Products of Forum Collaboration

The Western Academic Leadership Forum (Forum) has numerous current initiatives in which its academic leaders actively collaborate, so as to coalesce ideas and best practices that serve all Forum members. These initiatives add value and engagement opportunities for Forum members, in addition to regular Forum meetings and frequent opportunities for dialogue. These initiatives are outlined below. 

Active initiatives

• Western Academic Leadership Academy, launched in 2015, is a year-long professional development program for academic leaders aspiring to become chief academic officers in the WICHE region’s postsecondary four-year sector. The academy, sponsored by the Forum, seeks to encourage the talents of the next generation of Western provosts by helping to build the knowledge and skills of academic leaders who are poised to move to that level. 
• Interstate Passport®, a national program that facilitates block transfer of lower-division general education attainment based on learning outcomes rather than specific courses and credits among participating institutions in the Interstate Passport Network. Students who earn a Passport and transfer to another participating institution know in advance that they will not have to repeat learning already achieved to meet the receiving institution’s lower-division general education requirements.  The idea for this program was conceived, and continues to be shaped, by members of the Alliance.
• Academic Leaders Toolkit, an online repository of peer-reviewed decision-making tools, is a joint project of the Alliance and its sister organization, the Western Academic Leadership Forum. The toolkit contains profiles of innovative projects, programs, and processes used by academic leaders to bring about campus or system or statewide changes for the benefit of students, faculty, and/or staff. Each year the Alliance leadership chooses a tool submitted during that academic year to receive its Bernice Joseph Award during the Alliance annual meeting’s awards luncheon.
• Online Course Exchange (OCE), is a robust administrative tool designed to support collaboration among institutions offering online courses. As members of a consortium using OCE, institutions expand their students’ access to high quality online courses and programs taught by other institutions participating in the consortium.

Working committees

• Accelerated Learning/Dual Enrollment
• Diversifying the Faculty
• Library Subscription Fees
• Wellness
• Western Academic Leadership Academy Reunion

Ideas for Forum initiatives? Contact: