The Association of American Universities (AAU) calls on the Administration, Congress, and academia, with the help of the business sector, to implement a 21st Century National Defense Education and Innovation Initiative aimed at meeting the economic and security challenges we will face over the next half-century. Government and America's…

Interdisciplinary research and education have long been part of the university programmatic structure. More recently, however, university interdisciplinary projects, programs, centers, and institutes have grown in number, diversity, and complexity. This growth generally reflects the need for new combinations of disciplinary knowledge and research…

Copyright law supports a fundamental mission of colleges and universities to create and disseminate new knowledge and understanding through teaching, research, and scholarship in two basic ways: (1) by providing incentives for the creation of new works through the provision of proprietary rights to copyright owners, and (2) by providing…

From Socrates' time on, liberal arts education has been understood to produce a general learned competence that allows a student to be both a better human being and a better citizen. The breadth of this liberal arts curriculum stands in contrast to the much narrower vocational curriculum. More recently, the humanities have been caught in a…

This report from the National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement calls on the nation to reclaim higher education's civic mission. Commissioned by the Department of Education and released at a White House convening in January 2012, the report pushes back against a prevailing national dialogue that limits the mission of higher…

From November 8 to December 12, 2007, Peter D. Hart Research Associates, Inc., on behalf of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, interviewed 301 employers whose companies have at least 25 employees and report that 25% or more of their new hires hold at least a bachelor's degree from a four-year college. Employers are satisfied…

On behalf of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), researchers at the University of Michigan's Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education surveyed 23,000 undergraduate students and 9,000 campus professionals (faculty, academic administrators, and student affairs staff) at 23 institutions participating in…

This curriculum guide serves to assist faculty who are developing undergraduate courses in public health as well as educational administrators and faculty curriculum committees who are designing undergraduate public health curricula. The approach outlined in these recommendations focuses on the development of three core courses, each of which is…

This report identifies the essential aims, learning outcomes, and guiding principles for a 21st century college education. It is based on extensive input both from educators and employers and responds to the new global challenges today's students face. It describes the learning contemporary students need from college, and what it will take to help…

This publication features a series of reports on how selected colleges and universities foster and assess student learning in twelve liberal education outcome areas, including writing, quantitative literacy, critical thinking, ethics, intercultural knowledge, and information literacy. Moving from goals to experiences, assessments, and improvements…

This issue of "Diversity Digest" grows out of one recent effort to raise the visibility of science in diversity and global learning initiatives. Articles in this issue include: (1) Science, Diversity, and Global Learning: Untangling Complex Problems (Kevin Hovland); (2) Breaking the Pyramid: Putting Science in the Core (Darcy Kelley); (3) Science…

Published by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, this issue of "Diversity Digest" focuses on institutional leadership and how it advances diversity in higher education. Articles presented in this issue include: (1) Intercultural Learning for Inclusive Excellence (Edgar Beckham); (2) Demanding, Attracting, and Developing…

This practical guide, written for undergraduate students, is intended to take some of the mystery out of curricular requirements and educate students about what really matters in college--the broad learning outcomes developed over the entire course of their undergraduate years. The ideas presented represent a consensus of contemporary thinking…

This issue of "Diversity Digest" contains articles and resources focused on the lasting lessons, legacies, and spirit of the 1954 "Brown v. Board of Education" decision. This year of the fiftieth anniversary, filled with ceremonies, celebrations, and commemorations of that decision has highlighted many well known and lesser known people who fought…

One of the great challenges in higher education is to help students integrate their learning. The capacity to make connections is essential to the conduct of personal, professional, and civic life, and is at the very heart of liberal education. It is also, arguably, more important than ever, and more difficult to achieve, as students transfer…