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Government Relations Committee Hits the Road
By Gwendolyn Bradley
The Association's Committee on Government Relations sent its staff and members out on the road this year to help AAUP conferences, chapters, and members develop strategies for addressing the shortfalls in many states' higher education budgets. Presenters helped faculty in five states develop specific local plans for implementing the general recommendations issued by the committee in its report Ensuring the Nation's Future: Preserving the Promise of Higher Education (.pdf), which was published in the January-February 2005 issue of Academe. The report recommended that faculty encourage a broad-based public relations campaign to restore public support for college and university education as a public good; work with the business community and others to develop and publicize the education requirements of the newly emerging workforce; and work within institutional governance structures to ensure that colleges and universities are delivering quality programs at top efficiency. It recommended that faculty lobby the federal government to restore the purchasing power of the Pell Grant and other student aid programs. The report also called for state governments to update state revenue systems to reflect the structural changes in the economy and to provide a more equitable tax burden and more predictable revenue base for public services. The full text of the report is available.
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