Chairman's Letter

President Bob Connor's detailed account of the Teagle Foundation's recent history of grantmaking describes both the deep financial anxiety of the past year, as well as the hope generated by the Foundation's work. Although quite a variety of institutions and projects have been provided grants, there is a striking consistency in the Foundation's sharp focus on efforts to renew and enlarge the reach of liberal education. Bob Connor's analysis and narratives demonstrate the confidence we continue to have in the larger possibilities of liberal education.

The vital focus of the Foundation's work on student learning is clear and plain in the record of this and prior years. Our grantees have addressed questions as old as liberal education itself, but have given them a contemporary form, a fresh articulation and a new sense urgency. Methods, techniques, and measures to gauge student progress in learning have become vehicles for exploration, dialogue, and action by faculty on dozens of campuses. Our grants continue to support faculty work on the ground, often enabled by collaboration with colleagues from other institutions. Donna Heiland, Vice President, and Cheryl Ching, Program Officer, again have been active and effective interlocutors with grant recipients, both through ongoing dialogues and in larger and smaller meetings.

As you will see in the President's Essay, the strategic basis for these efforts by the Foundation has continued to strengthen, both by engaging an expanding range of participants and by continuing to tap additional sources of influence to improve student learning. We have, for example, engaged and supported several additional forms of academic and organizational leadership. The Foundation supported the Association of American Colleges & Universities' program on student learning for department chairs, and has funded a multi-year seminar for emerging campus leaders. The Washington D.C.-based New Leadership Alliance for Student Learning and Accountability, initiated in good measure through Bob Connor's and the Foundation's efforts, is focused on the arena of public and institutional policy.

This essay by Bob Connor marks the completion of his inspired and energetic leadership of the Teagle Foundation for nearly seven years. The stamp of his leadership has been deep and telling, both on the Foundation and across the world of higher education. Bob has ventured onto ground where most other higher education leaders fear to tread, and has made countless converts to the idea of using evidence to improve liberal learning. He has done so with a rare combination of passion and prudence, imagination and wisdom, and tenacity and grace. His thinking and writing have provided a model of clarity and persuasiveness, and he has kept a sharp focus on the things that matter most in liberal education. All of us at the Foundation are deeply grateful for his splendid leadership, and we look forward to drawing on his advice in the coming year. In an unexpected twist of circumstance, the Teagle Board asked me a year ago to succeed Bob as the Foundation's president in 2010. To follow such a leader is both an honor and a daunting discomfort. My devotion to the Foundation based on 20 years of service on the Board, and my career-long commitment to liberal education, have persuaded me to take up the challenge. I look forward to working with the Board, the staff and our grantees to build on the Foundation's legacy and Bob Connor's remarkable record of achievement.

Richard L. Morrill
Chairman of the Board and President-Designate