Future Directions for Independent Colleges and Universities

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Strategic Planning Initiative: Report to the Membership

During 2001, the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) undertook a strategic planning process to determine future directions for CIC. * Because CIC is a membership association of independent colleges and universities, the initial phase of this process gathered perspectives from campus leaders on the challenges that these institutions face. Specifically, CIC held a series of roundtable discussions between March and October 2001. Seventeen of these were for presidents and four for chief academic officers. The following table lists the dates, sites, and participation in these roundtables.

• Strategic Planning Initiative: Report to the Membership: Introduction
• Strategic Planning Roundtables: Location and Participation
• Section I: Current Challenges for Independent Colleges and Universities
  
• Section II: CIC Programs and Services
  
• Section III: CIC as an organization
  
• Appendix: Current Programs and Services

* Many members of both the Board of Directors and staff were involved in this process. Substantial financial support for these efforts was provided initially by the William Randolph Hearst Foundations; additional support has come from the Booth Ferris Foundation and the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation.

Two additional meetings were held to assess the findings of these roundtable discussions. On July 30, seven presidents met in CIC's Washington office to review a synthesis of notes from the roundtable discussions and to sharpen our understanding of the key issues. In addition, CIC's Board of Directors convened for a special meeting on November 12-13 to review an initial draft of this report. George Kaludis, president of Kaludis Consulting, facilitated both conversations.

The paper is organized into sections on three issues:

• What are the current challenges for independent colleges and universities?
• What CIC programs and services can assist institutions in meeting these challenges?
  
• How should CIC develop as an organization to provide these programs and services?

There was considerable agreement, across the roundtables, about the current challenges. These are described in the paper's first section. The paper's second section, which looks at both current CIC programs as well as possible new ones, frames the issue of CIC programs and services in terms of emphases-that is, whether CIC should devote greater or lesser attention to particular types of CIC program and campus constituencies as CIC addresses these challenges. The final section of this paper discusses organizational issues, such as funding and staffing, that will be required to deliver desired programs and services.

Current Challenges for Independent Colleges and Universities

The most important result of the roundtable conversations was the consistent focus on major challenges now facing independent colleges and universities and their leaders, as well as a deeper and more nuanced understanding of those issues. Six of these, listed in order of relative priority, appear to be of especially great interest. We propose that they be increasingly prominent in shaping the substance of CIC's work:

• Financing High Quality Education
  
• Making the Case for Independent Colleges and Universities
  
• Presidents and Trustees
  
• Faculty, Institutional Mission, and Leadership
  
• Changing Student Body
  
• Ensuring Quality

Each of these challenges is discussed separately below, but it is important to recognize their intertwined character, not only on campus but also in CIC's programming. We note some of those connections in each section as well as in a summary.

Financing High Quality Education

Taken together, the set of financing issues constitutes the most important challenge for independent institutions. Consensus on the primacy of this issue is not new; CIC's annual presidents' survey has often asked for a ranking of critical issues, and financing issues have always topped the list. A number of specific issues fall under this broad rubric.

On the revenue side, tuition revenue (now often affected by tuition discounting) was the most frequently mentioned topic, obviously related to higher education's present market orientation. Indeed, trends in tuition discounting raise profound questions about pricing strategies in the independent sector. Endowment management was also often raised. Interestingly, issues such as fundraising or mounting educational programs with different cost structures and revenue potential were not mentioned as frequently as in the past, though we know that presidents and other campus leaders continue to devote significant attention to them.

In terms of expenditures, hiring and retaining high-quality faculties; deferred maintenance; constructing residence halls, science buildings, and performing arts facilities; and information technology infrastructures were the most important areas noted. The faculty recruitment and retention issue is just now gaining a more prominent profile, presumably corresponding to projected retirements over the coming decade. Both the attractiveness of physical facilities and the necessity of robust technologies are key (and expensive) aspects of the competitive landscape-not only in attracting students but also in recruiting faculty. In this regard, financial challenges join the "making the case" issue (to be discussed next) as principal components of the now highly competitive higher education market.

