Chapter 5
Achieving Greater Expectations:
A Shared Responsibility

Greater Expectations mean...

a reinvigorated liberal education of high quality for all students. They also mean new student responsibility for learning, different emphases for faculty work, coherent institutional processes, outcomes aligned across educational levels, and a better public understanding of the value of college. How can the country achieve these important goals?

The answers involve collaboration and concerted action. Greater Expectations demand commitment from all groups and individuals interested in education; no one is exempt from participation. Raising the level of student accomplishment cannot be achieved simply by tweaking the college curriculum or extending the high school year. Higher education alone cannot solve the problems. Policies play a role by directing public attention and funds, but so do faculty and employer expectations. While isolated actions contribute to solutions, they are more effective when part of a comprehensive design for change. The New Academy described in this report offers such a design. It can be constructed from all the existing innovations in higher and secondary education, nourished by good will, and supported by collective, enlightened decisions.

College education in the New Academy is shaped by principles that build from and extend those of the recent past. They approach the teaching-learning collaboration with a consistent emphasis on learning, and they repeatedly reinforce the relevance of liberal education for a changing world.

Enterprise-wide problems require comprehensive solutions, even as the implementation details vary from one locale to another. At the collegiate level, student mobility within the educational landscape makes each institution, de facto, part of a larger national endeavor. Since learning is cumulative, both primary and secondary education contribute to college readiness. The universities themselves cycle back into the picture as the source of the next generation of school teachers, and as the site of graduate study by future professors.

Shared responsibility and collective action can occur at many levels—within institutions, across campuses, between K-12 and higher education, among stakeholders. All such collaboration will advance the country toward a true educational system, one that like ascending stairs leads all students toward higher achievement.

The following pages summarize the Greater Expectations New Academy, comprised of diverse institutions all moving forward together, although along distinct paths.