MANSFIELD, PA— Mansfield University hosted the annual meeting of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC) on June 22-24. The theme for the meeting was “Making the Case for Liberal Learning in and Beyond the Classroom.”
Representatives of the 30 COPLAC schools spent three days discussing a wide-variety of topics concerning higher education and, in particular, the place of liberal arts in that structure. COPLAC members’ communication and institutional research specialists spent time developing and discussing new strategies for advancing their sector with the wider public.
Stu Weiss, a 1980 MU graduate and owner of Studio City, was a featured speaker for the opening plenary session.
Also during the weekend, COPLAC’S Strategic Plan Committee shared the penultimate draft of the 2017-2025 COPLAC Strategic Plan with Board members. After discussion and final edits, the new plan was approved at the business meeting.
MU Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Steven Siconolfi was elected to the COPLAC Executive Committee at the business meeting.
The annual meeting was also be the first opportunity for many members to meet and interact with Cole Woodcox, the new director of COPLAC who comes from member campus Truman State University. It also offered members the chance to wish outgoing Director Bill Spellman well and thank him for his service to the organization.
“It was an honor for Mansfield to host our COPLAC contemporaries,” MU President Fran Hendricks said. “It’s always an excellent opportunity to get together and share ideas and information with the other schools in this prestigious consortium.”
Mansfield will host the Northeast Regional Undergraduate Research, Scholarly and Creative Activities Conference on October 13-14. The conference will give students at Northeastern COPLAC schools the opportunity to present the results of their undergraduate research and meet and discuss their work with peers and faculty members.
Established in 1987 and now consisting of 30 colleges and universities in 28 states and one Canadian province, COPLAC represents a distinguished sector in higher education. The organization advances the aims of its member institutions and drives awareness of the value of high-quality, public liberal arts education in a student-centered, residential environment.
Mansfield was selected as Pennsylvania’s COPLAC representative in January 2015.
Photos from the Annual Meeting are available on the COPLAC Facebook page at facebook.com/CoplacHigherEd/
To learn more about COPLAC, go to coplac.org