For presidents, in particular, these issues hold great significance, since presidents must present these pieces of the financial puzzle as a meaningful picture. As ultimate stewards of the institution's health and image, they understand the importance of sound financial management to the overall reputation of the institution, and are responsible for increasingly complex decisions-the balance among revenue sources, choices about investing in new initiatives as well as pruning current programs, and the integration of marketing to prospective students as well as donors.

To assist institutional leaders in addressing these issues, roundtable participants proposed several kinds of CIC initiatives. An obvious starting point was to expand professional development opportunities for presidents, financial officers, and institutional research staff, perhaps providing new ways to structure information and develop cost models, as well as budgeting and projecting cycles of capital expenditure. This assistance might include not only presentations at existing events such as the Presidents Institute but also the preparation of papers and new kinds of services. As an example, CIC is presently designing an Information Technology Advisory Service that can provide timely guidance for presidents and other leaders who make decisions about technology purchases and implementation. Better information is another key area for many presidents. They are interested in access to quantitative data about their own institutions as well as others with which comparisons can be made; and they seek an analytical capacity to use these data in decision-making. The rapidly increasing web-based availability of such information offers possibilities, particularly for groups of institutions.

Making the Case for Independent Colleges and Universities

The competitive nature of the current higher education market was a clear context for almost all of the roundtable discussions, particularly in the ways it has changed. For example, in addition to the price subsidy historically built into the funding of public colleges and universities, many public institutions, which already conduct significant fundraising campaigns, have also begun to offer merit student aid. Moreover, the rapid emergence of for-profit, degree-granting institutions, though still numerically small, portends further competition, especially for master's level or degree-completion programs. The result seems to be a broad competition, occurring on many fronts simultaneously.

The roundtable participants urged that independent institutions, singly and together, make a stronger case for the forms of education offered by small to medium-sized, teaching-oriented, private colleges and universities. The roundtable conversations about ways to make the case pursued two interconnected lines of thought-how to articulate the substance of independent institutions' values and how to identify and reach the various audiences for this message.

Substantively, independent colleges and universities continue to share many characteristics of mission and approach, particularly in contrast to larger and public institutions. But articulating those shared characteristics is complicated by some important institutional differences-with marketing implications. Institutions that hold many values in common (teaching-orientation, focus on individuals, integration of curriculum and co-curriculum, and a liberal arts and sciences anchor) may also represent different dimensions on a variety of continua-residential/commuting students, single/multiple campuses, traditional/entrepreneurial, growing/maintaining, highly endowed/modestly endowed, and selective/less selective, among other variations. Roundtable participants thought that additional CIC work to articulate overarching themes for this sector would help to reframe the terms of this competition.

The second line of thought, about audiences, was prompted by the sense that many key constituencies-students, parents, journalists, state legislators-do not understand or value the distinctive characteristics of these institutions. For example, some key institutional features, such as the student-faculty contact commensurate with smaller size, are demonstrably effective educationally but are not necessarily seen as desirable by prospective students. Another marketing dilemma has been the question about how to make direct comparisons with other sectors. Long-standing comparative data about graduation rates or evidence from the recent National Survey of Student Engagement are certainly relevant, but independent institution leaders have been reluctant to draw such comparisons publicly. A significant question for CIC is whether a more assertive public role to articulate distinctions is now warranted and, if so, what shape it might take.

Several possible CIC directions emerged from the roundtable discussions. There was, first, as with the financial issues above, interest in additional information about the sector that can be shared-both quantitative data and examples of successful programs. A second strategy-addressing the need to articulate the value of independent colleges and universities-was to find ways to fashion, from this information, principles and values that can more fully engage our relevant publics, recognizing that students and legislators may not be influenced by the same stories. Third, some roundtable participants argued for a stronger CIC influence within NAICU and ACE, in order to establish a stronger voice for the sector.

