As the new academic year gets underway, we wish you well and thank you for your continued connection to our network. Campus Compact has been here with you through the tumultuous last year and a half. The continued commitment of our members—presidents, faculty, administrators, and students has strengthened our drive to advance the public purposes of higher education through innovation, networking, and collaboration.
As we embark on this next phase of our organizational life, we recognize and appreciate that we are at a dynamic crossroads in the history and evolution of Campus Compact. The work of community and civic engagement is now embedded firmly in many regions, states, and campuses across the country, which allows us to develop new and innovative ways to serve institutions and practitioners while also providing national-level strategic leadership, training, and support for these efforts. The pandemic has reminded us of, and indeed accelerated, changing trends in how we do this important work—on individual campuses and in the Compact network. We have reorganized our staffing to focus on programming that we uniquely can offer as a national coalition. This includes bringing members together for shared learning in affinity groups by institution-type; offering national credential opportunities for civic engagement professionals; providing tools and networking opportunities for community-committed student leaders; and sourcing ideas and models throughout the country to share through webinars, conferences, and through our online resource library. We are also in active conversations about new and exciting national-level collaborations with other organizations that share our values and commitment. Our goal is to complement your deep place-based work and provide the inspiration, network, and support for student civic learning and engagement.
The Compact network will continue to evolve this year toward an organizational model that allows our members to access the programming and resources most valuable to you. We look forward to welcoming a new president for Campus Compact later this year who can step in and continue to amplify and support institutional commitments to education for democracy and the public good. The search for that new president has already begun, with a national search committee chaired by former board chair Kate Conway-Turner (President of Buffalo State University) and the support of consultants at Diversified Search. We will be in touch as the search process moves forward, and will share the search profile once it is finalized so that it can be widely shared with interested parties.
In the meantime, we have planned Open Houses for our members and prospective members to learn more about Campus Compact. Registration can be found at events.compact.org/open-house. If you have any specific needs or questions, please reach out to Natalie Furlett, Director of Partnerships and Member Engagement, at [email protected].
We look forward to seeing many people from your institution online and in-person as we carry on sharing learning, inspiring one another, and working together as a coalition of colleges and universities. The need for this work, and for national collaboration in support of a healthy and diverse democracy, has never been more urgent. Thank you for your commitment to the public good.
Best wishes,
Maggie Grove
Interim President
Jonathan Alger
President, James Madison University
Chair, Campus Compact Board of Directors