PARTNERS

Academic Commons

The Center of Inquiry is sponsoring the AcademicCommons.org web portal. Academic Commons is a community of faculty, academic technologists, librarians, administrators, and other academic professionals who are creating a comprehensive web resource focused on liberal arts education. Academic Commons aims to share knowledge, develop collaborations, and evaluate and disseminate digital tools and innovative practices for teaching and learning with technology.

ACT, Inc.

ACT, Inc. (American College Testing) is an independent, not-for-profit organization that provides more than a hundred assessment, research, information, and program management services in the broad areas of education and workforce development. Though designed to meet a wide array of needs, all ACT programs and services have one guiding purpose: to help people achieve education and career goals by providing information for life’s transitions.

ACT is a vital partner in the quantitative data collection of the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education. ACT administers incoming student surveys, outcome measures, and follow-up experience surveys and assessments; it collects and compiles the data and creates individualized reports for each institution. The organization works with institutions in the study to coordinate assessment schedules and it communicates with student participants. Thus far, this effort has involved more than 7,500 students at 26 institutions. ACT’s Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP) Critical Thinking Test is used in the Wabash National Study to measure effective reasoning and problem solving.

The Association of American Colleges and Universities 

The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) is a leading national association concerned with the quality, vitality, and public standing of undergraduate liberal education. In recent years, AAC&U has challenged the widespread assumption that liberal education can be achieved only in selected disciplines, or in small colleges. Current work focuses on the overall aims of liberal learning and ways of achieving these across the school-college educational experience, for all students and in every kind of college and university. The Center of Inquiry has made several presentations at AAC&U meetings and it helped support AAC&U’s LEAP (Liberal Education and America’s Promise) initiative.

The Association for General and Liberal Studies

The Association for General and Liberal Studies (AGLS) is a national forum for inquiry concerning the improvement of undergraduate education. The association seeks to enrich the educational experience of America’s college and university students by stimulating vigorous discourse among professors, administrators, and all those concerned about the purpose, scope, and nature of general and liberal education. The AGLS and The Center of Inquiry have collaborated on several projects, and the Center’s director, Charles F. Blaich, has served on the AGLS Executive Council.

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is an independent policy and research center whose charge is "to do and perform all things necessary to encourage, uphold, and dignify the profession of the teacher and the cause of higher education."

The Carnegie Foundation and the Center of Inquiry entered into a collaboration in 2003 and 2005 to support faculty in the scholarship of teaching and learning in the areas of integrative learning and liberal education via the foundation's Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) Carnegie Scholars Program. In 2004, the organizations worked together on a project to explore the value of practical reasoning in both the teaching of the liberal arts and preparation for the professions. Carnegie president, Lee Schulman, has served on the Center’s advisory board. The Center of Inquiry is currently involved in the CASTL Institutional Leadership Program, which is designed to facilitate collaboration among institutions in the scholarship of teaching and learning.


Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research

The Center of Inquiry has worked with the Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research on several projects. The Center provided funding for Project DEEP (Documenting Effective Education Practices) to promote increased sampling of liberal arts institutions, which represented 10 of the 20 institutions in the project study. Project DEEP examined the everyday workings of a variety of educationally effective colleges and universities to learn what they do to promote student success. Read DEEP Practice Briefs for details about findings.

The Center of Inquiry also worked with the IU Center for Postsecondary Research to

1. Examine the quality of undergraduate education for male students (see “The Relationship between Gender and Student Engagement in College” )
   
2. Investigate the relationships between student engagement, academic performance, persistence, satisfaction, and outcomes indicators in the context of baccalaureate liberal arts colleges (see “Connecting the Dots”)
   
3. Field test the precollege version of the NSSE, the Beginning College Survey of Student Engagement (BCSSE), at liberal arts colleges to analyze how students’ high school experiences and expectations for college affect their actual experiences during the first year (see “Expectations and Engagement: How Liberal Arts College Students Compare with Counterparts Elsewhere”)

In addition, the Center of Inquiry has collaborated with the IU Center for Postsecondary Research to incorporate the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) in the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education.

Lilly Endowment Inc.

The Center of Inquiry was established and continues today through generous grants from Lilly Endowment Inc. These grants enable the Center of Inquiry to support Wabash College faculty, staff, and student projects, to investigate liberal arts education via the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education, and to collaborate with liberal arts institutions to strengthen student learning. 

Lilly Endowment Inc. is an Indianapolis-based, private philanthropic foundation created in 1937 by three members of the Lilly family through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. We deeply appreciate the the Endowment's continued generosity, which supports us in carrying out our mission.

The Phi Beta Kappa Society

Phi Beta Kappa is the oldest undergraduate honors organization in the United States. The Society has pursued its mission of fostering and recognizing excellence in the liberal arts and sciences since 1776. The Center of Inquiry and Phi Beta Kappa cosponsored four colloquies in 2003 and 2004 about the nature of liberal arts education. Phi Beta Kappa president John Churchill serves on the Center of Inquiry’s advisory board.

The Teagle Foundation

The Teagle Foundation has been a critical force in the development of the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education and the Wabash Teagle Assessment Scholars Program. The Teagle Foundation provided funding to help the Center of Inquiry complete the pilot phase of the Wabash National Study and to move to a revised and refined model, launched in fall 2006. It also supplied the Center with a generous grant to develop a team of assessment scholars—a group of faculty, deans, researchers, and administrators with diverse assessment experiences—to collaborate with faculty and staff at liberal arts institutions to build stronger assessment programs. The goal of this work has been to help campuses develop and implement approaches to assessment that are consistent with their individual missions and distinct cultures. This funding has also allowed us to help institutions use Wabash National Study findings to make changes on their campuses that will improve student learning. Most recently, the Teagle Foundation provided us with a grant to invite 15 additional institutions to participate in the Wabash National Study in fall 2008.

The Teagle Foundation’s primary goal is to mobilize resources—financial and intellectual, their own and those of potential partners—to help students “catch fire” intellectually through a challenging, wide-ranging, and enriching college education. We are deeply grateful to the Foundation for collaborating with us and for supporting our work.

The University of Iowa, College of Education, Center for Research on Undergraduate Education

The Center for Research on Undergraduate Education (CRUE), is an interdisciplinary center that conducts, promotes, and disseminates high-quality research on the impact of college and the conditions for student success. CRUE's mission is to implement and disseminate research and scholarship which foster understanding of effective undergraduate education. The Center of Inquiry is working with a research team at CRUE, led by Ernest Pascarella, to analyze Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education quantitative data from more than 7,500 students at 26 institutions. The Center has worked with Pascarella on several other projects:

• Do Liberal Arts Colleges Really Foster Good Practices in Liberal Arts Education? (PDF)
• Institutional Selectivity and Good Practices in Undergraduate Education: How Strong is the Link? (PDF)
• A Liberal Arts Education Changes Lives: Why Everyone Can and Should Have this Experience.

The University of Michigan’s Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education

The University of Michigan’s Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education (CSHPE) was established in 1957 with a grant from the Carnegie Foundation of New York. For five decades, CSHPE has been the nation’s premier preparation program for higher education leadership and has been consistently ranked as top in its field by polls within and outside of education. CSHPE’s commitment to excellence is enhanced by being situated within a School of Education that has unusual breadth and a strong commitment to educational research and practice. The Center of Inquiry is working with a research team from CHSPE, led by Dr. Patricia M. King, to conduct in-depth interviews at six Wabash National Study institutions. The interview data can help us understand how educational experiences affect students' achievement of liberal arts outcomes and how students interpret these experiences. The interviews will also help us develop theories to test in the quantitative data.