Education, Innovation and Discovery: The Distinctive Promise of the American Research University Hilton Washington Washington, DC November 13-14, 2008 Click here for full Conference details Click here to register

The Reinvention Center is a national center focusing on undergraduate education at research universities.

The Center was born of the excitement and intense national and international interest generated by the Boyer Commission Report, Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America's Research Universities (1998).

The Reinvention Center's mission is to sustain the focus on undergraduate education inspired by the Report and be an active and informed voice for promoting change. It carries out its activities through regional meetings, conferences, and special projects.

*If your institution is interested in becoming a member of the Reinvention Center, please contact us at reinvention@miami.edu.

National Conferences

Proceedings of 3rd Conference
November 2006
Proceedings of 2nd Conference
November 2004
Proceedings of 1st Conference
November 2002

Grant-Funded Activities: How can the Reinvention Center help you?

The Reinvention Center can assist with the development and implementation of educational assessment, outreach and dissemination activities in conjunction with grant-funded programs. The NSF, for instance, requires all proposals to explicitly address the "Broader Impact" of the funded activity: "Effective integration of research and education at all levels infuses learning with the excitement of discovery and assures that the findings and methods of research are quickly and effectively communicated in a broader context and to a larger audience" (from "Merit Review Broader Impacts Criterion: Representative Activities," http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2003/nsf032/bicexamples.pdf).

The Reinvention Center can:

• Serve as a resource by providing information on educational outreach activities and research findings and assisting campuses in new efforts;
• Carry out assessment of specific activities, including placing those activities in a larger context; and
• Serve as an agent for dissemination of outreach activities and project findings by circulating information through its regional and disciplinary networks, Web site, listservs, conferences, and other activities. Since regional meetings are attended by some 250 faculty and staff who come from nearly 100 public and private institutions and represent a wide spectrum of academic and professional interests, they provide an ideal forum for bringing knowledge, information, and models of successful initiatives to the larger research university community.

Please contact us for more information on how we can help you implement, disseminate, and assess your educational outreach activities.

Contact us | Join our network | University of Miami

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Opportunities for Undergraduates to Present Research*

Sigma Xi’s national Undergraduate Research Conferences Database

Click here to enter your information: http://vovici.com/wsb.dll/s/2a87g2f5e1

Regional Networks

These networks are made up of research university faculty, administrators and professional staff who share information and work collectively on undergraduate education. More than 250 individuals from approximately 100 research universities participate. The networks meet on a regular basis to address key issues related to undergraduate education. Minutes of previous meetings are posted here.

Spotlight
The Reinvention Center casts its Spotlight on "From Assessment to Accountability: Reframing the Conversation." Four innovative models are presented: University of Nebraska, Lincoln's: Student Learning Outcomes: From Assessment to Accountability; North Carolina State University's: Assessment of Undergraduate Student Learning at NC State: A Decentralized Approach; University of Wyoming's: The University of Wyoming's Curricular Alignment Initiatives; and National Council of Teachers of English,  Conference on College Composition and Communication and Council of Writing Program Administrators': The White Paper on Writing Assessment

It's a Fact
Research universities make up only 3% of the 3,600 colleges and universities in the United States, but graduate 33% of the nation's baccalaureate recipients.

Trends and Patterns
The Boyer Commission offered ten recommendations for "reinventing" undergraduate education at research universities. To learn the extent to which universities initially acted on these recommendations, click here:

Three Years after the Boyer Report

The Center is currently conducting a follow up to assess their further progress.