This special anniversary issue of the Independent features an excerpt from the essay by former U.S. News & World Report editor Alvin P. Sanoff, written for Meeting the Challenge: America’s Independent Colleges and Universities Since 1956, a volume prepared as part of the recognition of the 50th anniversary of CIC’s founding in 1956.

Just as they have chosen different strategies for dealing with an ever-changing educational landscape, CIC member institutions have pursued diverse academic paths. Some have opted for innovation, while others—such as Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama, Hamilton College in New York, Illinois Wesleyan University, and Millsaps College in Mississippi—have adhered to a traditional liberal arts mission. Still others have chosen a third way, innovating within the framework of their traditional mission.

Whichever path they have taken, most schools have developed academic programs that contain at least a few distinctive elements. Looking in detail at a small number of programs provides some sense of the richness and academic diversity at CIC colleges and universities.

The environment has always been part of Northland College’s history. Northland, which enrolls about 750 undergraduates, is located in Ashland, Wisconsin, in the heart of a region once brimming with virgin timber. The timber was fully harvested in the 19th century, leaving ecological devastation behind. The college was founded to serve the residents of the “cut over” district, and part of its mission was to help people in the area adapt to environmental change.

In keeping with this history, in the 1970s Northland became a self-described “environmental liberal arts college.” Many students pursue an environment-related major, and as part of their general education all undergraduates must take courses that focus on the environment. For example, students in an English course might study nature writers such as Henry David Thoreau and Aldo Leopold, and then take a canoe trip, write about their own perceptions of nature, and compare their views to those of the writers they are studying.

The environmental emphasis goes well beyond the curriculum. Northland uses solar energy to heat its water supply and wind towers to help generate electricity. “We think that many of our practices and what we are doing in our curriculum can be models for others,” says President Karen Halbersleben. Already, Northland is part of a consortium of schools, extending from Alaska to Maine, that have an environmental focus, including Antioch College in Ohio, Green Mountain College in Vermont, Naropa University in Colorado, Prescott College in Arizona, Unity College in Maine, Sterling College in Kansas, and Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. Students at one participating institution can spend up to two semesters at another. Says Halbersleben, “It really allows them to experience different ecosystems.”

St. John’s College, which enrolls a total of about 900 students on its two campuses in Annapolis, Maryland and Santa Fe, New Mexico, marches to a very different beat. Its curriculum is rooted in the “Great Books” of Western thought. The books are selected by the members of the faculty who, in keeping with the school’s distinctive approach to education, are called tutors, not professors. The curriculum is structured chronologically. All freshmen begin by studying the works of the ancient Greeks; by the time they near the end of their intellectual odyssey in their senior year, they are grappling with the ideas of such modern thinkers as Sigmund Freud, Martin Heidegger, and Werner Heisenberg.

Although built around the classics, the curriculum has modern origins. It was instituted in the late 1930s and based on a concept developed by scholars from the University of Chicago, Columbia University, and the University of Virginia. While there have been modest adjustments over time, such as adding more science and music, the curriculum and the course structure have remained relatively unchanged. “We don’t do what we do because it is popular,” says St. John’s Annapolis President Christopher Nelson, himself a graduate of the college. “We try to find the best curriculum for students who are willing to apply themselves to learning for its own sake.”

The curriculum, while rooted in the humanities, includes a substantial amount of science and mathematics. Nelson estimates that the students spend about half their time studying major works in these fields and replicating in the laboratory some of the experiments of the greatest scientists. No courses are taught in a lecture format. Students and tutors meet in small groups to discuss the reading, and examinations take the form of an extended conversation between student and teacher. The goal, says Nelson, “is to help students come to their own answers.”

Nelson says that visitors from other colleges come to St. John’s to gain a better understanding of its curriculum and instructional methods. “My colleagues think it is a good thing St. John’s exists,” says Nelson. “They tell me I live in paradise. I have to remind them that paradise was not given to us.”

Like St. John’s, Alverno College in Milwaukee attracts visitors from many other institutions, both here and abroad. They are intrigued by the unusual approach to education developed at this Catholic college for women, which enrolls about 2,000 undergraduates. Unlike most colleges and universities, which only require students to demonstrate that they have attained mastery of the academic content in their courses, at Alverno students must also demonstrate mastery in areas considered vital for success both within and outside of the university. The Alverno approach is usually called “ability-based education.”

Under Alverno’s system, students must demonstrate mastery in eight areas before they graduate: communication, analysis, problem-solving, social interaction, effective citizenship, aesthetic engagement (that is, involvement in the arts), making value judgments and independent decisions, and developing a global perspective. Within each of these eight areas, Alverno has defined six levels of mastery. Students must reach the sixth level in their major and the fourth level in other parts of the curriculum. Each course includes mastery requirements at a specific level. Students demonstrate their mastery in a number of ways, including presentations, small group interactions, and writing.

Alverno’s distinctive approach has been in place for more than three decades. “The theory was that if you give students more elaborate feedback, and don’t focus so much on competition among students for grades as on how students develop as learners, that would lead to a better educational outcome,” says Mary Meehan, Alverno’s president. Meehan is the first lay leader of the college, which was originally established to educate nuns entering the Franciscan order. Today only about 30 percent of the students are Catholic. More than 70 percent are first-generation college students, and many are members of historically under-represented minority groups. More than 90 percent of the students receive financial aid.

At Alverno the research of faculty members typically does not focus on their discipline, but on the teaching of their discipline—for example, how to teach history most effectively. Alverno’s approach, says Meehan, “requires enormous energy, dedication, and will on the part of the faculty.” But the efforts pay off in a variety of ways, including very high pass rates on professional certification examinations in fields such as nursing and teaching.

Warren Wilson College in North Carolina, which enrolls about 800 undergraduates, offers yet another approach to undergraduate education. From its beginning in 1894, work outside the classroom was deemed an essential part of the college’s mission. To earn a diploma, all students must work 15 hours a week in a campus-related job. The work can take many forms, such as helping on the college farm or assisting in the accounting office, but every student must take part. Those who fail to fulfill their work responsibilities do not graduate. “This is much more than work study,” says President Douglas Orr, Jr. “Students are learning a larger lesson of working as part of a community.” Along with the work requirement, Warren Wilson has a service-learning requirement that dates back 50 years. Students must spend a minimum of 100 hours in off-campus service activities, at least 25 percent of which must be with one organization. Projects are approved and monitored by the college. This orientation to service was also part of the college’s original mission. “The idea was to encourage students to give back to society,” says Orr. “It became such a strong component of the ethic of the college that we decided to institutionalize it.”

….Collectively, the academic programs at CIC member institutions form a rich mosaic. They help explain why American higher education is the most diverse in the world—and show how small and mid-sized colleges often take the lead in promoting diversity of every sort.

Copies of Meeting the Challenge: America’s Independent Colleges and Universities Since 1956 can be ordered here or by phone at (202) 466-7230. Discounts are available for purchases of multiple copies.