For many years - about the last 30 - I have been engaged in university administration. Most of this has been at the institutional level at Penn State and the University of Illinois, and more recently at the national level as president of the American Council on Education. This has given me broad perspectives on higher education in the United States and globally and a sustained and broad interest in the field.

While at ACE, and among many issues, we examined public attitudes about higher education, focusing particularly on college costs and prices. We worked extensively also in the area of access and equal opportunity, including concerns for student aid, diversity and equality of opportunity. During those five years I also became interested in the issue of "market forces" and their growing influence on higher education decision making and policy formation.

My early research interests were in university organization and governance, including, for example, the increased use of institutes and centers as an organizational form in higher education, concepts of shared governance, etc. I continue to have interests in broad area of university governance and sit on the Advisory Council for the Center for Public Higher Education Trusteeship and Governance based in Washington, D.C.

While in Washington at ACE, I focused attention on ways university presidents and institutions of higher learning could strengthen the quality and relevance of teacher education programs, culminating in a report, "To Touch the Future," that carried specific policy and action recommendations.

Upon returning to Illinois I was asked to lead this University's P-16 Steering Committee with the aim of marshalling and focusing the energies and resources of the University of Illinois' three campuses on issues relating to quality education at every level. In that endeavor we are concerned with mentoring and induction of new teachers in the profession as a means of improving teacher quality and length of service, the formation of university-community college partnerships in teacher education, the creation of student scholarship and loan incentives to attract more individuals to teaching, especially in fields of math and science, and the increased application of technology, through distance learning, to the education and advancement of teachers and school leaders.