ACM reflects on a year of shared learning across its 14 member colleges and previews three new priorities to achieve the objectives of its strategic framework.
The Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) has released its 2025-2026 Impact Report. The past year saw the consortium expand professional development offerings for faculty and staff, strengthen peer networks and information sharing, and invest hundreds of thousands of grant dollars directly in member campuses.
Alongside the report, ACM has released an annual update to its five-year strategic framework, Together We Go Further: ACM’s Commitment to Excellence Through Collaboration (2025-2030).
In their joint letter opening the report, ACM President Lisa Jasinski and Grinnell College President Anne Harris, 2025-2026 chair of the ACM Board of Directors, reflected on a year that presented significant challenges to small, private liberal arts colleges across the Midwest, including tightening budgets, shifting student needs, and rapid technological changes.
“In turbulent times, we remain steadfast in our belief that community and collaboration are among our most important resilience strategies for small colleges,” Jasinski and Harris wrote.
Over the past year, that commitment took shape in tangible ways:
- 346 attendees gathered across 23 in-person consortial group meetings.
- 359 faculty and staff participated in ACM-led professional development, including the daylong workshops, Athletics Academy and Navigating a Changing Higher Education Landscape.
- 93 faculty and staff attended an ACM Grants Lab, a multi-day, in-person proposal-writing accelerator to sharpen their skills in pursuing external funding.
- More than $650,000 in grant funds were invested directly in member campuses.
- 193 students participated in the ACM Tuition Remission Exchange Program.
Read the 2025-2026 Impact Report »
ACM’s five-year strategic framework, Together We Go Further, is designed to be revisited annually. Each spring, ACM’s Board of Directors endorses a fresh set of priority initiatives informed by feedback from across the consortium. In April 2026, the board approved three new initiatives for 2026-2027:
- Leadership: Building Campus Leadership Capacity for the AI Age will help campuses lead thoughtfully as artificial intelligence reshapes classrooms and workplaces, using shared learning and peer exchange to help faculty, staff, and campus leaders weigh emerging opportunities and risks alongside their missions and values.
- Alignment: Bridging Silos Across Campuses seeks to strengthen cross-functional collaboration among member campuses on complex challenges, such as student retention and budget constraints, by offering practical tools and expanding peer learning.
- Collective Impact: Thriving Campuses: Shared Approaches to Enhancing Employee Belonging will build on the Higher Education Data Sharing Consortium (HEDS) Sense of Community Survey, recently administered at six ACM campuses. Informed by aggregated survey findings and employee focus groups, ACM will help member campuses identify and implement low-cost, high-impact practices that strengthen employee engagement and retention.
Beyond these three new initiatives, the updated plan reflects work completed in the last year, including a renewed investment in consortial groups and a comprehensive review of ACM’s data collection and sharing practices. Many multi-year initiatives remain ongoing, including expanding professional development for staff and continued efforts to secure external support for strategically aligned consortial programs.
Read the Updated Strategic Framework »
“As we look ahead, we remain committed to the work that has always defined ACM: helping our member colleges accomplish together what none of us can do alone,” Jasinski and Harris wrote.
With the strategic framework now entering its second year, Jasinski and Harris invite stakeholders to reflect on the past year’s achievements and envision what continued collaboration could accomplish in the future.
Read the 2025-2026 Impact Report
