The Teagle Foundation grant will fund a three-year project to guide faculty-led curricular change and build communities of practice around quality and completion.

Omar Harbison will join AAC&U on July 5 as the director of student success in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Student Success. He will manage various externally funded projects and develop research related to student success, with an emphasis on underserved students.                 

Before joining AAC&U, Omar served as senior instructional media producer and trainer in the Center for Faculty Professional Development at Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia, where he designed the infrastructure for a university-wide digital dossier and eportfolio process. He has also served as an assistant professor at Morehouse College in the journalism and sports program and the cinema, television, and emerging media program. Omar started his career in higher education in 2005 at North Carolina Central University, where he taught English composition and speech communication. Omar is also an award-winning media professional with more than seventeen years of experience in broadcast journalism and new media technology. His documentary, HIV/AIDS: Have We Forgotten?, was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2009.

Omar graduated from Morehouse College with a bachelor of arts degree in industrial organizational psychology. He earned a master of arts degree in journalism from Regent University, where he continued his studies with a postgraduate concentration in organizational leadership. 

AAC&U announced today the appointment of Kathryn Peltier Campbell as Senior Academic Editor and Editor, Liberal Education and Diversity & Democracy. Campbell most recently served as Senior Editor for Equity and Civic Engagement and Director of Member Communications and has overseen the development and editorial direction of Diversity & Democracy, AAC&U’s quarterly publication on diversity, equity, global learning, and civic engagement. 

Campbell joined AAC&U in 2007 and has edited numerous AAC&U periodicals including Diversity & Democracy (previously Diversity Digest) and On Campus with Women, as well as other AAC&U publications such as America’s Unmet Promise: The Imperative for Equity in Higher Education (Witham et al. 2015), General Education Transformed: How We Can, Why We Must (Gaston 2015), and Assessing Underserved Students’ Engagement in High Impact Practices (Finley and McNair 2013).

Campbell earned her master’s in English from the University of Virginia, where she participated in the English department’s American Studies interdisciplinary program. She also earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of Virginia, graduating with high honors in English Language and Literature and completing a second major in physics.

Proposals are due Friday, July 14, 2017, for the conference, Foundations for Democracy, which will be held February 15–17, 2018, in Philadelphia, PA.

On May 20, Lynn Pasquerella delivered the commencement address to graduating students at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, urging graduates to use the invaluable skills they acquired through a liberal education to enhance their personal lives and strengthen democracy. “Elizabethtown College takes seriously our nation’s historic mission of educating for democracy,” Pasquerella said. “Yet, beyond the public purpose of higher education, your education has served a personal purpose, as well . . . Elizabethtown has set you on the path of finding your best and most authentic selves.” 

Newman's Own Foundation has appointed Lynn Pasquerella, president of AAC&U, to its advisory board. In January, AAC&U received a grant from Newman’s Own Foundation for a three-year initiative supporting the collaboration with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to create Centers for Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) at higher education institutions across the country. The grant will support a multi-year initiative to implement ten TRHT Centers, which will be designed to engage and empower campus and community stakeholders to break down racial hierarchies and create a positive narrative about race in the community.

"We are delighted to have Dr. Pasquerella join the Newman's Own Advisory Board," Bob Forrester, president and CEO of Newman's Own Foundation and executive chairman of Newman's Own, Inc., said in a press release. "Lynn is a distinguished scholar and teacher, whose lifelong commitment to bringing empowerment and opportunity to the least advantaged in our world will make her a valued colleague and advisor."