This spring WICHE hosted a slew of meetings related to current programs and projects. The Western Academic Leadership Forum annual meeting, held in April in Anchorage, was themed “Taking Stock: Strategic Leadership in Changing Times” and included a keynote speech from the American Council on Education’s Terry Hartle on the critical issues facing higher education in the West, the impact of the economic downturn, and the prospects for economic stimulus funding for student aid and university infrastructure projects. Follow-ups to December’s “Fostering Collaborative State-Level Education and Workforce Database Development” meeting, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, were held in South Dakota and Alaska, with the goal of exposing a wider array of state leaders to the lessons learned in state efforts to develop longitudinal data systems spanning K-12, postsecondary, and workforce information. In a related meeting, held in Olympia, Washington, representatives from Hawaii, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington launched a discussion of a prototype framework for an interstate data exchange focused on these areas. WICHE’s Non-traditional No More project—which targets “ready adults,” those who are close to having earned a degree but have not yet returned to college, to increase degree attainment—held meetings in Arkansas, Colorado, Nevada, South Dakota, and New Jersey to assist states in identifying ways to reduce barriers in policy and practice that prevent such adults from returning to college. WICHE also held a meeting of the College Access Challenge Grant (CACG) Network in April in Las Vegas, where representatives from Alaska, Nevada, North Dakota, and Washington convened to share information, challenges, and solutions related to the administration of their CACG programs.

July 2009  | Share this on Twitter | Post this on Facebook