Our friends at AACU (Association of American Colleges & Universities) are celebrating their centenary this month with a major event in Washington, DC. The Association is taking this opportunity to champion the benefits of liberal education, and are issuing a new scheme known as LEAP:

Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) is a national advocacy, campus action, and research initiative that champions the importance of a twenty-first-century liberal education—for individuals and for a nation dependent on economic creativity and democratic vitality.

LEAP responds to the changing demands of the twenty-first century—demands for more college-educated workers and more engaged and informed citizens. Today, and in the years to come, college graduates need higher levels of learning and knowledge as well as strong intellectual and practical skills to navigate this more demanding environment successfully and responsibly.

The LEAP goals are to:

• Spark public debate about the quality of college learning for the twenty-first century and the learning outcomes that are essential for all students;
• Help all students—including those traditionally underserved by higher education—understand, prepare for, and achieve Essential Learning
  Outcomes in college;
• Challenge the belief that students must choose either a liberal education or a practical education by advancing reforms that provide both;
  • Highlight and counter current practices that steer some students to narrow educational tracks while the most advantaged students reap the
  full benefits of a broad liberal education;
• Generate more informed public support for policies that improve the quality of college-level learning;
• Document national, state, and institutional progress in student achievement of Essential Learning Outcomes.

Find out more at the ACCU website, and their new microsite devoted to LEAP.