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2006 ACE Annual Report
The Year in Review
The first decade of the 21st century has so far been marked by a
growing acceptance of the fact that U.S. well-being is increasingly
dependent on innovation and competitiveness in the global
knowledge-based economy. Responding to the need for continued advances
in fields such as national security, energy policy, and health care will
demand the creativity and skills of an educated citizenry and workforce.
Together, these factors have augmented the pressures on higher
education, which in 2006, was the subject of several high-profile
reports and a national commission. Of particular concern were the
critical issues of affordability, access, and accountability, which
shape academe's ability to serve students, families, and the nation's
long-term economic and social needs.
Fortunately, the American Council on Education (ACE) was
well-positioned to respond to these pressures. The Council's role as the
unifying voice for U.S. higher education, as well as its longstanding
engagement with the rest of the world, enabled it to identify the
essential strengths of higher education, to unite the community to speak
as one on important policy issues, and ultimately to bring about
positive change.
Representation
Challenge: While our country's higher
education system is generally recognized as among the best in the world,
it must maintain that stature in an increasingly competitive global
marketplace, in which colleges and universities are relied on as a
continuous engine of innovation.
ACE Response:
- ACE President David Ward served on the National Commission on the
Future of Higher Education, a panel appointed by U.S. Secretary of
Education Margaret Spellings, to define the major issues facing higher
education. A final report released by the Commission made
recommendations to the Secretary on how higher education can improve
itself in order to remain competitive. While agreeing with many of the
Commission's findings and recommendations, Ward was concerned about the
lack of specificity in the report about the responsibilities of
government, the private sector, and higher education to address the
issues. He was also concerned about a failure of the Commission to
adequately address the diversity of U.S. higher education institutions,
with an implication of "one size fits all" solutions. Ward became the
only Commission member to withhold
his signature from the report. His dissent prompted discussion in
the media of how higher education could use its own strengths to address
its weaknesses.
- By year's end, nearly 1,000 colleges and universities had signed up
to participate in Solutions for Our Future, ACE's national campaign to
raise awareness of the public good created by higher education.
Throughout the year, the campaign continued its efforts at public
polling, finding, for example, that less than one-third of the public
believe that math and science classes for students not majoring in those
fields are "very relevant" to life after graduation. ACE subsequently
provided analysis of such findings to its members, pointing out the need
for higher education leaders to do a better job communicating with the
public about the importance of higher education to the economic success
of future generations of Americans.
- ACE joined with the other five major U.S. associations representing
college and university presidents and chancellors to send a letter
to higher education institutions outlining specific action steps on
access, affordability, lifelong learning, and other key challenges
facing undergraduate education. The letter also promoted collective
engagement of the higher education community with state and federal
policy makers.
Challenge: Each year, nearly 400,000
academically qualified students fail to pursue a postsecondary education
because they cannot afford it.1
ACE Response:
- ACE orchestrated the higher education community's response to
underfunded student aid programs throughout the year. In the fall, ACE
submitted comments
to the Department of Education on behalf of 10 associations, regarding
interim final regulations for the Higher Education Reconciliation Act,
which would reauthorize the federal student aid programs that fall under
Title IV of the Higher Education Act.
- ACE convened higher education stakeholders to identify
concerns related to two new grant programs signed into law by
President Bush in February 2006, the Academic Competitiveness (AC) and
National Science and Mathematics to Retain Talent (SMART) grants. ACE
subsequently co-hosted a meeting with the American Association of
Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers and welcomed officials
from the Department of Education to discuss proposed requirements, such
as compelling institutions to analyze in detail all transcripts of
first-year AC grant recipients.
- The
Student Aid Alliance, created by ACE and the National Association of
Independent Colleges and Universities, honored Sens. Susan M. Collins
(R-ME), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), and Arlen Specter
(R-PA) for their efforts to ensure college access for qualified
students, including their commitment to low-interest student loans and
raising the maximum Pell Grant award.
Challenge: Increased federal scrutiny of
higher education is accompanied by a growing emphasis on accountability,
which often spurs unproductive and costly regulation that threatens to
detract from the higher education community's resources.
ACE Response:
- ACE continued to work closely with colleague associations to make
improvements to the Higher
Education Act reauthorization legislation, particularly in the areas
of cost and transfer reporting requirements. This type of cross-sector
collaboration is considered indispensable to preserving our community's
core values and ensuring continued access and success in postsecondary
education.
