• Front Page
• News Briefs
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Drury College campus.

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Articles In This Issue:

• ANAC Approaches Millennium
• Drury University
• Faculty Work Project "Think Tank"
• ANAC Chief Finance Officers Meet
• ANAC Increases National Involvement
• ANAC Meeting Calendar
• ANAC News Briefs
• ANAC & AAC&U Conference

Healthy enrollments appear to be the norm, especially at the traditional-age undergraduate level as the Millennium academic year gets underway on ANAC member campuses. Members report both record freshmen enrollments and a scrambling to prepare new residential space for students. Indeed, the advent of the new Millennium will record the ongoing transformation of New American colleges and universities as institutions uniquely adapted to an era in higher education that values the blending of tradition with innovation, responsiveness to students and community, attention to faculty effectiveness, and collaboration for continuous improvement. Ten areas where this transformation is clearly visible, often reflecting ANAC thinking in strategic planning:

1. Capital campaigns in excess of $100 million are becoming commonplace.
2. Major building programs, often multi-unit, are underway on nearly every campus.
3. Institutions are investing in community development projects near campus, including housing, commercial space, and community services, even schools.
4. Distance learning competition is accelerating, especially for part-time adult students.
5. Technological enhancement of regular campus courses is rapidly developing.
6. New interdisciplinary programs are being added, especially to link liberal and professional studies and to enhance existing core programs.
7. New forms of collaboration are appearing to reduce overhead and improve services—Will ANAC collaborations be next?
8. Experiments are underway to improve faculty governance and work structures.
9. On line benchmarking for academic effectiveness and financial viability is evolving rapidly.
10. Differentiation of New American colleges and universities is gaining ground in the higher education marketplace.

Perhaps the most dramatic transformation will occur at Drury College, which is changing its name to Drury University, effective with the onset of the new millennium. The name change reflects Drury's recent evolution from liberal arts college to comprehensive institution with the addition of graduate and professional programs, including ANAC's only school of architecture. During the mid-1990's, Drury trademarked the name "Drury College: The Collegiate University," in recognition of its changing character, a developmental path that led Drury to become a member of ANAC.

The project management team is in place and literature review and working group analysis activities are well underway as faculty representatives and academic administrators at eighteen ANAC member institutions visit the Faculty Work Project web site (http://www.anac.org) and discussion forum (http://susqu.edu/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=9) and conduct an intense email and telephone conversation designed to enhance faculty work. Jerry Berberet (anacjberb@aol.com) is project director and Linda McMillin of Susquehanna University (mcmillin@susqu.edu) is project manager and coordinator of communications. Support for the project has been secured through a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts.

The project is organized into three working groups who are seeking to develop models of faculty work that improve alignment between faculty and their institutional mission while improving faculty effectiveness and satisfaction. One working group which McMillin coordinates is seeking to improve departmental effectiveness in allocating, evaluating, and rewarding faculty work A second, coordinated by Lawry Finsen of University of Redlands, is studying ways to improve the effectiveness of faculty governance and institutional service. The third, coordinated by Marion Terenzio of The Sage Colleges, is focusing on ways that institutions might better support faculty at different stages of their careers and faculty might more fully utilize their expertise and interests on behalf of the institution. Working groups will meet together at Belmont University, November 5-7, to present their preliminary findings, to evaluate their progress, and to plan for participation in the AAHE Faculty Roles and Rewards Conference in New Orleans, February 3-6, 2000. A variety of higher education figures across the nation who are engaged in projects involving aspects of faculty work are serving as consultants to the project.

Chief finance officers at ten ANAC institutions met on July 17, at the annual conference of the National Association of College and University Business Officers in San Antonio. Considerable time was spent networking and discussing common problems and their resolution. Larry Goldstein, senior vice president at NACUBO, provided an update on NACUBO projects involving ANAC members and encouraged the group to plan a cooperative ANAC-NACUBO project. The group discussed the findings and methodology of the NACUBO college cost pilot project which includes the participation of University of Redlands and Susquehanna University. Doug Brown, President of Tuition Plan, discussed this pre-paid tuition plan as a private higher education strategy that has attracted more than one-hundred member institutions and is designed to keep pace with tuition plans being implemented for public institutions.

As a follow-up to the group's interest in benchmarking, networking, and possible collaboration with NACUBO, ANAC CFO's plan a conference in February 2000, to analyze measures of financial health and viability that seem most appropriate for ANAC member institutions and to invite representatives from NACUBO and financial organizations to participate. In addition, efforts will be made in the near future to share information in such areas as budgeting practices, enrollment planning, and maintaining currency with information technologies.

Recent indications of the national acknowledgement ANAC is receiving are reflected in a brief article in the July-August Academe, the bulletin of AAUP, on findings of ANAC's faculty work project (p. 11). In addition, Jerry Berberet was a guest reviewer, August 17-18, on proposed standards of institutional financial viability and educational effectiveness for the American Academy of Liberal Education's accreditation of liberal arts programs; will be a panelist at the October 4-6 Conference of Funders for Education in Chicago; and at the Conference of the American Association of Academic Deans in Seattle, November 10-13.

Berberet's August travel schedule included serving as the year opening convocation speaker at Castleton State College in Vermont, an opportunity to relate ANAC principles to a public comprehensive setting. And, along the way, he was able to visit the campus of ANAC member The Sage Colleges in New York.

September 11 Fall Meeting of ANAC Presidents Council, Wyndham Garden O'Hare Hotel (773-693-5800), Chicago, 8:30 am-4:00 pm.

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

November 5-7 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.)

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 Meeting; January 20-21, ANAC Hewlett Project Campus Coordinators' 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 Practice," at Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, WA (See Conference announcement.)