Francine Navakas (l), North Central, and Nancy Carrick, Redlands, at IReps meeting at AACU.

The fountains at Ithaca.

• March 15 Deadline for Enrollment in Fall 2005 ANACSA Featured Programs; ANAC Data Exchange Open for Benchmarking
• ANAC Communications Project Focuses on Data Benchmarks and Engagement with Higher Education Associations
• ANAC Institutional Representatives and Presidents Council Meetings
• Chief Student Affairs Officers to Meet, Offer Session at NASPA, March 21

March 15 Deadline for Applications to Fall 2005 ANACSA Featured Programs; ANAC Data Exchange Open for Benchmarking

March 15 is a significant date for two reasons. It marks the deadline for ANAC member students to apply for admission to Fall 2005 ANACSA featured programs which are being offered in Volos, Greece; Chengdu, China; Salzburg, Austria; Hedmark, Norway; and Harlaxton, England. Featured programs are sponsored by ANAC member institutions and have distinctive ANAC characteristics such as interdisciplinarity, applied projects and internships, and service to the communities where they are located. The deadline for Spring 2006 featured programs, including a program in St. Louis, Senegal, and repeats of the Volos, Salzburg and Harlaxton programs, is October 15. For further information, contact Brandon Lussier, ANACSA coordinator (blussier01@gw.hamline.edu, 651-523-2649). ANACSA 2005-06 brochures are available from Brandon and at member study abroad offices.

The other significant March 15 event is the opening of the ANAC Data Exchange for benchmarking 2003-04 member institution data gathered from IPEDS, Common Data Set, and internal member calculations in such categories as student performance, enrollment, faculty and staff, academic programs, and finances. To use the Exchange, members should consult with their institutional research director for the institutional username and password.

ANAC Communications Project Focuses on Data Benchmarks and Engagement with Higher Education Associations

ANAC initiated its communications project last year as a focused way to increase its contributions to higher education through closer working relationships with higher education associations. To this end, Drury President John Moore, John Ross of RossWrites, and Jerry Berberet have completed a round of visits to each of the national associations with significant ties to independent higher education, the last a meeting involving several ANAC member presidents during the January AACU conference with President Lee Shulman and senior colleagues of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Each of these meetings yielded concrete opportunities for cooperative action. For example, ANAC has endorsed Project LEAP (Liberal Education and America’s Promise), a decade-long initiative AACU is launching to foster public understanding and support for liberal education. The June 14-15 ANAC national symposium on the future of higher education at Drury University is another example. Part of the effort, as well, will be to pull together various data gathering projects to better understand distinctive ANAC member institutional characteristics and strengths, including matching ANAC data with institutional characteristics identified in the 2005 Carnegie institutional classifications. In addition to efforts to launch at least one initiative with each association, ANAC has also begun to take steps to establish a national advisory council.

ANAC Institutional Representative and Presidents Council Meetings

ANAC institutional representatives held their winter meeting on January 29 in San Francisco, immediately following the AACU conference. Devorah Liebermann, provost at Wagner College, was elected vice chair and Nancy Carrick, VPAA at University of Redlands, was selected for the IRep executive committee. Gerry Francis, provost at Elon University, will become IRep chair, succeeding Drake University provost Ron Troyer. The terms of alll new officers begin July 1. IReps confirmed that the ANAC Summer Institute will be held in 2006 at North Central College and at Elon in 2007. A preliminary 2006-07 budget was reviewed and will be presented for approval at the June 14 IRep summer meeting at Drury.

The Presidents Council had two winter gatherings. One group of presidents met January 27, with the leadership of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching during the AACU conference; the other on January 31 in Washington, DC, just prior to the NAICU conference. Presidents reviewed plans and progress of the communications project, discussed planning for ANAC’s future, and set their summer meeting for June 14, at Drury, just prior to the ANAC symposium on futures in higher education.

Chief Student Affairs Officers to Meet, Offer Session at NASPA, March 21

ANAC member chief academic officers will hold a breakfast meeting on Monday, March 21, at the annual conference of the National Association of Student Affairs Professionals (NASPA) in Tampa. In addition to discussing special roles for student affairs programming in ANAC-type institutions, participants will discuss ways of strengthening collaboration with their academic affairs counterparts, a theme also to be explored at ANAC Summer Institute 2005. ANAC will also offer a conference session at NASPA, organized by Marion Terenzio of The Sage Colleges, on using NASPA’s Learning Reconsidered and AACU’s Greater Expectations as texts to help balance student academic and cocurricular involvement in ways that enhance student retention.

Campus of Russell Sage College.