UMM presence during AAC&U Conference in Washington, D.C.

Three administrators from the University of Minnesota, Morris will present during the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., January 23-26

Re-inventing a \u27Green\u27 Learning Environment available online

Three administrators from the University of Minnesota, Morris gave a presentation on the topic, “Re-inventing a Green Learning Environment: \u27Scripting\u27 a Sustainable Campus,” during the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. The presentation is now online

GSU’s Dr. Maimon Joins Presidents’ Trust

Dr. Elaine P. Maimon, President of Governors State University joined the Presidents’ Trust formed by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). President Maimon and an esteemed national group of 81 other college and university leaders from around the country formed the Trust to strongly and collectively make the case for liberal education and its value in today’s world. The Presidents’ Trust is a leadership group within the AAC&U’s national initiative is to promote Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP): Excellence for Everyone as a Nation Goes To College

LEAPing into Signature Work

Augustana College was one of eight highly selective higher education institutions invited by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) to participate in the LEAP Challenge. The LEAP Challenge calls on colleges and universities to provide opportunities for all students to produce a meaningful piece of Signature Work. This session focused on the meaning of Signature Work, the goals of the LEAP Challenge, the degree to which Augustana\u27s efforts already align to the goals of the LEAP Challenge, and steps that we might take as a campus in moving even closer to fulling realizing the vision of Signature Work for All

The Seven Step Strategy

Is this a familiar scenario? You give students a reading assignment. During class, you pose discussion questions related to the reading. Silence. You rephrase the questions. After an awkward pause, one student responds with a brief answer. According to the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U 2010 AAC&U. 2010. Reading VALUE Rubric. https://www.aacu.org/value/rubrics/reading [Google Scholar] ), when students read they should: engage beyond the explicit message, consider important questions and scholarly contributions, identify relations among ideas, acknowledge multiple perspectives, and deepen disciplinary conversation

Development and validation of the Wesleyan Intercultural Competence Scale (WICS): A tool for measuring the impact of study abroad experiences.

As globalization becomes commonplace and the world becomes increasingly interconnected, institutions of higher education have begun to prioritize the development of intercultural competence in their students. A recent review of university statements of essential learning outcomes revealed that 85% of top-ranked National Universities in the U.S. and 68% of top-ranked Liberal Arts colleges in the U.S. stated that the development of intercultural competence is one of their primary objectives (Stemler, 2012). For National Universities this was the most frequently cited objective across the entire sample, edging out other priorities such as writing, quantitative reasoning, and information literacy. The importance of developing the intercultural competence of students has been emphasized by private-sector businesses as well. A 2010 study commissioned by the Association of American Colleges and Universities found that 67% of the 302 employers interviewed felt that the ability to understand the global context of situations and decisions was one of the most important aims of higher education (AAC&U, 2010)

Integrity in and beyond contemporary higher education: What does it mean to university students?

Research has focused on academic integrity in terms of students' conduct in relation to university rules and procedures, whereas fewer studies examine student integrity more broadly. Of particular interest is whether students in higher education today conceptualize integrity as comprising such broader attributes as personal and social responsibility. We collected and analyzed qualitative responses from 127 students at the National University of Singapore to understand how they define integrity in their lives as students, and how they envisage integrity would be demonstrated in their lives after university. Consistent with the current literature, our data showed that integrity was predominantly taken as "not plagiarizing (in school)/giving appropriate credit when credit is due (in the workplace)", "not cheating", and "completing tasks independently". The survey, though, also revealed further perceptions such as, in a university context, "not manipulating data (e.g., scientific integrity)", "being honest with others", "group work commitments", "conscience/moral ethics/holding true to one's beliefs", "being honest with oneself", "upholding a strong work ethic", "going against conventions", and "reporting others", as well as, in a workplace context, "power and responsibility and its implications", "professionalism", and "representing or being loyal to an organization". The findings suggest that some students see the notion of integrity extending beyond good academic conduct. It is worthwhile to (re)think more broadly what (else) integrity means, discover the gaps in our students' understanding of integrity, and consider how best we can teach integrity to prepare students for future challenges to integrity and ethical dilemmas

Implementing Information Literacy (IL) into STEM Writing Courses: Effect of IL Instruction on Students’ Writing Projects at an Urban Community College

The purpose of this study was to implement information literacy (IL) into Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) writing courses at an urban community college, investigate if students’ information literacy (IL) skills were improved through library one-shot instruction, and determine if there was an association between IL skills and students’ writing performance. Students in the experimental group attended the library instructional class and students in the control group had no library class. Students’ research papers were scored using the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) Information Literacy VALUE Rubric to grade the effectiveness of the library instruction (Association of American Colleges and Universities 2013). While the scores of the papers did not differ between groups, data indicated that there was a statistically significant difference (p = .011) in IL scores between students in the experimental group (M = 9.70) and students in the control group (M = 8.73). The results also showed that information literacy skills were correlated positively with students’ grades on research papers (p = .002)

Writing Instruction and Assignments in an Honors Curriculum: Perceptions of Effectiveness

Learning to write well is a significant outcome of higher education, as confirmed and illustrated in the Written Communication VALUE Rubric of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). Bennett notes that writing well is a singularly important capability, indicating that virtually all higher education programs intend for students to write better when they graduate than when they enrolled. Moskovitz refers to an AAC&U survey of member institutions in which writing topped the list of learning outcomes for all students. Scholars agree that writing and thinking are linked. Oatley and Djikic discuss how writing externalizes thinking by using various media in the processes of manipulating symbols, and Kovac suggests that connections between writing and thinking express the metaphorical interactions between language and thought. Menary notes that the creation and manipulation of written texts is a fundamental component of our cognitive processing, such that writing transforms our cognitive abilities

Living the creed: How chapters of Sigma Lambda Beta International Fraternity, Inc., contribute to civic engagement

National associations such as the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and Campus Compact create initiatives that promote service-learning and campus based service programs to improve civic engagement in higher education; they often fail to include Greek-letter organizations, especially Latino Greek-letter organizations, as co-curricular service opportunities. The purpose of this exploratory case study of five chapters of Sigma Lambda Beta International Fraternity Inc. (SLB) in the Midwest region of the United States, was to provide an in-depth understanding of chapters’ service experiences and perceptions of benefits. In this qualitative study, a revised version of Yosso’s (2005) community cultural wealth served as a conceptual framework to illustrate how chapters of SLB contribute to service. Implications for higher education and the Executive Office of SLB are discussed as well as recommendations for future research