Jillian Kinzie of NSSE spoke at
Summer Institute.

• ANAC Academy Plans for 2004-05 and Traverso Transition
• ANAC Explores Creating NSSE Consortium
• ANAC Data Exchange Invites 2003-04 Member Data
• Observing ANAC’s First Decade and Higher Education Pluralism

ANAC Academy Plans for 2004-05 and Traverso Transition

ANAC institutional representatives are charting future directions for ANAC Academy development, such as expansion of the summer institute program to become the ANAC “annual meeting” with affinity group meetings, programs geared to institutional and individual needs at various stages of faculty/staff careers, and increased involvement of faculty members and chief student affairs officers in planning Academy programs. IReps thanked Susan Traverso, the Academy’s founding director, who is becoming dean of arts and sciences at the University of Redlands this summer.

ANAC Explores Creating NSSE Consortium

Director Susan Wright, associate provost at Drake University, has taken the lead with a survey of ANAC member chief academic officers to explore support for creation of an ANAC consortium for the 2004-05 National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). Such a consortium would enable ANAC members to benchmark NSSE results, thereby adding an additional set of benchmarks to measures arising from ANAC Data Exchange and CFO financial benchmarking.

ANAC Data Exchange Collects 2003-04 Member Data

ANAC member institutional research directors have been requested to enter 2003-04 institutional data in the ANAC Data Exchange. The Exchange gathers approximately 250 pieces of data regarding enrollments, student outcomes, faculty and staff, programs, and finances. Data is gathered from IPEDS, Common Data Set, and institutionally generated sources, the latter in order to gain a greater focus on outcomes. The Exchange will soon have a seven-year longitudinal data-base that will be available for member benchmarking this fall.

Observing ANAC’s First Decade and Higher Education Pluralism

As a means of highlighting the first decade observance of the founding of ANAC in 1995, ANAC is launching a project to increase understanding within higher education of the distinctive characteristics and contributions of small and mid-sized independent colleges and universities that offer both liberal arts and professional programs and identify closely with the regions where they are located. This effort seems especially important in an era of increasing institutional pluralism in higher education, although a stereotyping of four-year higher education as composed of two institutional types—small liberal arts colleges and large research universities—still exists. The project will shed light on institutional responsiveness at a time when society requires more of education and when public and private institutions similar to ANAC members significantly outnumber the combined total of the former two institutional types.

Susquehanna and Butler Summer Institute participants enjoy a light
moment with Susan Traverso (standing).