Presidents and Trustees

A fast pace is one salient aspect of the current competitive climate; and institutions are clearly seeking forms of decision-making, communication, and governance that are efficient as well as effective. The roundtable discussions most frequently focused on the president's relationship with the board as a key to this evolution. (The next section of this paper includes a related challenge-the role of faculty members in institutional governance.)

Sometimes governing board members, spurred by their own experiences in other sectors of society, may force a fast pace. At other times, trustees may fail to grasp fundamental institutional shifts, perhaps in the characteristics of present-day students or in the current professional development needs of faculty members, and thus delay important institutional movement. But since board action is often the central instrumentality of institutional success, presidents must develop boards capable of exercising genuine leadership. To do this, presidents must recruit trustees who can balance continuity and change, present information to them that will inform ambitious and nuanced board decisions, and establish meaningful connections between boards and other campus constituencies. Moreover, the governing board has the responsibility for hiring, supporting, and evaluating the incumbent president, as well as (ideally) planning for presidential succession. All of this makes the rich, subtle, and critical relationship between presidents and boards a key challenge for independent higher education.

A range of CIC-initiated possibilities was proposed. One promising idea was to bring board members from several institutions together, not only for a program tailored for private colleges and universities but also to learn from one another. Such meetings, perhaps conducted regionally, could address the major changes underway within higher education, the president-board relationship, and other aspects of board development. Presidents also expressed interest in resources such as consultants who could assist them with their own institutional boards, in ways to structure information, and in examples of new approaches to board organization and process.

Faculty, Institutional Mission, and Leadership

In CIC discussions prior to these roundtables, the first three challenges raised have been increasingly prominent, and the roundtable conversations have helped to sharpen the focus within these areas. The challenge of rebuilding faculties, however, is a newer item, especially for presidents, near the top of CIC's priority list. Significant numbers of faculty members' retirements, long predicted, are now underway; and institutions will be reshaped in this process.

Two broad considerations surfaced during the conversations. The most encompassing issue is at the level of institutional mission. The ethos of the graduate schools that prepare the professoriate veers, at some important junctures, from the student-centered orientation of most independent colleges; and CIC institutions can no longer assume that many newly hired faculty members will have been undergraduate students at smaller, private institutions. Independent colleges and universities, possibly acting in concert, will need to launch major acculturation efforts for incoming faculty members. One particular aspect of that broad concern about mission, also taken up in the following section, is student advising, which is one of the subtle but telling ways by which independent institutions implement such distinguishing characteristics as individual attention and integrative education (also mentioned in conjunction with "making the case").

The second issue, the leadership roles of faculty members and faculty bodies, is the other part of the institutional governance challenge noted in the prior section. While some trustees welcome today's necessary speed of communication and decision-making, many faculty members do not. Their professional training has sometimes not given them the broad understanding of higher education needed in making institutional choices posed by the competitive marketplace.

The suggested avenues for CIC action on this topic included framing a larger dialogue, involving presidents and chief academic officers, about both the broader (mission) and more focused (advising) aspects of recruiting and strengthening faculty members, perhaps using the format of a national institute for campus teams.

Changing Student Body

The fifth challenge emerging from the roundtable discussions highlights the increasing diversity of students and the corresponding institutional responses that facilitate student success. Presidents and chief academic officers describe classrooms and campuses with students of widely varying levels of ability, motivation, and preparation. Some of this diversity stems from the now familiar range of student ages, some from the growing variety of national, ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds. An important overlay is the fact that many students squeeze college into an already full family and work life; many more traditional-age students now also work. The availability of student aid has also brought greater economic diversity to independent institutions. And threaded through this already considerable diversity are a number of developmental and health issues-learning disabilities, anxiety and eating disorders, and substance abuse. In an important sense, this diversity, reflecting trends in the larger society, simply indicates the broad accessibility of higher education. But overall these student populations differ significantly from those of earlier decades, including more students genuinely at risk; and they are testing institutional resourcefulness.