- ACE filed
suit against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regarding
its move to expand the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act
to include higher education institutions among those Internet service
providers required by law to ensure that their networks do not impede
law enforcement agencies from setting up wiretaps. The suit ultimately
led the courts to find the vast majority of institutions exempt from the
regulations, which could have required significant campus investments in
new technology.
- ACE led efforts to counter a variety of congressional efforts to
expand costly institutional reporting requirements on topics such as
peer-to-peer file sharing, charitable contributions on campus, and Title
VI funding.
- In the wake of a proposed change in the funding mechanism for the
Universal Service Fund, ACE successfully petitioned
the FCC to reconsider the proposal, which would have resulted in
large-scale fee increases, particularly for some small colleges.
Leadership
Challenge: In order to lead their campuses
effectively, college and university presidents must be adept at
navigating rapidly emerging and often difficult issues.
ACE Response:
- ACE proactively worked with the entertainment community to address
shared concerns over the problem of copyright infringement through
unauthorized campus peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing. ACE then
distributed Background
Discussion of Copyright Law and Potential Liability for Students Engaged
in P2P File Sharing on University Networks, a white paper that
helped institutions shape appropriate and effective policies and
practices concerning file sharing.
- ACE hosted two roundtables
of college presidents and other higher education leaders to explore how
colleges and universities are struggling to compete while maintaining
public confidence in higher education. Through the subsequent essay Toward
Higher Ground: Reclaiming Public Confidence in a Competitive
Environment, produced with the support of Fidelity Investments,
ACE offered strategies for college leaders to address the ways in which
competition is undermining higher education's ability to meet its social
purposes.
- With support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, ACE began
work to foster entrepreneurialism among higher education institutions,
underscoring the importance of strong and creative leadership in
balancing the bottom line with achieving mission-based priorities.
- Joining with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and
United Educators Insurance, ACE released Safety
in Student Transportation: A Resource Guide for Colleges and
Universities, designed to help reduce the frequency and
severity of accidents during institutional trips involving students.
Following the report's release, the National Transportation Safety Board
praised the comprehensive nature of the guide as well as ACE's and
NCAA's extensive efforts to educate college and university
communities.
Challenge: The proportion of college
presidents who are women more than doubled from 1986 to 2006, but the
rate of change has slowed since the late 1990s. The share of presidents
who come from each of the major racial/ethnic minority groups has
changed little since 1986. With 49 percent of college and university
presidents in 2006 at age 61 or older, higher education faces an
approaching wave of presidential retirements—a prime opportunity
to further diversify the office.2
ACE Response:
- ACE consolidated all of its leadership programs under the new Center
for Effective Leadership to better coordinate this critical part of
ACE's strategic plan, and to more effectively address the emerging
developmental needs of current and future leaders.
- Because becoming a college or university chief executive requires a
keen understanding of oneself and the search process and with support
from Academic Search, Inc., ACE established a two-day workshop, Advancing
to the Presidency, for vice presidents aspiring to the presidency.
The highly interactive event offered candid conversations with search
firm executives, coaching by current presidents, and résumé
critiques.
- The ACE Institute
for New Chief Academic Officers (CAOs) convened its second class in
2006–07, providing practical leadership development through case
studies, facilitated discussions, and executive briefings for CAOs in
their first three years on the job. TIAA-CREF Institute supported this
continuing program.
- The Department
Chair Program worked with nearly 300 department chairs to strengthen
their leadership and conflict management skills.
- ACE's Third
Summit for Women of Color Administrators in Higher Education,
supported by MetLife Foundation, engaged more than 130 attendees in
candid conversations about the rewards and challenges of a career in
higher education governance. Participants continued their networking via
an interactive blog in the weeks following the meeting.
- Through its seminars and on-campus experiences, the ACE
Fellows Program brought together emerging and established leaders to
explore solutions to the challenges facing campus leadership.
- ACE named five university recipients of the 2006
Alfred P. Sloan Awards for Faculty Career Flexibility, totaling
$250,000, enabling the institutions to enhance programs for promoting
both structural and cultural change in order to create adaptable career
paths for faculty.
