Bringing It

Bringing It #30: Join Us at AAC&U’s Annual Meeting

January 17, 2020

Dear friends, 

Last week we invited you to reflect on the questions below: 

  • What are the key strengths that higher education carries into the 2020s?
  • What are the key weaknesses of higher ed as we enter the 2020s?
  • What new opportunities for positive change will the coming decade bring?
  • What new threats to our work and our values does the coming decide pose? 

We’ve already received a flurry of thought provoking answers, which have discussed both key issues within higher education and larger social challenges that surround our work. We are excited to publish them in future Bringing Its. For those that haven’t responded and would like to, please send your thoughts to [email protected].

We also hope that we will see you next week for AACU’s Annual Meeting at the Marriott Marquis in DC.  As a reminder, we will be hosting two fishbowl sessions as part of the conference program and an informal happy hour on Thursday, January 23. More info below:

11:30 AM-12:30 PM, “Redesigning College: Whole Education for the Whole Student” 

This session will bring together a group of creative educational design-thinkers and practitioners, whose commitment to the cutting-edge redesign of the undergraduate experience—including curriculum, credit-economy, and academic calendar—is grounded in their commitment to holistic learning for the whole student.

Discussants: Bryan Alexander, Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS) Senior Scholar, Georgetown University; Adam Bush, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Provost, College Unbound; Joy Connolly, President, American Council of Learned Societies; and Elaine Maimon, President, Governors State University          

2:15 PM-3:30 PM, “Listening With: A Model for Community Engagement”

This session will focus on the significance of “listening with” as a practice of authentic, effective academic-community engagement. It will emphasize the importance of going beyond deficit models of community engagement, in which academic partners implicitly posit the community as a landscape of problems for which higher education can offer expert solutions. But it will also suggest the need to go beyond “listening to” community, to embed active, sustained listening in relationships that lift up community voice. Participants will include both academic and community partners from BTtoP’s PLACE Collaboratory (Partnerships for Listening and Action by Communities and Educators), a network of partnerships in four regional communities seeking to develop public agendas through such “listening with.” 

Discussants: Anne Galletta, Professor and Chair of the Curriculum and Foundations Department, Cleveland State University; Yesenia Hunter, PhD Candidate, University of Southern California; David Scobey, Director of Bringing Theory to Practice; and Jack Tchen, Inaugural Clement A. Price Chair in Public History and the Humanities Director, Rutgers University-Newark 

Please join us and join in. We also invite everyone to stop by the hotel bar, The Dignitary, from 5:00 PM-8:00 PM for an informal happy hour gathering! We always look forward to seeing old friends and meeting new colleagues.

Warmly,

David, Caitlin, Mercedes, and Kate