Community college presidents, administrators, faculty and trustees will meet Aug. 9-11 to discuss the future of higher education accreditation, legislated performance measures and the assessment of learning outcomes.

The conference, "A New Era of Accountability," will be hosted by the Institute for Community College Development (ICCD) in Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

"If community colleges don't demonstrate accountability effectively, they will have inappropriate measures imposed upon them. This program will help them take control," said Barbara Viniar, executive director of ICCD.

"Community colleges are under real pressure to demonstrate to the government, the press and the public the value of what they do. The timing for this conference is ideal," added Scott Jaschik, editor of Inside Higher Ed and a speaker at the conference. The subject of his talk will be "Why the Press Doesn't Understand You, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do About It."

Other featured conference speakers include:

• Joseph C. Burke, director of the Higher Education Program and senior fellow at the Rockefeller Institute, who will discuss "The Accountability Triangle: Meeting Public, Academic and Market Demands."
• Alicia Dowd, assistant professor in higher education administration at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and principal investigator of a Lumina Foundation-funded study on community college student success, will discuss "Data Don't Drive: Building a Practitioner-Driven Culture of Inquiry."
• Stephen Mittelstet, president of Richland College, will speak on "The Dance Between Malcolm Baldrige and Parker Palmer: How Accountability and Passion Combine for a Better College." Richland is the first community college winner of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, named for the late U.S. secretary of commerce and funded by Congress to honor organizations demonstrating world-class excellence in areas of leadership and management.

ICCD is a public/private partnership between the State University of New York and Cornell. It provides professional development opportunities for current and future leaders in community colleges. Its services and programs are tailored to position community colleges and systems to respond proactively to society's changing needs in education and training.

There is a fee to attend the conference, and registration is currently accepted online. For more information, see http://www.iccd.cornell.edu/ or contact Viniar, at (607) 255-9259 or bv28@cornell.edu.