ANAC Focuses Agenda for Coming
Academic Year

The Associated New American Colleges will complete the three-year cycle of the "ANAC 2000" strategic plan during the coming academic year. Review of what has been accomplished and consideration of future goals and priorities have begun. ANAC's Institutional Representatives at their June meeting at Ithaca College reaffirmed the continuing centrality for ANAC projects of the twin-focus on faculty work issues and integration of liberal and professional studies. The representatives launched initiatives to plan the next phase of these projects to follow completion and dissemination of findings and results of current project activities over the coming year. ANAC's member Chief Finance Officers, meeting July 22 in Chicago at NACUBO, reviewed initial findings from ANAC's financial benchmarking project and made plans to expand this project at a conference to be held at the University of Redlands, tentatively February 8-10, 2001. ANAC's Presidents Council and member institution public relations directors are engaged with ANAC's national media relations project, an undertaking to deepen our understanding of the strengths and educational advantages of the New American College institutional model and to articulate the responsiveness of ANAC member institutions to larger concerns about higher education's quality, accountability, and cost-effectiveness. (Story continued below.)

Articles In This Issue:


ANAC Projects and Activities:

• ANAC CFOs Compare Financial Ratios and Benchmarking Data at Chicago NACUBO Meeting, July 22.
• Faculty Work Project Report Manuscript and Dissemination Preparations
• Hewlett Project Plans National Dissemination Conference for January 17, 2001
• ANAC Data Exchange Readies Year II Data for Comparisons and Benchmarking
• ANAC National Media Relations Project the Focus of PR Directors and Presidents Council
• ANACSA Scheduled to Begin Operations in Summer 2001

ANAC Member Campus News:

• Tom Wolfe to Keynote September 11 Dedication of Arnold Bernhard Library at Quinnipiac University
• Drake University Receives Nearly $10 Million in Two Gifts
• University of Redlands Receives Grants for Working Adult Teacher Preparation Program
• Belmont University Offers "Women in the Next Millennium" and "Health Care, Business Ethics, and Compliance"
• Personnel News

Editorials and Commentary:

• Robert C. Allen: Successful Corporations Turn to Higher Education for Models
• Lattie F. Coor: Universities of the Future Will Focus on Community Engagement
• Richard Guarasci: Democratic Education in an Age of Difference to Counter "Bowling Alone"

What's Ahead—Upcoming Events:

• National Academy for Academic Leadership Sponsors Workshop for Chief Academic and Chief Financial Officers, November 19-22
• ANAC Calendar of Upcoming Events

The ANAC 2000 Plan is based on the proposition that ANAC activities and projects should be designed in ways that advance these general goals:

• Enhance institutional focus on student learning.
• Promote institutional integration; generate synergy.
• Focus on performance outcomes; emphasize best practices.
• Contribute to faculty professional growth.
• Communicate the "ANAC Difference."
• Serve higher education in general.

Three of ANAC's core projects will receive significant attention in planning for the future: 1) the four-year faculty work project, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts until next summer, will emphasize dissemination of results and publication of a report manuscript during the coming year. Report presentations are already scheduled for the CIC, AACU, and AAHE annual conferences between November and February 2001; 2); the ANAC project for integration of liberal and professional studies in major program curricula, funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, is in its third year and will hold a national conference to disseminate results on January 17, 2001, in conjunction with AACU; and 3) the ANAC Data Exchange, ANAC's online data comparison and benchmarking site for 260 member institution data items, is preparing to report Year II data in September, after significant advances from Year I with the assistance of member institutional research directors. ANAC is also launching ANAC Study Abroad (ANACSA) next summer, a consortium of existing member foreign study programs.