Washington — For the closing session of its annual meeting on Saturday, the Association of American Colleges and Universities brought together three prominent academic leaders to discuss how educators might make some of the organization’s lofty ideas for improving undergraduate education a reality.

Derek C. Bok, president emeritus of Harvard University and a professor of law in its Kennedy School of Government, emphasized the value of research on pedagogical methods, particularly studies that might measure how effective colleges are in improving students’ writing and critical-thinking skills and their level of civic engagement. “This kind of research is the most powerful lever of change available to an academic leader,” he said.

George D. Kuh, director of the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University at Bloomington, pointed to findings of his group’s National Survey of Student Engagement as focal points for change. He suggested that colleges incorporate into their curricula “high-impact practices” such as service learning and student-faculty research collaborations, which the survey has found increase students’ self-reported engagement and success in college.

Azar Nafisi, a visiting fellow at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, urged academics to “bring back critical dialog to the center of a liberal education.” Ms. Nafisi — whose memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran, became a best-seller — spoke of the destructive effects of political correctness and politicization on higher education and said she would like to see academics take more radical action — such as organizing town-hall meetings or a march on the Capitol — to persuade those “who cannot imagine how reading Aristotle would help prevent war in Iraq” of the importance of a liberal-arts education.

Video of the closing plenary session and other panels from the meeting will be available on the association’s Web site. —Paula Wasley