Caryn Mctighe Musil

Caryn McTighe Musil "received her B.A. from Duke University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in English from Northwestern University. Before moving into national level administrative work in higher education, she was a faculty member for eighteen years. Dr. Musil is currently Vice President of the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Global Initiatives at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) where she focuses on diversity, civic engagement, and women's issues in higher education. She is also co-director of a new AAC&U Center on Liberal Education and Civic Engagement just launched in partnership with Campus Compact.

"She is a co-author of Diversity in Higher Education: A Work in Progress and principal author of To Form a More Perfect Union: Campus Diversity Initiatives. She served as Associate Director of AAC&U's major initiative, "American Commitments: Diversity, Democracy, and Liberal Learning," and directed its ninety-two institution Curriculum and Faculty Development Network. To enhance that network, she was Project Director of two National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institutes, "Boundaries and Borderlands: The Search for Recognition and Community in America," held at Williams College in 1994 and 1995. Through a William and Flora Hewlett Foundation grant, Dr. Musil directed that institute again at Brown University in 2000 for 250 faculty and administrators from 40 institutions. She has also directed two Bildner Foundation Campus Diversity Institutes in 2002 and 2003 for eight New Jersey institutions doing diversity work in a statewide initiative.

"Dr. Musil is currently Project Director for Liberal Education and Global Citizenship: The Arts of Democracy, funded by the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) to work with institutions to incorporate global issues and social responsibility into the major. The impetus for this project came from her involvement directing a Ford Foundation project with higher education representatives from India, South Africa, and the United States who met in a variety of forums and seminars over a five-year period to explore cross-cutting issues about higher education's role in diverse democracies.

"At AAC&U she also serves as Director of the Program on the Status and Education of Women which produces a quarterly newsletter, generates publications, offers workshops, and provides national leadership on issues concerning women in higher education. Dr. Musil just completed overseeing a National Science Foundation grant, Women and Scientific Literacy: Building Two-Way Streets, and is co-director of the National Initiative on Women in Higher Education.

"She served as Project Director of "The Courage to Question: Women's Studies and Student Learning," awarded by FIPSE, through which seven colleges and universities assessed what students learn in women's studies courses. Dr. Musil edited three publications that emerged from the grant. She also was a co-author of Liberal Learning and the Women's Studies Major. Most recently she was the women's studies section editor for the Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women: Global Women's Issues and Knowledge (2000).

"At La Salle University Dr. Musil taught their first women's studies course in 1973, was instrumental in establishing a women's studies minor, served as Coordinator of the Women's Studies Program, and helped found a campus day care center. In 1984, she was selected as the Executive Director of the National Women's Studies Association, a position she held for over six years. In 1986, she was named a Pennsylvania "Woman of Distinction" by the Women's Campaign Fund and in 1987 was chosen as a Commonwealth Speaker by the Pennsylvania Humanities Council. She was named in Who's Who of American Women in 1995.

"Dr. Musil has been an educational consultant and outside evaluator at numerous colleges and universities, with a special interest in faculty and curriculum development and has served as a reviewer and outside evaluator for FIPSE, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Ford Foundation. A frequent keynote speaker at various national conferences, Dr. Musil has been writing, teaching, and speaking on women, gender, and diversity throughout her career."


 * Advisory Committee, American Democracy Project