New American Colleges and Universities Summer Institute 2011
From Founding Conversations to 21st Century Best Practices
June 22 - 24, 2011
Hosted by North Central College, Naperville, Illinois
“You have all these conversations that no one planned on, but they just happen organically,” noted Karl Stumo of Pacific Lutheran University, talking about the unique interactions when administrators, faculty, and staff get together at Summer Institute.
The 2011 Summer Institute at North Central College in Naperville, Ill., was rich in conversations about best practices, past successes, and challenges and goals for the future, both for individual institutions and the consortium. One hundred and ten representatives from 18 of the 20 NAC&U member institutions were in attendance. Discussions took place formally -- through sessions and affinity group meetings -- and informally -- on the walk to North Central's Wentz Concert Hall or over creme brûlée during the Chicago Excursion. It reminded one of the intentional blending of curricular and co-curricular that NAC&U students experience.
“People have been energized by the opportunity to network with peers from other colleges and universities and engage in dialogue in virtually every arena,” said Fran Navakas, Coordinator of the institute and Svend and Elizabeth Bramsen Professor in the Humanities and associate academic dean at North Central College. “People will be going back to their home campuses and looking for ways to apply the best practices that have been discussed here.”
The Institute began with the presentation of the consortium’s new strategic priorities. Presidents Richard Guarasci, Mark Heckler, and Harold Wilde provided an overview of the past, present, and future of the Consortium, before institutions gathered together to discuss the alignment of consortial and campus priorities. Outgoing Board chair, Linda Hanson, moderated the panel.
Should faculty encourage meditation and self-reflection? NAC&U Boyer Award winners and prominent higher education researchers Alexander "Sandy" and Helen "Lena" Astin inspired Summer Institute participants to consider how institutions might facilitate students' spiritual growth. Their survey findings from thousands of college students across diverse institutional settings found that students are interested in spiritual matters and colleges and universities can help foster that growth.
One of the greatest values of summer institutes is the sharing of best practices. Thirty presenters from 13 institutions presented panels on topics ranging from an integrated approach for supporting student success and retention at PLU to Rod Goodyear of Redlands sharing his work comparing role expectations and styles of deans at NAC&U related institutions, research extensive, and public comprehensive universities.
Participants were treated to a guided tour of Chicago by Blair Kamin, Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Tribune architecture critic and adjunct professor of art at North Central. The tour began at a reception hosted by President Harold and Benna Wilde’s in their home on Lake Shore Avenue. Their building is among the first tall embodiments of Mies van der Rhoe’s approach to structural clarity.
NAC&U members thanked Linda Hanson, president at Hamline University, for her service as Chair of the Board of Directors for the past two years, and Charles Taylor, at left, vice president of Academic Affairs at Drury University, as he completed his tenure as chair of the IREPs. There were also tributes to NAC&U Executive Director Lynette Robinson, who is retiring after five years at the helm of the consortium.
During a Featured Forum, guest speaker Sean Paul Knierim—chief of staff for the president of the $5.6 billion John D. and Katherine T. MacArthur Foundation—gave a talk titled “Reimagining Learning in the 21st Century: The Partnership Between Foundations and Higher Education.” Knierim said the things the MacArthur Foundation is pursuing are similar to the goals that many of the colleges represented in NAC&U are pursuing.
The inspiring final keynote address was delivered by W. Gardner Campbell, director of professional development and innovative initiatives at Virginia Tech. Campbell urged the audience of faculty and other academic leaders assembled in Meiley-Swallow Hall to consider ways Internet-based technology can be used to engage students in classrooms. “Expanding the range and depth for the capacity for interest is what fuels lifelong learning,” he said. Certainly, the conversations that begin at Summer Institute continue to fuel new discussions and initiatives in the coming months.
“The Summer Institute has an especially profound impact on people who are experiencing it for their first time.” Robinson said. “It is perhaps the only professional meeting when people from roles all across an institution - presidents, administrators, and faculty - come together to discuss what it means to be an intentionally integrative institution, or, in Boyer’s words, a 'new American college or university.' Because of the uniqueness of the institute, we have many people returning year after year.” The 2012 Summer Institute will be at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah.
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