Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade cited the work of the late artist Tupac Shakur in an example of tailoring a curriculum relevant to the students they are serving.
AAC&U’s centennial year conference brought together 705 practitioners, researchers, faculty and staff to implement inclusive action-oriented best practices on their campuses. The theme of the network meeting — Diversity, Learning, and Student Success: Accessing and Advancing Inclusive Excellence — addressed the accountability of institutions serving the most underrepresented students.
Many attendees were impressed by the conversations about how critical it is as educators to serve the whole student.
“So many have come up to me commenting on how important it is to address the lived experiences of the student, cultural background along with the academic understanding of each student,” said Tia Brown McNair, AAC&U’s senior director for student success. “We need to account for how those aspects intersect and not minimize or devalue what students bring with them to the institution. This conference aims to serve more than just student academics.”
McNair added that the fact that the conference was the largest in AAC&U history underscored “how critical the topic of diversity is in our educational system today and we need to talk about the students who are the most underserved and the most underrepresented.”
Dr. Carol Geary Schneider, AAC&U’s president of 17 years, announced the new Liberal Education & America’s Promise (LEAP) Challenge that aims to influence policy by advancing inclusive excellence in college learning.
“When we mention liberal education, most think we are referring to liberal arts and sciences,” Schneider said. “We have expanded our mission to include the advancement of liberal education and inclusive excellence. We are committed to advancing a framework to fight the stratification of the disparities that has disfigured our educational system.”
