Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education to be housed at Indiana University Bloomington

Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education to be housed at Indiana University Bloomington’s Center for Postsecondary Research

Oct. 8, 2014

News Release from the Carnegie Foundation

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has transferred responsibility for the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education to Indiana University Bloomington’s Center for Postsecondary Research. The Classification will continue to retain the Carnegie name after the Center for Postsecondary Research takes over responsibility on January 1, 2014.

As a part of the move, the Lumina Foundation is awarding $500,000 to CPR to update and enhance the Carnegie Classification to reflect and accommodate an evolving higher education landscape. The award is part of Lumina’s Degree Qualifications Profile Initiative, unveiled today (Oct. 8) during the event “The Degree Qualifications Profile and Tuning: Call for Action, Conversation about Next Steps” held in Indianapolis.

Starting in 1970, the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education developed the Classification of colleges and universities to support its program of research and policy analysis. It is widely considered the leading framework for recognizing and describing the diverse types of institutions in U.S. higher educationover the past four decades.

Carnegie has a long tradition of creating institutions, processes, and products and, when they are of benefit to teaching and learning, providing them to the field for future stewardship and use. It is in this tradition that Carnegie came to the decision that it was time to hand over the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education to the education community.

“We selected CPR because its mission aligns with Carnegie’s efforts to promote student success through institutional effectiveness,” said Carnegie President Anthony S. Bryk. “Both organizations are in agreement that gathering and using data is essential for sound decision making and institutional improvement. Both organizations are involved in work related to student access, assessment, learning, and persistence.”

Bryk said that CPR is especially well suited to take over the administration of the Classification system because the organization has faculty and research staff with expertise working with national higher education data, and several staff members have strong qualifications to contribute to, even advance the work. Carnegie will have a representative on CPR’s Classification advisory board and provide full support during the transfer of the Classification.

The Center for Postsecondary Research is a research center of the Indiana University School of Education. It promotes student success and institutional effectiveness through research and service to postsecondary institutions and related agencies. Center personnel assist institutions and agencies in gathering and using data for decision making and institutional improvement. In addition to its work with initiatives related to student access, assessment, learning, and persistence, CPR focuses on the policies and practices that promote student success, educational effectiveness, and institutional development. The Center has long been involved in global higher education research initiatives. It houses the National Survey of Student Engagement and has recently been involved in an ongoing partnership with the National Student Clearinghouse.

“At IU, we’ll immediately begin work at the first of the year on transferring the web site for the Carnegie Classification to our staff who will begin updating it throughout next year,” said Vic Borden, professor of higher education and student affairs at the IU School of Education and the director of the project for CPR. “We will also begin collaborating with colleagues in academia and education policy to begin exploring ways the Classification can best reflect a 21st century postsecondary universe. In this time of expanding opportunities and ways in which to earn a degree, this is a very important step to ensure our understanding of institutions and the students they serve best meets our federal, state, and local policies.”

To that end, Borden said while the initial review of the Classification will focus on U.S. degree-granting postsecondary institutions, consideration of non-degree credentials will be part of the revision. He also said that the project will reach out to international higher education systems to discern how each is handling similar issues and understand how the U.S. can better align with other parts of the world, particularly the European Union, East Asia, and Australia and Southeast Asia.

The Carnegie Classification has undergone an update every five years since 2000, and a preliminary update will be complete late next year. The project calls for a substantial revision and update of the Classification by the end of 2018.

NOTE:
The Carnegie Community Engagement Classification, which is a voluntary classification in that institutions apply to be included, that is housed at the New England Resource Center for Higher Education, will continue to be administered by that organization.

The transfer of the Carnegie Classifications of Institutions of Higher Education will not affect the announcement of institutions selected for the Community Engagement Classification in 2015.

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is committed to developing networks of ideas, individuals and institutions to advance teaching and learning. It joins together scholars, practitioners and designers in new ways to solve problems of educational practice. Toward this end, the foundation works to integrate the discipline of improvement science into education with the goal of building the field’s capacity to improve. building the field’s capacity to improve.

Source: Carnegie Foundation

Founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1905 and chartered in 1906 by an act of Congress, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has a long and distinguished history. It is an independent policy and research center, whose primary activities of research and writing have resulted in published reports on every level of education. Eight presidents have guided the Foundation through its history, each bringing unique shape to its work.

Influential Foundation achievements include development of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA), publication of the Flexner Report on medical education, creation of the Carnegie Unit, founding of the Educational Testing Service, and establishment of the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The Carnegie Foundation was a leader in the effort to provide federal aid for higher education, including Pell Grants, which assist low- and middle-income students.

The Rebirth of an Independent Carnegie Foundation
With Ernest L. Boyer’s appointment as president in 1979, the Foundation separated from the Carnegie Corporation, which had supported it during a period of financial problems. It became an independent institution and eventually moved to Princeton, N.J. During Boyer’s tenure, the Foundation maintained its interest in higher education and broadened its work to recognize the interconnection of all stages in the educational experience. Landmark policy reports, including High School: A Report on Secondary Education in America and College: The Undergraduate Experience in America, involved the Foundation in the national debate and activities around school reform and strengthening colleges and universities. Boyer’s influential report, Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate, laid the groundwork for a broader definition of scholarship, which has become common parlance at universities around the United States and the world.

The Move West
In the summer of 1997, with Lee S. Shulman at the helm, the Foundation relocated from Princeton to its current home in California. Shulman’s vision for the Foundation was to create a “Bellagio” or Center for Advanced Study for teachers, and Carnegie’s efforts would grow from the work on the scholarship of teaching begun during Boyer’s tenure.

The Foundation would also continue the work Shulman and others had begun with the American Association for Higher Education since the early 1990s on teaching as “community property” and as a scholarly practice in a community of peers. In 2003, the Foundation moved into a facility designed especially for its work in the foothills behind Stanford University. This center for teaching and teachers became the perfect setting for teachers from all levels of education, from kindergarten through the doctorate, to join with resident scholars to examine their practice and build new knowledge, bringing teachers beyond previous models of inquiry that engage them only as objects of study.

Many of Carnegie’s programs under Shulman’s tenure continued the work of earlier Foundation scholars and researchers. And the foundation revisited work done in its infancy with programs on the education of physicians, teachers and engineers, adding nursing and clergy education to the studies. The Foundation also took on new investigations; into studies of moral and civic education, student political engagement and liberal and doctoral education. In the first decade of the 21st century, the fastest growing segment of American higher education, enrolling more than 46 percent of all U.S. undergraduates, is the community colleges. The Foundation initiated a major effort to boost the success of students in that segment of higher education.

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Source: Indiana University- Bloomington Center for Postsecondary Research

The Center for Postsecondary Research (CPR), a research center of the Indiana University School of Education, promotes student success and institutional effectiveness through research and service to postsecondary institutions and related agencies. Center personnel assist institutions and agencies in gathering and using data for decision making and institutional improvement. In addition to its work with initiatives related to student access, assessment, learning, and persistence, CPR focuses on the policies and practices that promote student success, educational effectiveness, and institutional development.
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Source: Lumina Foundation

Lumina Foundation is the nation’s largest private foundation focused solely on increasing Americans’ success in higher education.

Lumina Foundation is an independent, private foundation committed to increasing the proportion of Americans with high-quality degrees, certificates and other credentials to 60 percent by 2025. Lumina’s outcomes-based approach focuses on helping to design and build an accessible, responsive and accountable higher education system while fostering a national sense of urgency for action to achieve Goal 2025.
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Video: Achieving National Prominence through the Carnegie Classification
Cleveland State University
April 23, 2013

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