needs, and providing affordable housing redevelopment. Multiple activities are underway in support of each goal, including Mercer student service learning involvement ranging from tutoring and mentoring of neighborhood children to neighborhood "clean-ups" and construction of Habitat for Humanity houses, faculty-student-staff applied research and redevelopment planning, a Mercer scholarship program for local community student leaders who are involved with revitalization of their home neighborhoods, and financial assistance for faculty and staff to purchase homes in the inner-city neighborhood.

Public relations and information directors at ANAC member institutions will meet for the first time on November 7, just prior to the 10^th Annual AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education in New Orleans, November 7-10. In addition to exchanging information and strategies about the marketing of their institutions, the group will discuss the central features that differentiate the New American College model and its contribution to higher education, ways of interpreting aggregate ANAC institutional performance data in "telling our story," and steps that might be taken in working together to increase ANAC and member visibility.

Ronald H. Epp and Charles Getchell, library directors at the University of Hartford and Quinnipiac College, respectively, have launched an initiative to establish communication among ANAC library directors. Arising from informal email and other conversations, this effort is exploring the feasibility of interchange and possible collaboration around common issues of library management and areas such as:

• Fundraising and grantsmanship,
• Ill/Document delivery prioritization for ANAC members,
• Consortial pricing negotiations with vendors,
• Web-based publications created from institutional resources,
• Digital mining of archival and special collections,
• Moving beyond IPEDS to new measures of information resources strength,
• Human resource challenges for the millennium, and
• Benchmarking peer institutions.

Ronald Epp (repp@mail.hartford.edu, ph 860-768-4268, fax 860-768-4165) and Charles Getchell (getchell@quinnipiac.edu, ph 203-281-8631, fax 203-287-3451) invite responses. They propose a possible meeting of library directors in connection with upcoming American Library Association meetings in San Antonio (midwinter 2000) and Chicago (annual 2000), or, possibly, the June 2000 ANAC summer conference.

Elizabeth Hollander, Executive Director of Campus Compact, reports that more than 200 college and university presidents have signed the Presidents' Fourth of July Declaration on the Civic Responsibility of Higher Education. Drafted by Hollander and Thomas Ehrlich, senior scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the declaration begins, "As presidents of colleges and universities, both private and public, large and small, two-year and four-year, we challenge higher education to reexamine its public purposes and its commitments to the democratic ideal. We also challenge higher education to become engaged, through actions and teaching with its communities."

The declaration decries the decline of citizen participation in the electoral process and calls for faculty and the curriculum to do their part in supporting activities such as service learning to develop civic knowledge and citizen responsibility. Campuses are encouraged to utilize a proposed Campus Assessment of Civic Responsibility as an instrument to help identify effective activities for campus and community engagement. The Presidents' Fourth of July Declaration on Civic Responsibility can be accessed at the Campus Compact website (http://www.compact.org/resources/plc-declaration.html) and presidents may sign on by emailing ehollander@compact.org.

The National School and Community Corps, a dynamic AmeriCorps national service program administered by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, is seeking college graduates who want to support educational reform and excellence in Philadelphia or Baltimore public schools. Corpsmembers, serving 40 hours per week, work directly with children and their families, providing programs and focusing on academic, social, and personal development. Full-time, year-long service and short-term, 8 month opportunities are available. New classes of corpsmembers will begin service on January 17, in mid-June, and early August. It's not too early to think about applying for next year.

In exchange for a year of AmeriCorps service, corpsmembers receive:

• An annual living allowance of $8,730 (pro-rated if short term),
• An educational award of $4,725 for full-time service ($2,362 for short term service),
• Health insurance,
• Child care, if qualified,
• Loan deferment and interest paid on qualifying educational loans, and
• Extensive training and valuable experience.

To receive an application and information packet, call: 1-800-852-0626. For further information, call Marcella Nixon-Brown: 215-875-8062.

Michael Fitzgerald, former chief executive of Thames Valley University in the United Kingdom and earlier director of students in the faculty of social sciences in the Open University, delivered a provocative keynote address, "Globalization of Higher Education," at NACUBO in July in San Antonio. Sketching a future where the critical challenge will be the simultaneous management of contradictions (e.g., more v. less, care v. risks, speed v. quality, opportunity v. competition, expand v. focus, collaboration v. autonomy, standards v. pecking order standing), Fitzgerald asserted that education will drive the knowledge economy far more than will the availability of natural resources. This situation places colleges and universities in the "engine room of the knowledge society," as the economy is being "transformed from high volume to high value production." As a consequence, he warns, politicians will become increasingly involved because, "Education has become too important to be left to the educators."

As learning is the key to a successful economy, "lifelong learning for lifelong earning" will be the inevitable educational reality. Education is seriously lagging in the developing world in meeting realities of the global economy, in part because of tightening intellectual property rights. This has consequences from wealth to health. Fitzgerald's self-styled mission is to urge us onward with global education, but not in terms of distribution system, rather distributed learning; not multi-media but multiple media. Citing the band width demands of online technology, Fitzgerald made an E. F. Schumacher-like case for "appropriate" educational technology, including the book! He illustrated this point in describing the capacity of 1 million bytes:

• Text of a 700 page book
• 50 spoken words
• 5 pictures, or
• 3 seconds of video

He endorsed "high tech-high touch" educational approaches, but argued that education will inevitably move in a direction away from being campus-based toward being network-based--toward a community of learning based on use not place. To be effective, learning must become more learner and active learning-centered. Because education matters like never before, efforts to dumb-down must be strongly resisted. The development of the global economy requires that education stand for inclusion, not exclusion, democratizing but not dumbing-down.

September 30-October 3 Association of Integrative Studies Conference at North Central College, Naperville, IL (Contact Francine Navakas for information - email fgn@noctrl.edu.)

November 5-6 ANAC Faculty Work Project Meeting at Belmont University, Nashville, TN (Working group collaborative discussions-email Linda McMillin, Project Manager: mcmillin@susqu.edu or Jerry Berberet: anacjberb@aol.com for information.)

November 7 ANAC PR Directors Meeting at New Orleans Hilton Riverside (reservations 1-800-445-8667), in connection with American Marketing Association Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education, November 7-10 (Contact Jerry Berberet anacjberb@aol.com for information.)

January 20-22, 2000 AAC&U Annual Meeting: Greater Expectations, Washington, DC (January 19 - pre-AACU ANAC International Education 2000 Mini-conference; January 19-20 - ANAC Institutional Representatives Winter Meeting)

February 3-6, 2000 AAHE Faculty Roles and Rewards Conference: Scholarship Reconsidered Reconsidered,New Orleans (February 2-3 ANAC Faculty Work Project Meeting immediately preceding AAHE Conference)

April 6-8, 2000 ANAC/AAC&U Conference: Integration of Liberal and Professional Studies: from Aspirations to Improved Practices, at Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, WA (Contact Eliza Reilly at AACU reilly@aacu.nw.dc.us or Berberet anacjberb@aol.com for information.)