News from ANAC Campuses:

• Hampton & Elon Bring Distinctive Strengths to ANAC
• George Cornell's $10 Million Gift to Rollins Students
• PLU Initiates ANAC Digital Portfolio Project
• Quinnipiac Achieves AACSB Accreditation
• "The Entrepreneurial Artist" Project at North Central
• Results of Survey of ANAC Campus Health Services
• Passages: New Belmont President; ANAC Provosts Become Presidents; Anderson Becomes Chair-Elect at NAICU; Tragic Belmont Plane Crash

Hampton and Elon Bring Distinctive Strengths to ANAC

Hampton University traces its storied history to outcomes of the Civil War and its founding in 1868 to meet the educational needs of thousands of former slaves who gathered behind Union lines at the one location south of the Mason and Dixon line that remained in federal hands throughout the War. President Abraham Lincoln came to what became the Hampton campus in 1863 to deliver the Emancipation Proclamation under the great "Emancipation Oak" tree that stands today as a monument to free people everywhere.

Through its history as Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, later as Hampton Institute, and still later as Hampton University (1984), the University has served large numbers of Native American, as well as African American, students and today has a substantial enrollment of international students. Always strong in liberal arts education with career preparation in mind, Hampton first began to offer graduate and professional programs in the 1950's, offerings today that range from accredited programs in architecture, engineering, and aviation sciences to computer science, music, nursing, and teacher education. The University Museum has world class African, American Indian, and African American art and archival holdings, including 8 million manuscripts and 50,000 photographs. Dedicated in 1992, the William R. and Norma B. Harvey Library houses nearly 400,000 volumes and several special collections, including the George Foster Peabody collection of more than 33,000 cataloged items by and about African Americans.

Elon College remained a small liberal arts institution until the 1970's when the College experienced a rapid transformation that continues to the present day. Since 1980 the student body has increased in size by 54 percent and Elon has established a national reputation for its experiential learning programs. Forty-six percent of Elon students study abroad, two-thirds complete an off campus internship, and 67 percent participate in a remarkable student-operated volunteer program that includes an annual commitment to build a Habitat for Humanity house. Recently, Elon has undertaken an aggressive building campaign that includes the opening of the McMichael Science Center in 1998, the Belk Library in February 2000, several residence halls, and ground-breaking for a new stadium.

George Cornell's $10 Million Gift to Rollins Students

Virtually every private college and university has several unusually generous philanthropists, usually alums, who make a critical difference in providing the resources that enable institutions to thrive as well as survive. George and Harriet Cornell of the class of '35 had been such donors in the history of Rollins College, giving nearly $20 million over the years—gifts that supported construction of the College fine arts center, social science building, and campus center, all of which bear their name. Following Harriet's death last August, George informed President Rita Bornstein in October at the Rollins Donor Recognition Dinner of his intention to donate $10 million for scholarships, the largest gift in Rollins' 114-year history and the gift that enabled Rollins to exceed its $100 million campaign goal—two years ahead of schedule!

PLU Initiates ANAC Digital Portfolio Project

Professor Thom Sepic of the PLU School of Business has a dream—to enable ANAC students to develop hypertext digital portfolios as a means of demonstrating online what they have learned as a result of their educational experiences and enabling their references to speak online to their capabilities via video clip segments in the portfolio. PLU Provost Paul Menzel became so intrigued with the idea that he helped to come up with the special funding that allowed Sepic to offer a special capstone class to ten PLU seniors who developed digital portfolios during the 1999-2000 academic year. The resume products of their efforts are dramatic, as students from across the University have developed online evidence of their learning—including subtle capabilities such as leadership, creativity, teamwork, and ability to manage change—and their skill at presenting it in a vibrant, interactive multi-media format.