- In addition to the ACE State
Networks and related initiatives, which reached more than 10,000
emerging and established women leaders, ACE staff traveled to several
states to honor women higher education leaders, raising the visibility
of these individuals.
- ACE established the Women's
Leadership Legacy Fund to support emerging academic women leaders
and completed the quiet phase of fund raising with more than
$100,000.
Service
Challenge: Although higher education has
made significant strides in closing the achievement gaps among students
according to their race, gender, or income level, sizable disparities
still exist. For instance, African-American and Hispanic students still
lag behind their white peers in the rate at which they enroll in
college.3 And although men accounted
for 42 percent of total enrollment at the graduate level in
2003–04, the gender balance varied tremendously by degree program
and field of study.4
ACE Response:
- Through The
Unfinished Agenda: Ensuring Success for Students of Color
initiative, member campuses received information, resources, and
strategies for ensuring the success of underserved minority students.
This initiative, supported by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation,
included a series of papers that provided presidents and their senior
executive teams with specific strategies to encourage participation and
persistence by students of color.
- Analyzing data from the Department of Education's National Center
for Education Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau, Minorities
in Higher Education Twenty-second Annual Status Report
highlighted the ground that remains to be covered in achieving full
access for students from diverse backgrounds. The report was made
possible with support from the GE Foundation.
- With a generous grant from the MetLife Foundation, ACE created both
English
and Spanish
editions of Jump Start Your Education, a student-friendly
publication aimed at helping both students and their families prepare
for college.
- Gender
Equity in Higher Education: 2006, an update to a 2000 ACE
publication, revealed continued growth in the percentage of female
undergraduates, but also dispelled the myth that women's success is
coming at the expense of male students.
Challenge: Gaps in educational attainment
rates are particularly acute in areas in which the United States relies
on innovation: the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)
fields.
ACE Response:
- Increasing
the Success of Minority Students in Science and Technology, the
fourth ACE report in a series
supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, showed that African-American
and Hispanic students begin college interested in majoring in the STEM
fields at rates similar to those of white and Asian-American students,
but do not earn their bachelor's degrees at the same rate as their
peers. The report outlined the challenge of moving traditionally
underrepresented students in the STEM fields toward timely degree
completion.
- Following the release of this report, ACE sponsored a congressional
briefing on increasing minority participation in the STEM fields,
meeting with members of the House Committee on Education and the
Workforce to discuss strategies that assist underrepresented minorities
in these fields.
Challenge: Nearly one-third of first-year
college students are placed into remedial courses, a situation that
substantially reduces their odds of earning a college degree.5 Improved collaboration among higher
education, K–12 education, and government is considered crucial to
decreasing these rates and better preparing students for college.
ACE Response:
- Joining with Lumina Foundation for Education and the Advertising
Council, ACE began planning KnowHow2GO, a national public service campaign to
encourage low-income and first-generation students to take the steps
necessary to go to college. The multimedia effort will combine
education, community-based, and government partnerships to raise
awareness about what students must do to prepare for college.
- In partnership with Achieve Inc., the National Association of System
Heads, and State Higher Education Executive Officers, and with support
from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, ACE embarked on the Advancing
College Readiness project, a national strategy to engage college
leaders in preparing high school graduates for success, in either
college or the workplace.
Challenge: With issues surrounding skills
shortages, the graying of the workforce, and military service members
returning to civilian life, higher education is being challenged to
provide lifelong learning opportunities for an ever more diverse
population of students.
ACE Response:
- ACE began efforts with the Department of Veterans Affairs to create
an infrastructure to support
U.S. service members who have been severely injured and released
from active duty. Partnering with counselors and case managers who work
directly with the service members and their families, ACE's primary goal
is to provide resources to help service members make informed choices of
postsecondary institutions and programs of study.
- Continuing its long-term relationship with the Department of
Defense, ACE visited nearly 50 military installations and reviewed more
than 600 military training courses and occupational specialties. This
highly effective program
led service members to request more than 45,000 transcripts be sent to
nearly 2,300 colleges and universities last year, enabling them to
advance their educations.
- To further strengthen the American workforce, ACE evaluates
courses from nearly 200 workplace and training organizations. Combined,
ACE corporate and military registries hold the transcripts for 7 million
adult learners. Institutional recognition of these transcripts broadens
access to higher education, encourages retention and completion rates,
and fosters increased enrollments in college and university degree
programs.
