Alexander Astin, the Allan M. Cartter Distinguished Professor of Higher Education Emeritus at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, has been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American College Personnel Association. The founding director of the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA was given the award at the association's annual meeting in Montreal on March 7.
The award recognizes individuals who typically have a record of long-term service or involvement in the field of student affairs and/or higher education for a long time, typically for more than two decades; a recognized level of scholarly productivity; and/or leadership at one or more institutions of higher learning in student affairs and/or higher education.
Astin has served as director of research for both the American Council on Education and the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. He is also the founding director of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program, an ongoing national study of some 13 million students, 250,000 faculty and staff, and 1800 higher education institutions. The author of 22 books and some 300 other publications in the field of higher education, Astin has been a recipient of awards for outstanding research from 13 national associations. In 2010, the Journal of Higher Education identified him as the author most frequently cited by others in the field of higher education.