Laura de Abruña Named ACE Fellow
	The American Council on Education (ACE) has named Laura de Abruña, associate professor of English at Ithaca College, as an ACE fellow for the academic year 1998-99. She was among just 34 fellows selected this year in a national competition. "I'm thrilled to be given the opportunity to participate in the ACE program, which has a long history of helping academics to explore some of the issues in higher education leadership," says de Abruña. "I want to thank President Williams and the administration of the College for supporting my application and allowing me to accept this honor." Established in 1965, the ACE Fellows Program is designed to strengthen institutions and leadership in American higher education by identifying and preparing promising faculty and staff members for responsible positions in college and university administration. Each ACE fellow will focus on an issue of concern to the nominating institution while spending an academic year working with a president and other senior officers at a host institution. De Abruña will be focusing on issues that have to do with budget, technology, and using resources well to help develop faculty for the 21st century; she is currently in the process of identifying potential host institutions and presidents with which to work. "Almost every college and university in the country belongs to ACE, and by that membership they signal their commitment to helping train future higher education leaders," she says. "Faculty here at Ithaca College have every opportunity to learn about teaching and scholarship, but this program will help me to serve the College when I return with a perspective that faculty members don't have time to get on a day-to-day basis." A member of the Ithaca faculty since 1983, de Abruña has the record of scholarly achievement, excellence in teaching, and leadership activities that the fellowship selection committee requires. For the past three years she has been both the faculty representative on the Ithaca College Board of Trustees and the cochair of the Ithaca College Institutional Self-Study Steering Committee, which helped the College secure reaccreditation by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. She has served for the past two years as chair of the College's Academic Policies Committee. In 1990-91 and 1991-92 de Abruña was awarded fellowships from the Council for International Exchange of Scholars, serving as a visiting Fulbright scholar at universities in Belgium and Luxembourg. She has published a monograph, "The Refining Fire: Herakles and Other Heroes in T. S. Eliot's Works," as well as a number of essays, book chapters, and journal articles. She is currently working on a manuscript titled "Geography Lessons: Identity and Gender in the Literature of the English-Speaking Caribbean." De Abruña holds Ph.D. and M.A. degrees from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and an A.B. degree from Smith College. She has also studied at the Universite de Paris - Sorbonne. Prior to joining the Ithaca College faculty she taught at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; University of Texas, Austin; and Universidad de Puerto Rico, San Juan. According to Marlene Ross, director of the ACE Fellows Program, most previous fellows have advanced into major positions in academic administration. Of the 1,181 participants in the program's first 32 years, more than 200 have become chief executive officers and nearly 700 have become provosts, vice presidents, or deans. The American Council on Education represents more than 1,600 of the nation's colleges and universities and more than 200 higher education associations and organizations, coordinating national public policy positions on higher education issues and providing leadership for improving educational standards, practices, and procedures.