Penn State Intercom......December 7, 2000
Center gets new home,
external relations director
By Tysen Kendig
Public Information
For
three decades, the Center for the Study of Higher Education at Penn State
has been a stalwart among research organizations, helping to produce hundreds
of highly skilled graduates while pursuing a fundamental mission of improving
the basic elements of education: teaching, learning and achieving.
Today, the center is in the midst of a facelift that aims to strengthen its state and national role as an educational think tank and enhance the public perception of its purpose.
An interdisciplinary research organization based in the College of Education and partnered with the higher education graduate program, the center engages researchers and policy leaders in examining the challenging issues that confront higher education. The scope of the center's research, scholarship and outreach activities embraces campus, state, national and international levels.
"The changing world of higher education technology, policy and practice requires creative and flexible responses from our team at the center," said James Fredericks Volkwein, director, professor and senior scientist at the center. "The complexities of education policy problems -- current and anticipated, nationally and internationally -- require teams of multi-disciplinary scholars and researchers with diverse perspectives and skills."
A key addition to the team who will help spearhead its progressive attitude is Helen Caffrey.
Caffrey, who played a pivotal role as coordinator of last July's successful National Governors' Association meeting in State College, was appointed as the center's new director of external relations.
Caffrey served in the University's office of governmental affairs as director of commonwealth relations since 1993, and gained a working knowledge of the center as its advisory board chair over the past two and a half years. Her primary focus in this new role will be to raise awareness of the center and its scholarly work.
"I'm very eager in this new challenge to help advance the capacities of the center and the University in the world of research as it applies to decision-making at various levels -- whether it's institutional, systematic or public policy," said Caffrey.
Before coming to Penn State, Caffrey worked for 17 years in the Pennsylvania Senate as executive director of the Senate Education Committee. She also has served on the State Board of Education for more than six years.
This experience in basic and higher education -- and the external perspectives gained from working with a legislative body and a policy-making group -- has helped Caffrey identify certain project areas within the center that she would like to enhance.
"One of the things I have a personal interest in is making sure there's an alignment between the academic standards that states are putting in place for their K-12 systems, and making sure that at least the last standard is aligned with the expectations of colleges and universities," she said. "You don't want to have a sudden disconnect in that continuum."
Along with a new face, a change of scenery also lies ahead for the center. This spring it will relocate from its current borough location on South Allen Street to a new campus suite in Rackley Building. Volkwein and Caffrey hope the new venue will reduce the detachment between the center and the University community.
"We are especially pleased about recent events," said Volkwein. "Helen's appointment is a strategic one which, when combined with our move on to campus, will help strengthen our connections not only to our educational research colleagues, but also to key national stakeholders."
"I'm hoping that the synergy of both being in the College of Education and located on campus will improve the dialogue between the center and the University, and will enrich what we both do," added Caffrey. "There's an awful lot of expertise in the faculty that can be drawn on to enrich some of the proposals we could put out and the research that we'd undertake."
The center consists of six appointed researchers and a varying number of additional faculty members who join the staff for certain projects based upon their research and expertise.
Current projects include assessing the effectiveness of distance learning, enhancing undergraduate engineering programs, examining the impact of faculty practices and institutional policy on student learning, and a study of issues facing disadvantaged students and their pathways to success in the completion of higher education. The group also comprises a well-known assessment institute that helps organizations build and implement quality assessment practices.