Fundamentally, many campuses need new or refined staffing. Faculty members, the frontline educators, need a repertoire of pedagogical tools, and perhaps even curricular structures, that reach all students. Non-academic staffs may need to be augmented by more sophisticated counseling and even legal expertise. These issues, building for some time, loomed quite large during the planning of CIC's 2001 Institute for Chief Academic Officers, in part because student affairs officers were also invited this year. The roundtables confirmed the heightened attention warranted for this most basic of higher education challenges-understanding whom we serve. And, to circle back to the issue of advising noted above, a focus on individual students has resonance in circumstances of such diversity. Personalizing education requires faculty members as well as other campus educators who can guide and even serve as mentors for students. This kind of attention is increasingly a crucial link in the progress of students toward degrees (and, from the institution's point of view, toward retention).

In envisioning ways that CIC can help, roundtable participants asked for ways to share effective practices with one another. There was a sense that each institution, with its own particular student mix, must provide its own set of solutions but that successful strategies for working with specific student sub-populations could be suggestive for other institutions serving similar groups.

Ensuring Quality

A final set of challenges raised in the roundtables pointed toward various external agencies affecting colleges and universities-federal and state governments, as well as regional and specialized accrediting agencies. Some of this discussion varied, not surprisingly, by region or state. In general, however, there is concern that many of the regulatory organizations are insufficiently aware of the burdens of time, staffing, and money caused by standards and processes formulated with larger, public institutions in mind.

One of the most frequently mentioned challenges involved specialized accrediting organizations. CIC has already made a significant foray into this territory with the long and ultimately successful process to establish the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC). CIC might also be able to help in similar ways in other areas of accreditation and regulation. Small college and university programs in nursing are one possibility.

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In some important ways, these six challenges are the manifestations within independent colleges and universities of several powerful forces-an increasingly diverse student market, a pervasive competitiveness among institutions, and a rapid pace of change. Taken together, these challenges mark a broad compass, touching many aspects of the institution and creating the continuing rationale for the broadest possible CIC perspective in working with presidents and other institutional leaders.

CIC Programs and Services

In the prior section, we noted six challenges that should increasingly constitute the substantive basis of CIC's work. In designing specific programs and services to address these challenges, a crucial consideration is determining which institutional constituencies should be addressed. After reviewing CIC's programs and services, this section surveys both current and possible CIC initiatives for each of the following constituencies-presidents, academic officers, and other educational leaders.

As a national association, CIC has a number of ways to assist colleges and universities in addressing the challenges highlighted by the roundtables. The box on this page summarizes the suggestions of possible new initiatives that emerged from the roundtable discussions (and were described in the prior section). Current program strategies include conferences and workshops, externally-funded special projects, publications, listservs, and a tuition exchange program, in addition to co-sponsorship of a limited number of activities with other organizations. Some are long-standing (for example, the Institute for Chief Academic Officers celebrated its 25th anniversary two years ago) while others are still under development (for example, the presidential panel of consultants and presidential forums). The Appendix lists current programs and services (see pages 15-16). These programmatic strategies should continue to be useful in assisting institutions to meet the challenges mentioned.

In addition, one major proposal for a new capacity emerged from the roundtable discussions-providing access by member colleges and universities to data that can enable institution-specific comparisons for benchmarking and other management and decision-making purposes, and that can also help make the case for the entire sector. CIC would collaborate with other organizations and researchers to maximize use of available national data, as well as create new sources of data through CIC surveys.

