Head of Middle States visiting team takes a look at AU

BY EMILY D. JOHNSON

Last Tuesday the head of the Middle States visiting team made an initial trip to AU for a day of learning about the university. Mark Gearan, president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, N.Y., met with a group of students, and with President Benjamin Ladner, members of the Board of Trustees, faculty, the Middle States steering committee, and others. He also planned some logistics for the visiting team’s trip here Feb. 8–11.

Gearan received a copy of AU’s Middle States self-study report, which was updated through October as campuswide feedback was received. Karen Froslid Jones, director of the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment, called the revisions made to the document small but important. “The comments from the community were very helpful, and they definitely strengthened the report,” she said. AU’s Board of Trustees reviewed the report at a meeting last Friday, and the final version should be available by the first week in December in both paper form and on CD-ROM.

Froslid Jones emphasized that the Middle States steering committee will try to respond to individuals who submitted comments to let them know how their input was used, but, she said, they may not be able to respond to everyone.