Welcome & Opening Keynote Address
The VSA Project: Accountability/Improvement/Information
Conducted by: David Shulenburger
Abstract
The Voluntary System of Accountability
is a response by public universities to the charge that higher education does
not supply "useful data and accountability" to students and policy makers and
the subsequent call for it to "become more transparent about cost, price, and
student success and ... willingly share this information with students and
families." In deciding to respond in this fashion it was our intention and hope
that a voluntary response would supply information to prospective students that
would aid them in their college search while avoiding the harm to the academy
that might have followed from having a legislative or administrative mandate
issued that required us to report specific data elements. Development of VSA has
been both a productive and challenging process. In this presentation David
Shulenburger will describe the development process, the points of controversy
that had to be resolved and the resulting VSA-College Portrait template.
Biography
David E. Shulenburger
Vice President for Academic Affairs
National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges
Shulenburger’s position at NASULGC is a new one for the organization. His
immediate areas of concentration are on accountability and assessment in higher
education. Before joining NASULGC in June, 2006, David Shulenburger was Provost
and Executive Vice Chancellor of the University of Kansas. He served there as
chief academic officer for thirteen years. He came to the University in 1974 as
an assistant professor and currently holds the faculty rank of Professor in the
School of Business. He received his Ph.D. and Masters degrees from the
University of Illinois and his undergraduate degree from Lenoir Rhyne College.
He previously served as a faculty member at Clemson University and as a labor
economist for the U.S. Department of Labor.
His teaching areas are business economics and labor economics, and his most
recent area of research focuses on the economics of scholarly communications. He
has been active nationally and internationally as an advocate for reform in the
areas of accountability, scholarly communication and academic accreditation.
He was chair of the Board of Directors of the Center for Research Libraries from
2005-07, and is currently a member of that board and of BioOne’s board, member
of the National Commission on Writing, and Consulting Editor for Change
Magazine. He was Chair of the National Association of State Universities and
Land-Grant Colleges Council on Academic Affairs in 2000-2001.
David Shulenburger’s address is:
Vice President for Academic Affairs
National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges
1307 New York Avenue, NW, Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20005-4701
Tele: 202-478-6062 ; Fax: 202-478-6061