The American Academy for Liberal Education (AALE) Board of Trustees is pleased to announce the appointment of Diane Auer Jones to the position of President. Ms. Auer Jones joined the AALE Board in 2009 and has served as Secretary of the Board since 2010. Auer Jones has been instrumental in refining AALE accreditation policies and has provided strong leadership during AALE’s most recent strategic planning effort focusing on a soon-to-be released new AALE membership and value statement.
Ms. Diane Auer Jones is currently the President of AJsquared Consulting which services clients from the elementary school to the post-secondary level providing counsel on a range of educational issues including charter school development, post-secondary assessment practices, and on-line learning. She has served as Senior Vice-President for External and Regulatory Affairs at the Career Education Corporation, Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education, Director of Government Affairs at Princeton University and was CEO of The Washington Campus, a non-profit organization that serves as the Washington, DC campus for 16 of the nation’s leading graduate schools of business. A molecular biologist by training, Ms. Auer Jones is a graduate of Salisbury University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in biology, and of the University of Maryland Baltimore County, where she completed a master’s degree in Applied Molecular Biology and doctoral coursework in Cellular and Molecular Biology.
In the coming months Ms. Auer Jones will guide plans to expand AALE’s scope of accreditation to better address the needs of current and new members. She will lead initiatives to develop new membership services particularly in ways that support innovation in liberal education including learning models, delivery models, cost models and admission practices and in establishing quality assessments that align institutional mission and goals, and liberal arts learning objectives.