Meeting the Challenge: - The Council of Independent Colleges

From Accreditation to Validation: CIC’s First Half-Century
credit-debit limitations. The program addresses several needs.
First, it encourages students from employee families of
private colleges and universities to attend similar institutions.
Second, it assists these same families in meeting the partial
cost of college attendance. Finally, CIC-TEP establishes
an educational resource that enhances each institution’s
benefits package.
CIC broke the 300-member barrier in 1992, with
316. That number rose to 470 by 2000, Richard Ekman’s
first year as the Council’s president. By the fall of 2005,
membership stood at 550, and included not only the
smaller regional independent institutions that chartered the
Council, but also many of the mid-sized comprehensive
universities and some of the most selective liberal arts
colleges in the country.
“I have tried to emphasize that the commonality
among all small and mid-sized private institutions is much
greater than any differences among them,” says Ekman.
“The traditional notions we have of difference—in affluence
or admissions selectivity—just aren’t as important as the
characteristics we share: a belief in independence, an emphasis
on teaching, a willingness to be explicit about values, a
commitment to the centrality of the liberal arts, and relatively
small size.”
The Key Constituency—Presidents
In the 1970s, the Council’s programming priority
became professional development for college presidents
at member institutions. Many college leaders were only
partly prepared for their jobs—many had been classroom
instructors, some were ministers, and others were former
administrators or business leaders. Voskuyl himself was a
research chemist who had worked on the Manhattan Project.
Between 1969 and 1974, CASC received five grants from
the U.S. Office of Education for an “Institute for the In-
1980
The first presidents-only
National Institute (precursor
to the Presidents Institute) is
held. Membership tops 200
colleges for the first time.
1981
CASC changes its
name to the Council of
Independent Colleges.
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