On the field, Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) schools battle each other like mortal enemies.

Off, they’re surprisingly collegial participants in the ACC Academic Consortium, the less-familiar scholarly arm of the conference that fosters collaboration among students, faculty, and leaders from the ACC's 15 member universities.

As the recently named coordinator of the ACC Academic Consortium, Leslie Stevens, a project director for Faculty Affairs, will spearhead the group's conferences, competitions, and communities of practice; promote inter-university alliances; and burnish the already stellar academic reputation of the conference.

“We want to be able to reach more faculty and more students and get them involved in whatever programs we dream up,” Stevens said.

Cross-pollination with consortium programs

For Stevens, who’s logged more than 10 years working and studying at Virginia Tech — she’s currently in the Master of Public Administration program — the job involves managing a long list of ACC Academic Consortium programming: 

  • ACC Leadership Symposium, a three-day leadership conference for students
  • ACC Academic Leaders Network, a year-long series of gatherings for selected higher ed leaders aimed at building leadership capacity and collaboration among participants. Virginia Tech's 2023 participants included Barb Lockee, Lisa Tucker, Michel Pleimling, Laura Hungerford, and Keith Goyne.
  • InVenture Prize, a televised competition in which student entrepreneurs compete for financial awards to develop an invention or product
  • Meeting of the Minds, an annual conference of undergraduate research and creative scholarship
  • ACC Debate Championship, a research-based public debate for undergraduate students
  • ACCelerate Festival, a biennial collaboration between the ACC and the Smithsonian that celebrates innovative research projects at the intersection of science, engineering, arts, and design
  • Center for Research in Intercollegiate Athletics, which funds research projects related to college athletics administration

Athletics departments at each member school fund the consortium's $1 million budget, and there's still a whiff of that sports rivalry in some of the consortium's competitions. 

But the consortium has also paved the way for friendly advice-sharing networks among peer leaders at ACC schools.

“The provosts are all very close,” said Stevens. “There are lots of conversations about global problems happening in the world. They’ll ask, ‘How are you handling it?’ and then they'll bounce ideas off each other. It's very much a cohort.”

Making meaningful contributions to higher ed 

The 10-year-old ACC Academic Consortium isn’t unique, having modeled itself after the Big 10’s older Academic Alliance.

But the ACC is arguably the most diverse in its mix of schools big and small, public and private, urban and rural, and will become more so in fall 2024 with the addition of the University of California, Berkeley; Southern Methodist University; and Stanford University.

That makes the cross-pollination the consortium offers incredibly valuable. “There's a little bit of everything,” said Amy Hogan, managing consultant at Virginia Tech and liaison to the ACC Academic Leaders Network. “There’s a ton of strength, and people need to know more about it.”

To Executive Vice President and Provost Cyril Clarke, having Stevens coordinate the ACC Academic Consortium is a reflection of Virginia Tech’s commitment to interdisciplinary and cross-university collaboration and its desire to make meaningful contributions to higher education broadly.

“Working with chief academic officers at the 18 ACC universities, Leslie will play an important role in raising the visibility of conference academic programs and providing opportunities for students to develop valuable skills through participation in co-curricular activities,” Clarke said. “I appreciate her willingness to take on the responsibility of Academic Consortium coordinator.”

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