ANCHOR LEARNING NETWORK

The Anchor Learning Network (ALN) is a learning community designed to facilitate a rapid and effective advancement of the anchor mission. By leveraging a peer learning framework, ALN members systematically transform higher education to fully serve its public mission and advance the long-term social, economic, and physical well-being of our campuses and communities.

ALN members continue to make significant progress to institutionalize the anchor mission on their campuses and are recognized as leaders in transforming the national perception of higher education. Participating CUMU member institutions collaboratively work to identify resources, identify opportunities, work through challenges, and develop new tools for implementing, deepening, and evaluating anchor mission practices.

Higher Education’s Anchor Mission

CUMU member institutions committed to an anchor mission intentionally apply their economic power and human capital in a long-term partnership with their local communities to improve mutual well-being. ALN challenges us to imagine the potential impact if economic assets—hiring, purchasing, and investing power—were better aligned with educational missions to equitably benefit the local economies our universities call home.

Understanding that all communities have different contexts and histories, ALN members explore opportunities for advancing anchor mission strategies grounded in the Anchor Mission Framework that centers community wealth building and explores strategies around our core economic assets of purchasing, hiring, and investment, while gaining an understanding of how to advance racial equity through anchor work.

WHY CUMU MEMBERS JOIN ALN

2023 APPLICATIONS CLOSED

Applications are closed for the 2023 cohort. Sign up to receive upcoming communications.

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Activities and Commitments

The Anchor Learning Network provides facilitated peer learning exchanges, tools, and strategies. Over the course of 2023, participating members will:

Members are expected to share transparently and honestly about the challenges in achieving/actualizing the anchor mission and will keep the confidences of other institutions in the network allowing for candid conversations.

Members commit to advancing the anchor mission at their home institutions. Progress can take many forms and will vary by institution.

Publicly share information, experiences, and the value of anchor mission work through your institution’s communications/marketing strategy and across your spheres of influence, as well as other higher education and place-based anchor institutions.

Learning Communities

Each learning community meets virtually four times per year. No more than two members from each institution will participate in a single learning community. These meetings are social learning environments where we are brought together by what we don’t know and what we are striving toward. To achieve this, we facilitate our calls through member-led design clinics as well as conversations with experts connected to higher education’s anchor mission.

  • Launching the Anchor Mission: This group focuses on building the internal and organizational capacity for effective anchor mission adoption. Focus areas may include: organizational models that facilitate anchor mission adoption, navigating institutional barriers, and successful leadership strategies. Best for members who may be new to the anchor mission.
  • Anchor Operations Integration: This group focuses on integrating the anchor mission into operations, including local hiring, purchasing, capitol deployment, or investment programs/strategies. Conversations focus on best practices, capital deployment, resource sharing, and workshopping challenges around operations.
  • Anchor Collaboratives: Many anchor institutions and partner organizations have joined to form place-based networks, or anchor collaboratives. This group focuses on strategies for working with cross-sector partners to enhance the impact of the anchor mission across our institutions and regions. It is not necessary to be part of an established collaborative
  • Leveraging Data: This group explores how to collect and use data to inform decision-making, institutional change, or strategy development with respect to the anchor mission.

In-person meetings

Anchor Learning Network members will join and participate in at least one learning community and attend two in-person meetings each year.

  • ALN Action Summit: Anchors, Alignment, + Action, June 12–13, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
    Hosted by the Anchor Economy Initiative at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, the 2023 ALN Action Summit provides an opportunity for participants to deepen the individual and collective efforts of our campuses to positively impact the well-being of our communities. This two-day, in-person summit features a keynote, a community experience, presentations, and interactive discussions designed to equip members with actionable takeaways..
  • CUMU Annual Conference Pre-conference Gathering, October 15, 2023, Washington, D.C.
    Every year our ALN members gather in-person in advance of the CUMU Annual Conference. This half-day preconference gathering is designed to connect across our network and delve into topics of common interest aimed at advancing the anchor mission within member institutions, in home communities, and across the higher education sector.

Thank you to U3 Advisors for their support of CUMU’s Anchor Learning Network.

2023 COHORT: SAVE THE DATE

  • CUMU Annual Conference Pre-conference Gathering, October 15, Washington, D.C.

WHO SHOULD APPLY?

Individuals should consider applying if they are a professional employed at a CUMU member institution and part of their role is focused on the anchor mission of their campus. ALN members are leaders and drivers of the anchor mission on their respective campuses and come from a variety of functional areas including, but not limited to.

  • university economic development
  • workforce development centers
  • community/civic engagement
  • government/community relations
  • human resources
  • procurement
  • diversity and inclusion
  • policy and strategic initiatives
  • institutional data
  • urban and community research centers

NOTE: If you were a member of the previous Anchor Learning Network cohort, we ask that you still complete the application for the 2023 cohort.

2023 COHORT APPLICATIONS CLOSED.

SUBSCRIBE TO COMMUNICATIONS

Have questions about ALN?
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Anchor Learning Network Participants

In February 2018, CUMU member institutions joined in a pilot year called the Higher Education Anchor Mission Initiative. This pilot led to the creation of the Anchor Learning Network, which includes participants from the United States, Canada, England, and South Africa.

Augsburg University
Buffalo State University
California State University, Los Angeles
California State University, Sacramento
Case Western Reserve University
College of Staten Island
Colorado State University Spur
Dallas College
Drexel University
Florida Atlantic University
Guilford College
Indiana University Northwest
IUPUI
Johns Hopkins University
Leeds Beckett University (England)		 Loyola University Chicago
Marquette University
Medical College of Wisconsin
Metropolitan State University
Metropolitan State University Denver
Michigan State University
Montclair State University
Rochester Institute of Technology
Rutgers University-Camden
Saint Paul College
Swarthmore College
Temple University
Towson University
University of Baltimore
University of Chicago
University of Dayton		 University of Denver
University of Houston-Downtown
University of Louisville
University of Maryland, Baltimore
University of Minnesota
University of Missouri-Kansas City
University of Missouri-St. Louis
University of Nebraska at Omaha
University of North Texas at Dallas
University of Pittsburgh
University of Pretoria (South Africa)
University of San Diego
University of Tennessee Chattanooga
University of Utah
Virginia Commonwealth University
Weber State University

Augsburg University
Buffalo State
California State University, Los Angeles
California State University, Sacramento
Case Western Reserve University
College of Staten Island
Dallas College
Drexel University
Florida Atlantic University
Georgetown University
Indiana University Northwest		 IUPUI
Johns Hopkins University
Loyola University Chicago
Marquette University
Medical College of Wisconsin
Metropolitan State University
Metropolitan State University of Denver
Rutgers University-Camden
Simon Fraser University (Canada)
Temple University		 Towson University
University of Denver
University of Louisville
University of Maryland, Baltimore
University of Missouri-St. Louis
University of San Diego
Virginia Commonwealth University
Wagner College
Weber State University
York University (Canada)

Augsburg University

California State University, Los Angeles

Cleveland State University

College of Staten Island

Drexel University

Florida Atlantic University

Georgetown University

Indiana University Northwest

IUPUI

Johns Hopkins University

Loyola University Chicago

Marquette University

Medical College of Wisconsin

Metropolitan State University

Metropolitan State University of Denver

Portland State University

Purdue University Northwest

Rutgers University-Camden

Rutgers University-Newark

SUNY Buffalo State

Towson University

University of Arkansas at Little Rock

The University of Chicago

University of Denver

University of Louisville

University of Michigan-Dearborn

University of Missouri-St. Louis

University of Pittsburgh

University of San Diego

Virginia Commonwealth University

Wagner College

Weber State University

York University (Canada)