ELON COLLEGE – Elon College has been selected for membership in the Associated New American Colleges (ANAC), a national consortium of selective and innovative private colleges and universities in the United States. Elon was named to the group in a vote by the presidents of the 20-member organization in February.
ANAC is made up of small to mid-sized comprehensive institutions dedicated to the integration of liberal arts and sciences and professional studies, and excellence in teaching and learning. ANAC colleges and universities are student- and value-centered and emphasize the faculty teacher-scholar model.
“Elon College, and the other ANAC schools, are advancing a third kind of educational model for American higher education,” says Elon President Leo M. Lambert. “We blend the highly personalized qualities of liberal arts colleges with the programmatic diversity of universities. Our strength lies in a strong liberal arts foundation for all undergraduates, interwoven with outstanding professional programs in a collegial and student-focused campus environment.”
Lambert says ANAC membership will allow Elon to associate with a nationwide peer group of premier institutions, furthering the college’s emergence on the national higher education scene. “Elon has much in common with these institutions,” he says. “We can learn much and also make significant contributions to the national dialogue on issues such as interdisciplinary instruction, graduate education, international education, the centrality of the undergraduate liberal arts and sciences experience, the integration of educational technology and effective management practices.”
“The Associated New American Colleges look forward to Elon College’s participation in ANAC,” says Jerry Berberet, ANAC executive director. “Elon is a
national leader in experiential education, and we are eager to learn from its programs in this area. We are impressed with the priority that Elon is placing on development of strong professional and graduate programs on a solid undergraduate residential liberal arts base.”
ANAC, which was created in 1995, is a non-profit organization based at the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation in Princeton, N.J. The founding principles were envisioned by the late Ernest Boyer, former president of The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, who coined the phrase “New American College” and advocated academic programs that connected thought with action and theory with practice.
ANAC supports a national dialogue on educational issues, and member institutions serve as laboratories for models of excellence that have implications for all of higher education.
ANAC institutions are:
Belmont University, Nashville, Tenn.
Butler University, Indianapolis, Ind.
Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa
Drury University, Springfield, Mo.
Elon College, Elon College, N.C.
Hamline University, St. Paul, Minn.
Ithaca College, Ithaca, N.Y.
Mercer University, Atlanta, Ga.
North Central College, Naperville, Ill.
Quinnipiac College, Hamden, Conn.
Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, Wash.
Rollins College, Winter Park, Fla.
Saint Mary’s College of California, Moraga, Calif.
Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, Penn.
The Sage Colleges, Troy/Albany, N.Y.
University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio
University of Hartford, West Hartford, Conn.
University of the Pacific, San Francisco, Stockton and Sacramento, Calif.
University of Redlands, Redlands, Calif.
Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Ind.
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