A List
11/23/09

President Fox Joins 'Presidents' Trust' Initiative Advancing Liberal Education

CANTON - St. Lawrence University President William L. Fox has joined the Presidents' Trust, formed by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). The organization, which includes 82 college and university leaders from around the country, have committed to strongly and collectively make the case for liberal education and its value in the contemporary world. The Presidents Trust is a leadership group within AAC&U's national initiative, Liberal Education and America's Promise (LEAP): Excellence for Everyone as a Nation Goes To College.

Members of the LEAP Presidents' Trust are committed to advocating for the vision, values, and practices that connect liberal education with the individual and societal needs of the 21st century. Through regional and national meetings and their own advocacy efforts, Trust members will engage with campus members and those outside of higher education about the core purposes and practices of liberal education. They are all also providing leadership for advancing reforms in the practice of liberal education both on campus and with other groups and organizations with which they are affiliated.

In 2009-10, the core priority areas for the Presidents' Trust include:

- Making the economic case for liberal education
- Making - and fulfilling - the civic case for liberal education
- Engaging first-generation families and new Americans with the meaning and value of liberal education
- Integrating liberal arts and professional preparation on campus
- Charting a new direction for assessment and accountability

The Presidents' Trust advocates for a 21st-century vision of liberal education that combines the best of that philosophy of education's traditional focus on broad knowledge, analytic reasoning and rigorous contextual study with newer approaches to helping students integrate and apply their learning in new settings. The Trust believes that a 2st-century liberal education empowers individuals with core knowledge and transferable skills and cultivates social responsibility and a strong sense of ethics and values. Characterized by challenging encounters with important issues, a liberal education prepares graduates both for socially valued work and for civic leadership in their society.

For more information about the Presidents' Trust, LEAP and AAC&U, visit the AAC&U Web site.

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President Fox's Web site