The Jandris Center for Innovative Higher Education provides a forum to design, launch, and evaluate innovative policies and practices in higher education.  The Center is anchored in the belief that the current system of higher education in the United States is unsustainable, and that systemic reforms are necessary to ensure high quality, accessible, and affordable higher education for future generations. Imaginative thinking is required to reform current practices and inspire new approaches and insights.  The Center’s three thematic areas which we believe are fundamental to preparing a diverse, knowledge-driven society for work and civic participation.  These themes include, Innovative Postsecondary Teaching and Learning for a Diverse Society, Leading Change in Turbulent Times, and Building Capacity for Civic Engagement and Leadership.  The center believes that these foci are not unique to the United States, but are rooted in future challenges for higher education systems around the world.  The center aims to engage international colleagues around these themes.The programs of the Jandris Center bring together people and groups—locally, nationally, and internationally-- to design innovative policies and strategies relative to each of these themes.  Policies and practices highlighted at the center primarily stem from scholarly research and promising practices contributed by center affiliates.  Center affiliates include faculty, students, policymakers, higher education leaders, and other constituents whose research and practice touch on issues related to teaching and learning, leadership, and civic engagement in higher education.  Examples of programming include on site events, speaker series, and web-based forums (e.g., guest blogs, innovation briefs, working papers, videos and webinars) that showcase innovations related to teaching and learning, leadership, and civic engagement. Overall, the goal of the Jandris Center is to create an imaginative, dynamic community committed to making a lasting impact on the field of higher education and all who it serves.

Major contributing partners of the Jandris Center include:

• College of Education and Human Development (CEHD)
• Department of Organizational Leadership and Policy Development, CEHD

Alumnus Tom Jandris, in 2010, made a planned gift of $2.5 million to establish a center that will support innovation in postsecondary education. Jandris, who is dean of the College of Graduate and Innovative Programs and vice president of innovation at Concordia University in Illinois, believes the terms innovation and higher education have become almost oxymoronic in an age when colleges and universities need to embrace changes in the way they deliver education. “Unless we create some sort of a movement across the country for universities to once again live up to the notion that they in fact are the lighthouses of civilization in relationship to innovation and exploration and scholarship,” he says, “we will quickly lose our position as the authoritative leaders of the pursuit of knowledge. That would be an unfortunate thing.” Jandris Center Director David Weerts is engaged in continuous planning with several stakeholders to develop the Center’s mission and programming around innovative policies and practices in higher education.