CIC's 30th annual Institute for Chief Academic Officers, to be held November 2-5, 2002, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, will follow the theme of "Evolving Expectations: Finances, Governance, Learning, and the Future Faculty."
    Participants will explore the changing expectations held by students, families, faculty members, administrators, trustees, and chief academic officers at the nation's colleges and universities—changes that reflect America's more diverse population and a more heterogeneous student body that is bringing new needs to campuses. Students are coming to campus with learning styles that differ from those of their instructors. Administrators are facing financial changes, as demands increase at colleges as tuition discounting continues, rapid advances in technology require new equipment, student services expand, insurance costs escalate, and revenue ebbs and flows. Trustees are expecting greater accountability, as governance issues evolve. And a major change is occurring in the faculty, as senior faculty members retire and campus leaders strive to find a new generation of faculty members who are committed to the mission of the institution.
    "As all these expectations on campus evolve, conflicts arise, as some remain committed to established goals and others adapt to new visions. The chief academic officer, by necessity, becomes a leader of change, mediator of conflicts, visionary, and expert in working with ambiguity," said CIC President Richard Ekman. "This conference will provide a forum to help CAOs explore how to take on these new roles and manage the evolving campus expectations."
    Some of the financial topics to be addressed at the conference include understanding academic program costs, benchmarking academic programs, and tuition discounting. Student learning sessions will focus on a profile of today's students, multiple ways of assessing student learning, religious trends on campus, accreditation to build a high-quality program, and using technology to advance student learning. Governance topics will include working with the presidential team, building leadership among department/division chairs, exploring effective administrative structures, and conflict resolution. Sessions on the future faculty will include recruiting new faculty members who can carry out the institutional mission, working with faculty members at the end of their careers, and building effective faculty development programs.
    Featured speakers include Richard Rodriguez, author and public television essayist, who will deliver the keynote address, "The Changing Culture of Our Country: Implications for Private Higher Education," and Martha Craven Nussbaum, Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago.
    Rodriguez is the author of Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez, an educational memoir widely read in American high schools and colleges; and Days of Obligation, concerning the moral landscape separating "Protestant America" and "Catholic Mexico." This year he published Brown: The Last Discovery of America, which presents a more complicated view of race in the nation, encompassing "black," "white," and "brown," for understanding the future and past of America.
    Nussbaum is noted for her scholarly research and for her advocacy of the liberal arts, and has been a member of the board of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Council of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She received the Brandeis Creative Arts Award in Non-Fiction, the PEN Spielvogel-Diamondstein Award for the best collection of essays, the Ness Book Award for Cultivating Humanity, and the book award of the North American Society for Social Philosophy for Sex and Social Justice.
    In addition, three chief academic officers—Kim Luckes, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Saint Augustine's College (NC), Margaret A. Malmberg, provost and dean of the faculty at the University of Charleston (WVA), and Stephen H. Good, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college at Drury University (MO)—will present a session on "Stages in the Lives of Chief Academic Officers." They will reflect on the key issues for CAOs at three stages in their careers: the beginning years, the established years, and the years leading to retirement or transition to another professional role, looking at what CAOs need to address at each stage for the good of the institution and for their own careers, and the pitfalls and opportunities.

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Last updated: July 5, 2002
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