Nancy Cantor is chancellor of Rutgers University-Newark. This article was adapted from Cantor's address at "The Power of Civic Engagement--Across Campus, Within Communities, Beyond Borders," the premeeting symposium at the 2018 annual meeting of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Cantor contemplates the power of civic…

The Association of American Colleges and Universities' (AAC&U's) new five-year strategic plan for 2018-22, "We ASPIRE: Advancing Student Performance through Integration, Research, and Excellence," was officially launched at the association's 2018 annual meeting in Washington, DC, at the end of January. Reaffirming a dedication to…

Encouragement of service as public work is one strategy higher education can use in fulfilling its civic mission to socialize society's future leaders. The diversity of American higher education includes large land grant state universities, small liberal arts colleges, religiously sponsored institutions, and local community colleges. This array…

What is often viewed as the fairly arcane business of determining and administering higher education policy is a matter of great national interest and, actually, a matter of national security. It thus makes a difference for American society in ways you may not have considered. The ability of the United States to protect itself and its interests…

At colleges and universities, thinking one's own thoughts is at the heart of all the other activity that, together, constitutes a liberal education. Self-examination and reflection enable people to make sense of the world and their places in it. Each individual can experience the mind as it grasps its own dynamics and spawns deep and unique…

In the late 1990s, the wild hope of the Lilly Endowment was that a set of American higher education institutions would respond to the call for an exploration of vocation, giving a portion of their precious institutional lives to explore this question with undergraduates. Through projects on multiple campuses, the intent was to learn whether and…

In describing the purpose of college, author Robert Scott believes that undergraduate education is and must be as much about character and citizenship as about careers and commerce. In addition to majoring in a particular subject, and in order to fulfill the purpose of a university education, Scott says that undergraduate students must learn about…

In this article, author Bobby Fong states that what is needed in higher education today is a renewed urgency and commitment to assist students in forming their souls. Fong suggests soul-making is integral to education at our institutions--whether secular or religious-- and it ought to make itself felt in all areas of academic life.

Integrating a "global perspective" into courses necessarily involves examining whether traditional disciplinary assumptions still apply in a global context and, if not, how they need to be translated in order to remain relevant. In this article, the author maps out this process by tracing one "intellectual journey" in order to…

In the National Council on Education and the Disciplines' (NCED) 2001 Mathematics and Democracy, Lynn Steen vividly declares, "The world of the twenty-first century is a world awash in numbers". In that volume, Steen and his collaborators articulate a clear call for broad reforms to prepare students for the ubiquitous need for quantitative…

There are several fundamental requirements for democratic government. First, there must be free and fair elections to elect leaders. Second, there must be freedom to express a wide range of views and positions, including criticisms of incumbent leaders. And third, the public discourse about elections and public policy issues must be conducted in a…

The humanities are at the heart of knowing about the human condition; they are not a luxury. The erosion of support for the humanities and the perennial anxiety about the state of the humanities are systemic. The author contends that until people acknowledge this fact, they will keep lurching from one point to another, unable to recognize the…

Recognition of the importance of outcomes related to moral and ethical development, other dimensions of personal development, and civic engagement is a result of decades of educational reform. But have colleges and universities succeeded in helping students achieve these outcomes? In this article, the author shares his personal reflections on…

When the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) launched the Liberal Education and America's Promise (LEAP) initiative in 2005, they certainly knew that it would not be easy to achieve the sort of transformation needed to ensure that higher education serves all students--and society--more effectively. The LEAP initiative builds…

Scientists have long recognized the value of having statistical data to measure the scope and vitality of education, research, and workforce development in their fields. Such data support evidence-based policy discussions in professional and governmental forums. Since 1982, the National Science Board has been required by law to publish…