Program areas at Association of American Universities
Federal relations, policy, and public affairs: the majority of the program funds expended by the Association of American Universities (aau) is concentrated in federal government relations, policy studies, and public affairs & communications. Aau's programs and projects address both federal and institutional policies and practices. Maintaining the productive partnership between the nation's research Universities and the federal government is a key area of focus. This includes work on federal and institutional policies affecting the teaching, research, and service missions of research Universities, their students, faculty members, and staff. This includes federal investments in student aid, higher education, competitively awarded-basic scientific research programs.
Other programspublic opinion project: this project aims to gain more insights into public opinion to assist our members on issues critical to their relationship with the public and policymakers.meetings: aau conducts semi-annual meetings of the chief executive officers of its member institutions as well as multiple meetings of federal relations officers and other committees and groups, as necessary. The Association conducts annual meetings of the following internal groups, composed of staff from aau's member Universities: - council on federal relations - public affairs network - chief academic officers - senior research officers - chief diversity officers - general counsels - Association of graduate schoolsgolden goose award aau played a leadership role in the ninth annual golden goose award program and ceremony. The award honors federally funded researchers whose work sounds odd or obscure but turned out to have major societal benefits.aau by the numbers as part of the Association's efforts to demonstrate the value of research Universities to the nation, aau updated and produced print and digital infographics with aggregate statistics on the economic impact, student financial aid, research intensity, and other useful information about its member Universities.
Grant-funded projects: aau advances projects that address critical research and education policy issues impacting aau member Universities. We are selective in the grants we solicit to ensure that the grant-funded work aligns with aau's goals and priorities. Aau currently has two active grants supporting our undergraduate teaching evaluation project, and closed grants supporting our phd education initiative and our public access to research data project. Aau staff continually evaluate potential grant opportunities. Undergraduate teaching evaluation project aau is committed to creating more equitable and effective means to evaluate educational contributions within faculty rewards structures. Aau is supporting five aau stem department demonstration projects and a broader aau learning community to develop practices to value, recognize, and reward the full range of intellectual work that goes into teaching as part of faculty promotion and annual review structures. In addition, this effort will work to integrate concepts of justice and equity into the faculty rewards system. The demonstration projects are made possible by a gift from the sarah gilbert & carl wieman charitable fund. The broader learning community is supported by funding from the howard hughes medical institute. Phd education initiative with the support of the alfred p. sloan foundation, a pilot group of eight member Universities, representing 32 academic departments, implemented reforms within science, technology, engineering, math, social sciences, arts, and humanities phd programs to 1) drive institutional change:influence the culture and behavior at the department level to provide phd students with the knowledge, skills, and ability to succeed in careers within and beyond academia; 2) promote data transparency:identify institutional policies and practices to make phd program data including data about the career pathways and employment trends of phd alumni widely available; and 3) implement effective strategies:highlight and encourage effective university, disciplinary society, and federal agency strategies and programs to support career diversity. Public access to research data aau, in collaboration with aplu and the American geophysical union, hosted a workshop in march 2022 to explore what Universities and disciplinary societies can do to accelerate public access to data from federally funded research. The workshop was aimed at helping to further disseminate the work aau and aplu work did as part of nsf grant #1939279. This was the final activity of the grant.