The FACET Leadership Institute (LI) kicked off a 12-18 month theme-based project on September 28, 2018 at IUPUI. Liaisons and the VCAA (VPUE at IU Bloomington) from each campus pulled together a team of four to six full-time faculty members to identify and implement a project to enhance the university learning environment at their campus.
This institute's theme asks the question:
Multiple Inequalities in Higher Education: How do we meet our students’ needs if we fail to understand the problems and students lack universal access to resources?
The LI project kicked off with a special visit and presentation from Dr. Russell D. Lowery-Hart, President for Amarillo College (AC). Dr. Lowery-Hart was selected into the inaugural class of the Aspen Presidential Fellowship for Community College Excellence, a rigorous, executive leadership program focused on higher education reform led by the Aspen Institute and the Stanford University. His leadership on poverty and culture change was featured in The Atlantic (June 2018). His leadership is focused on improving student success through systemic and cultural change. He was named the National Academic Leader of the Year for 2014. He received his Ph.D. from Ohio University; MA in from Texas Tech; and BS from West Texas A&M University.
Lowery-Hart’s presentation described Amarillo College’s Culture of Caring, an initiative to help students succeed by addressing their needs through relationship and service.
One example Lowery-Hart gave was allowing AC students to envision what the perfect college looked like for them and to write AC’s values. The students created Caring Through “Wow,” Innovation, Family, Fun and “Yes.” With these new values, Lowery-Hart implemented changes to help students through a culture of caring.
Following Lowery-Hart’s presentation, the LI teams began their initial planning and goal setting for their campus projects.
"I look forward to working with my Leadership Institute team to create more awareness and alleviate some of the obstacles that our students face, especially during their first year at IU. I am also eager to hear how other LI teams approach this problem." – Clark Barwick, IU Bloomington Team Member
Follow the 2018-2020 Leadership Institute Team's Progress