Two AAU meetings are held annually, with one meeting taking place on a member's campus and one held in Washington, D.C. AAU's internal structure includes an Executive Committee from the membership; a Council on Federal Relations, consisting of senior officers from the institutions whose responsibilities include federal relations for their own campuses; the Association of Graduate Schools, composed of the graduate deans of the AAU institutions; and a Public Affairs Network whose participants are public affairs officers of the AAU institutions. Three issues in particular concerned AAU: conflicts of interest and research misconduct, indirect research costs disagreements, and academic earmarking. AAU today remains an invitation-only association; its membership criteria are widely viewed as a measure of quality in research universities.
In 1949, in order to return the association to the presidents, and as a result of the deans' desire to expand the accreditation service, AAU dropped accreditation entirely. and its Licensors AAU is an association member of the American Council on Education (ACE) and participates in and coordinates activities with the informal group of Washington Associations, often called the Big Six. Fourteen of the nation’s leading Ph.D.-granting institutions founded the Association of American Universities (AAU) in February 1900, at a two-day conference at the University of Chicago. AAU’s priorities, summaries, statements, letters, and other materials are included in this section. Diploma mills proliferated and even shaky institutions could call themselves “universities” and award Ph.D.s. At the meeting in Chicago, presidents and graduate deans from the 14 universities agreed to work together on major issues facing higher education. Unlike in Europe, American higher education was decentralized and it was largely unregulated. Graduate deans did site visits, and certified colleges were included in the "AAU Accepted List.". History. AAU includes 65 distinguished public and private research universities dedicated to improving human life through education, research, and discovery, Membership in the Association is by invitation, Learn about the leadership and staff at AAU, AAU universities convene regularly to help shape policy for higher education, science and innovation, Being a member of the AAU team is uniquely rewarding, Fourteen of the nation’s leading Ph.D.-granting institutions founded the Association of American Universities (AAU) in February 1900, A list of often-requested and frequently cited AAU documents, © The Association of American Universities (AAU), Fostering and Protecting Free Speech on Campus, Renew Investments in Vital Scientific Infrastructure, AAU Universities Battle the Opioid Crisis, Progress Toward Achieving Systemic Change, The Strategic Role of a National Organization.
Our member universities earn the majority of competitively awarded federal funding for research that improves public health, seeks to address national challenges, and contributes significantly to our economic strength, while educating and training tomorrow’s visionary leaders and innovators. By 1914 the association was acting as an accrediting agency that provided European institutions with lists of approved colleges whose graduates were deemed capable of advanced graduate work. Education Encyclopedia - StateUniversity.comEducation Encyclopedia: AACSB International - Program to Septima Poinsette Clark (1898–1987), Copyright © 2020 Web Solutions LLC. AAU continues to be run by the presidents and chancellors of its member universities. The purposes of the Chicago meeting were to find means to raise the standards of higher education institutions, increase the value of American graduate degrees, protect the term university from indiscriminate use, and gain the respect of European universities. 1992. 2002. Several highly publicized cases of alleged misconduct in research in the late 1980s combined with the probability of more such cases led AAU to put together and distribute workable guidelines for institutions. For example, some commercial clients of universities required the institutions to prevent or postpone publication of research results–a violation of academic values. Robert M. Rosenzweig's 1998 study revealed how the increasing complexity of university–industry research relationships generated conflict-of-interest questions. The AAU was formed in 1900, during a meeting at the University of Chicago of fourteen representatives of the major institutions of higher education granting doctoral degrees. © The Association of American Universities (AAU), Fostering and Protecting Free Speech on Campus, Renew Investments in Vital Scientific Infrastructure, AAU Universities Battle the Opioid Crisis, Progress Toward Achieving Systemic Change, The Strategic Role of a National Organization. This issue seriously divided AAU's membership. Of the original 14 universities, 11 were private and three were public. The “AAU Accepted List,” grew over the years, with graduate deans conducting fact-finding campus visits. The purposes of the … Banding Together: The Rise of National Associations in American Higher Education. All Rights Reserved The relationship continued to grow through World War II. AAC&U is the leading national association dedicated to advancing the vitality and public standing of liberal education by making quality and equity the foundations for excellence in undergraduate education in service to democracy. Almost as soon as AAU was founded, German universities began using AAU membership as a measure of quality for graduate school admissions. AAU’s 65 research universities transform lives through education, research, and innovation. Each year AAU institutions award about half of the doctorates given in the United States, one-fifth of the master's degrees, and one-sixth of the bachelor's degrees. The American system was fragmented, and standards for graduate study were low. Research, Vannevar Bush, wrote a seminal report, Science—the Endless Frontier, which made the case for federal support of basic research at universities as the forefront of technological advancement. The Association of American Universities (AAU) is a Washington, D.C.-based organization representing sixty-one of the most prestigious North American higher education institutions, fifty-nine in the United States and two in Canada. In the late 1930’s, AAU began to expand its attention beyond institutional issues such as accreditation and graduate education, as the federal government began looking to universities for policy and scientific expertise. AAU and its members have had a long history of contentious negotiations with the federal government concerning indirect costs, the reimbursement of facilities, and administrative costs of federally funded research. By the 1980s AAU had expanded its activities to include an interest in foreign languages and area studies, the organization of a clearinghouse on corporate–university research partnerships, and the collection of data on graduate education. Fourteen of the nation’s leading Ph.D.-granting institutions founded the Association of American Universities (AAU) in February 1900, at a two-day conference at the University of Chicago. A majority of 75 percent of the current members must approve an institution before it can become a new member. The American system was fragmented, and standards for graduate study were low. In response to this and other issues related to university–industry relations, AAU set up a clearinghouse to allow its members to share their policies. Although the AAU was essentially a presidents' organization, the focus on accreditation resulted in drastic losses of attendance by presidents.