- In response to an aging workforce and the needs of older learners,
ACE began research
on the needs and expectations of learners aged 55–79, through the
generous support of the MetLife Foundation.
- ACE published a concise reference for college and university leaders
who currently serve—or plan to serve—adult learners and who
seek more information on this student population. Adult
Learners in the United States: A National Profile summarized
the characteristics and enrollment patterns of adult learners enrolled
for credit in U.S. postsecondary institutions.
- To communicate the benefits and value of GED testing and to enhance
and protect the image of GED
Testing Service (GEDTS) products and services, the program conducted
focus groups as a first step in developing a national communications and
marketing strategy.
- In preparation for the 2011 Series GED Tests, staff met both with a
national representation of high school teachers to identify the typical
high school curriculum taught, and with military and corporate
representatives to ascertain the skills and knowledge expected from high
school graduates in the future.
- Recognized for their ingenuity, dedication, and compassionate
determination to maintain the integrity and the availability of the
GEDTS program to Louisiana and Mississippi residents affected by
Hurricane Katrina, ACE presented Extraordinary Service Awards to the GED
administrators in those two states.
Challenge: The "flat world" is challenging
U.S. colleges and universities to develop an internationalization
strategy that will enable them to compete and collaborate in the global
arena, ensure that they are preparing students for this new environment,
and help them attract the best and brightest international students to
the United States.
ACE Response:
- ACE encouraged passage of comprehensive
immigration reform legislation that included a new visa category for
international science and engineering students, among other
provisions.
- ACE released Students
on the Move: The Future of International Students in the United
States, which examined trends in international student
enrollment in the United States and in other countries. It also
published two new resources for campus leaders: Where
Faculty Live: Internationalizing the Disciplines, based on a
project funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and A
Handbook for Advancing Comprehensive Internationalization: What
Institutions Can Do and What Students Should Learn, funded by
the Ford Foundation.
- Under a new initiative to reach out to participants from abroad, ACE
attracted 60 international attendees to its 88th Annual
Meeting, substantially broadening this dimension of the
meeting.
- ACE's Internationalization
Collaborative and Internationalization
Laboratory brought together leadership teams to share strategies
about broadening and deepening campus internationalization.
- Through its Lessons
Learned in Assessing International Learning project, ACE tested the
use of an electronic portfolio to help colleges and universities assess
students' global learning.
- The 2006
Transatlantic Dialogue brought together 30 presidents, rectors, and
vice chancellors from the United States, Canada, and Europe to engage in
an in-depth conversation on access, affordability, and
accountability.
- Through its leadership forums—the Internationalization
Forum of Chief Academic Officers (funded by the Henry Luce
Foundation) and the Leadership
Network for International Education—ACE guided presidents and
provosts in exploring their role in leading internationalization.
- Supported by the Ford Foundation, ACE's Global
Learning for All project involved eight institutions serving adult,
part-time, and minority students in developing new strategies for global
learning.
- Higher
Education for Development (formerly the Association Liaison Office
for University Cooperation in Development) supported 92 institutions in
diversifying, expanding, and deepening the engagement of higher
education in international development activities.
- HED maintained active partnerships in more than 30 countries, with
new awards made for partnerships with institutions in Algeria, Georgia,
Honduras, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Lebanon, Libya, Mexico,
Nigeria, Peru, Qatar, Russia, South Africa, and Vietnam. These joint
efforts expand the reach and ability of U.S. higher education to do good
in other countries and provide opportunities for students and faculty to
work in and experience countries and cultures off the beaten path.
Footnotes
1. Advisory Committee on Student Financial
Assistance. U.S. Department of Education. Return
2. American Council on Education. (2007). The
American college president, 2007 edition. Washington, DC:
Author. Return
3. Cook, B. J., & Córdova, D. I.
(2006). Minorities
in higher education twenty-second annual status report.
Washington, DC: American Council on Education. Return
4. King, J. (2006). Gender
equity in higher education: 2006. Washington, DC: American
Council on Education. Return
5. Cohen, M., & King, J. (2007). Advancing
college readiness through the American diploma project network. The
Presidency. Special
supplement, p. 1. Return
| ACE Annual Report Years activities 2006 year review |
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