Expert Profile

Caryn McTighe Musil is the Senior Vice President at the Association of American Colleges and Universities and oversees the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Global Initiatives. Under her leadership, the office has been working to mobilize powerful and overlapping educational reform movements involving civic, diversity, global learning, women’s issues, and personal and social responsibility.

Dr. Musil is currently directing a multi-project national initiative, “Core Commitments: Educating Students for Personal and Social Responsibility,” that focuses on engaging students with core questions about their ethical responsibilities to self and others, and about their responsibilities as citizens in a diverse democracy. It is funded by the Templeton Foundation.

Dr. Musil, with her colleague Kevin Hovland, also directs a FIPSE-funded project, “Shared Futures: General Education for Shared Learning,” which seeks to infuse globallearning across general education. Its premise is that in our interdependent but unequal world, higher education can help prepare students not only to thrive in such a world but to remedy its inequities.

In addition, she serves as Director of the Program on the Status and Education of Women, which produces a tri-quarterly online newsletter On Campus with Women. The program also offers workshops on women’s leadership for inclusive excellence through the Campus Women Lead project, and provides national leadership on issues concerning women in higher education. A new status report on women in higher education, A Measure of Equity, will be released in late 2008.

Dr. Musil’s interest in civic engagement led to the creation of the Center for Liberal Education and Civic Engagement, which promotes civic engagement as