Two administrators from Vanderbilt University have been named to chair task forces for the Association of American Universities’ 2014 Council on Federal Relations.
Christina West, assistant vice chancellor for federal relations, will chair the Higher Education Task Force. This group is responsible for developing and implementing an advocacy strategy, in close coordination with AAU leadership, for issues around higher education policy including federal student aid, access and completion, accreditation, international education, graduate education and a variety of other issues that fall under the jurisdiction of the Higher Education Act.
Margie Glick, assistant director of federal relations, will chair the Humanities Task Force, which is responsible for similar activities with respect to the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Both West and Glick are based in Vanderbilt’s Office of Federal Relations in Washington, D.C. West previously chaired the Humanities Task Force in 2008 and served as vice chair of the Council on Federal Relations in 2009 and as chair in 2010.
The AAU, a nonprofit organization of 62 leading public and private research universities in the United States and Canada, focuses on issues that are important to research-intensive universities, such as funding for research, research policy issues, and graduate and undergraduate education. The 60 AAU universities in the United States award more than one-half of all U.S. doctoral degrees, with 55 percent of those in the sciences and engineering.
The AAU works to maintain productive partnerships among the nation’s research universities and the federal government. The major activities of the association include federal government relations, policy studies and public affairs.
Membership in the AAU is by invitation.