New Center: Jandris Center for Innovative Higher Education

During the summer of 2010, the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) received a generous gift from alumnus, Dr. Thomas Jandris, to create the Jandris Center for Innovative Higher Education. The Center will offer exciting opportunities for collaboration among higher education scholars, practitioners, and leaders.

Click here for details: http://www.cehd.umn.edu/Pubs/Connect/2010Summer/Community.html

Mission
The Jandris Center for Innovative Higher Education fosters collaboration among researchers, policy makers, students and other stakeholders who seek to understand and transform the quality of postsecondary education. The Center supports multidisciplinary research and innovation in four areas: policy and finance; access, diversity and equity; leadership; and teaching and learning.

Center Co-Directors
David Arendale, Associate Professor, Postsecondary Teaching and Learning
David Weerts, Assistant Professor, Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development

Organizational Development
The Center will nurture partnerships and information sharing around the world, while simultaneously strengthening collaborative relationships in and around the University of Minnesota. In the coming year, we will articulate our agenda for the future, identifying critical issues around which to guide our efforts. Simultaneously, we will begin to feature scholarly work related to our focuses through the Center’s web portal and through colloquia. Additionally, we will consider issues related to organizational structure, including: the relationship of graduate programs to the Center, mechanisms for actively supporting innovative research, and initiating an advisory board to guide our efforts and provide connection to communities of interest.

We value the ability to have people from other units on campus contribute to the Center. Their involvement will strengthen the Center and its ability to be both innovative and interdisciplinary. Further, graduate assistants would be assigned to the unit as appropriate to collaborate on scholarly endeavors related to the study of innovative higher education practices. The Postsecondary Education Research Institute (PERI) affiliated with OLPD will be folded into the Jandris Center.

Benefits to the University of Minnesota

1. Establish a clear presence for Higher Education both within and external to the University.
2. Remove barriers to innovation and collaboration.
3. Generate both theoretical and practical research that connects the University to communities.
4. Serve as a resource and point of access for higher education policy makers who seek to engage with Center affiliates on critical issues in higher education.
5. Provide a vibrant scholarly resource for graduate students in our academic programs.