Our call to action...

Carries a sense of urgency. Monthly, economic and social structures suffer from conflicting priorities and questionable judgments; they seek guiding values and insight. Weekly, the workplace awaits more competent and adaptable employees. Daily, the world's problems cry out for reasoned responses. Everyone is responsible for meeting these needs, and no person can be relieved of his or her personal or collective obligation. Higher education must rise to the challenge by enabling all who attend college to become the empowered, knowledgeable, and principled citizens the interconnected globe requires.

The Greater Expectations National Panel, as a diverse group of individuals in conversation with colleagues around the country, examined the aims of college education for a knowledge-based society. The analysis in this report suggests that a New Academy, with learning at its center, is emerging as the answer to what college aspirants and society need for the future. Bringing this New Academy to its full potential—with the universal, high expectations it embodies—will depend on concerted and purposeful action arising from multiple strategic alliances. To fulfill its promise to today's students, those of future generations, and to the broader public, higher education itself will need to change; this report outlines the shape of the change.

Progression from the present situation to the New Academy will entail several conceptual shifts. First, colleges and universities must themselves assume a learning posture, improving their knowledge of effective education in the service of the common good. The exciting innovations described throughout this report and already flourishing on many campuses attest to the academy's potential to take on this role. Second, mutually sustaining partnerships—at all levels, with all stakeholders—involving enlightened policy decisions supported by concerted action need to become a regular feature of the educational landscape. These partnerships can be seen as the first step in creating a shared responsibility for success.

Finally, from these rich and intertwined alliances, we look forward to the growth of a true learning society, one that prizes creative intellectual activity as the basis for personal growth, practical intelligence, moral leadership, economic success, and societal strength. This is the final conceptual shift, to a culture that celebrates all manifestations of powerful and continuous learning.