Professor Sepic is now eager to establish an ANAC network of like-minded faculty and administrators who would like to develop digital portfolios at their institutions and, perhaps, a national model enabling students to demonstrate their competencies from whatever learning source through a medium much more powerful and credible than the paper c.v. and letters of reference. You may email communicate with Thom Sepic at no1thom@email.msn.com and with me at anacjberb@aol.com. I will facilitate a demonstration of the PLU digital portfolio at a conference in the near future, perhaps at the Woodrow Wilson Summer Institute at Ithaca College, June 14-17.

Quinnipiac Achieves AACSB Accreditation

Quinnipiac College has just received word that its School of Business has been awarded accreditation by AACSB-The International Association of Management Education. In achieving this status, Quinnipiac gains a distinction enjoyed by a number of ANAC members, but one achieved by only three of ten business schools nationwide. In Connecticut, for example, only four business schools are accredited.

"The Entrepreneurial Artist" Project at North Central

North Central College Professor of International Business and Marketing Gary Ernst, with three recent North Central alums, one current student, and a grant from Chicago's Coleman Foundation, has initiated a 13-part educational video series entitled, "The Entrepreneurial Artist." Each video will depict the entrepreneurial experience of an artist across the spectrum of the arts—visual, musical, and dramatic—who has successfully created a market for one's art and is willing to present the lessons learned in the process. The project started as an undertaking to develop ways to teach liberal arts students how they can use their primary fields of study, whether art or zoology, to create self-employment opportunities and make a living at it. The response to the first two videos has been so positive that Ernst has plans to market them to high schools and colleges across the Midwest. There is talk even of planning a second 13-part series.

The three alums were members of North Central's national award-winning Students in Free Enterprise teams of the 1990's who went on to found Yellow House Entertainment, a firm operated out of their home in Morris, Illinois, that has undertaken such projects as a feature-length documentary and two TV pilots on the American farmer. Yellow House Entertainment is named for the campus residence where the students lived during their student days.

Results of Survey of ANAC Campus Health Services

Director of the North Central College Health Center, Agnes Flynn, RN, wanted to recommend an informed decision to College administrators in a review of College student health insurance policies. So, she conducted a survey of ANAC member institutions to find out what they do about student health insurance. These are the results:

• Twelve of the fifteen respondents require full time undergraduates to have health insurance coverage.
• Nine of the twelve members automatically bill students for their school insurance plan.
• Eleven of the twelve allow students to opt out of the school insurance, but require proof of other coverage for a waiver.
• One ANAC member does not allow the waiver option.
• Of 34 other schools surveyed, 22 require full time undergraduates to have health insurance.
• Twenty of these 22 automatically bill for the school insurance plan.
• Of the 20, three allow no waiver option and 19 require proof of insurance to exercise the waiver option.

Passages: Belmont Selects a President, PLU President Becomes NAICU Chair-Elect, ANAC Provosts Become Presidents, Tragic Plane Crash at Belmont

• Robert C. Fisher assumed the reins April 1, as the fourth president of Belmont University. Vice President for Academic Affairs at Arkansas State University since 1996, President Fisher earlier served as Dean of the School of Business at Henderson State University in Arkansas and currently is a consultant on organizational and leadership issues to US Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater.
• Charles ("Charley") Edmondson, Provost of Rollins College since 1993, has been named President of Alfred University, founded in 1836 and one of New York State's oldest independent institutions with an enrollment of 2,300 students. President Edmondson will assume his new responsibilities in July.
• William ("Bill") Hynes, Vice President for Academic Affairs at Saint Mary's College of California for the past decade, will become President in July of St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, a comprehensive institution with 2,000 students.
• President Loren Anderson of Pacific Lutheran University and incoming chair of ANAC's Presidents Council, became Vice Chair in February of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities and NAICU Chair-Elect for the 2001-2002 term. NAICU, with 900 institutional members, is the primary lobbying voice in the nation's capital for independent higher education.
• Belmont University is reeling from a tragic Easter weekend small plane accident in the western North Carolina mountains that claimed the life of Bill McCulley, Director of Institutional Research, his wife, and two small children.