American Council of Trustees and Alumni
Washington, DC 20006
(formerly known as the National Alumni Forum)
In 1998 the National Alumni Forum changed its name to the American Council of Trustees and Alumni - from the ACTA web site
Established by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) in 1994, the National Alumni Forum's mission is to "organize alumni support for academic freedom and challenge practices and policies that threaten intellectual freedom and undermine academic standards." Alumni giving -- at $2.9 billion annually and growing -- is the largest private source of financial support for higher education. The Forum will help alumni direct their giving to programs that will raise educational standers at their alma maters." The Bradley and Olin foundations provided the seed money to get the NAF up and running.
Directed by Lynne Cheney, who served as the director of the National Endowment for the Humanities (following William Bennett) between 1986 and 1993, the NAF recently (1997) launched a national advertising campaign to "outline troubles in higher education" and to give visibility to its newly created vehicle for alumni giving, the Fund for Academic Renewal. The campaign is placing one-third page advertisements in the Ivy League alumni magazines encouraging alumni to contact the NAF and to use the NAF's Fund for Academic Renewal to help them target their gifts rather than allowing their alma maters to spend money without "donor input."
On Campus
Boston Globe
November 12, 2001
Patriotism Police
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1113-03.htm
A conservative academic group founded by Lynne Cheney, the wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, fired a new salvo in the culture wars by blasting 40 college professors as well as the president of Wesleyan University and others for not showing enough patriotism in the aftermath of Sept. 11.
The Nation
October 4, 1998
Trustees of the Right's Agenda
http://members.aol.com/digasa/stats24.htm
Conservative Appointees Hold Increasing Sway Over Public Higher Education
With the authority to hire and fire chancellors and college presidents, as well as to set educational policy, the boards [of trustees] wield enormous power. Across the country, conservative Republican governors have appointed trustees who are their political allies rather than independent advocates for the university system. These political proxies -- often backed by the National Association of Scholars and the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, groups that oppose affirmative action and multicultural studies -- are enacting sweeping changes in the mission of public higher education to provide wide access."