Roundtable participants recommended that CIC's repertoire of programs and services evolve as follows:

• Conferences. In addition to face-to-face opportunities to share information and to benefit from the perspectives of experts at the national level, CIC should offer an increased number of regional events.
• Data collection and analysis. CIC should develop a new capacity to work with data.
• Written materials (electronic and print). CIC should increase its capacity to provide ideas in written form (electronic and printed). Ideally, the materials would be short pieces focused on key topics that expand understanding of the issues, provide examples of proven strategies for resolving the issues, and serve a diagnostic function, helping to troubleshoot common problems.
• Competitive grants. CIC should continue to sponsor grant programs on topics that strengthen institutions. Greater emphasis should be placed on the dissemination of examples of effective practices, in written form, so that more institutions benefit from the knowledge created through the grant program. In addition, more could be done to publicize the successes at these institutions, so that more independent institutions are recognized as national models of excellence.
• Interinstitutional cooperation. CIC should pursue opportunities where institutions can pool resources to create benefits, such as the Tuition Exchange Program. CIC should also be open to cooperation with existing groups working on those issues (for example, Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges and Universities on developing a "digital utility," the Association of New American Colleges on defining the general education process of more complex institutions, or the Annapolis Group on market positioning).
  

Such programs and services, the basic tools of membership associations, are essential ways to facilitate communication about the challenges facing these institutions among particular individuals on campuses. Thus selecting the appropriate constituencies is a crucial part of CIC's design of its activities. Roundtable participants urged that presidents continue to be CIC's principal constituent group, and that their total-institution perspective also be CIC's principal angle of vision. For certain challenges, however, other campus leaders will be central actors, and CIC should work directly with them. Finally, CIC may have a particular niche in assisting institutions address those fundamental issues that require cooperative efforts among a larger number of constituencies.

Presidents

Because most of the challenges identified have broad institution-wide implications, CIC should increase the number and variety of services tailored for presidents. The Presidents Institute (with the New Presidents Workshop and Spouses Program) should continue to be an anchoring event, and other current programs, including the Foundation Conversation, presidents' listserv, and "Communication Resources" should continue.

In addition, CIC is currently developing other services to support presidents, including an advisory service on information technology issues, presidential forums, and a panel of retired-president consultants to advise presidents. The content of these activities should include increased attention to financing and to president-board challenges. CIC should also convene regional meetings of presidents and trustees.

Overall, CIC activities should be designed to assist presidents on several levels-ideas and information (Presidents Institute, Foundation Conversation, listserv, advisory service, written materials), as well as networking and personal support (Presidents Institute, panel of consultants, spouses program, forums).

We would also expect to work with presidents on the "making the case" challenge, since presidents have the overall responsibility to present a compelling institutional story. "Communications Resources" papers can continue to provide resources to presidents. Developing collective data on the sector-and the tools with which to analyze it-should be a key new component of this work.

Academic Officers and Other Educational Leaders

Chief academic officers have overall responsibilities for several challenges, particularly relating to faculty members and students, and thus should continue to be seen as a key CIC constituency, served principally through the Institute for Chief Academic Officers (including its programs for new academic officers and spouses) and the CAO listserv. The content of those ongoing programs should address these challenges more directly.

In addition, some expanded emphases are also suggested by these challenges, particularly related to the need to ensure that faculty members have both the requisite leadership and educational skills. CIC should continue its regional workshops on issues of teaching and learning or academic leadership (this year on division and department chair leadership) as one component of this assistance; but conferences for campus teams on other issues such as advising and attention to individual students may also be warranted. CIC might consider beginning a national dialogue involving independent institutions, perhaps including graduate schools, on the nature of faculty preparation, roles, and rewards.

CIC should also continue to work with faculty members and other educators on activities that help institutions to improve their educational capacities. For example, current CIC initiatives that enhance the technology infrastructure for teaching and learning, including the MERLOT project, the new Faculty Development Collaboratives in Technology project, and the project on libraries and technology, should also have ongoing relevance, since institutions must be technologically current to compete for students and faculty members. Other CIC projects strengthen institutional programs that connect with communities (Urban Missions, Engaging Communities) and undergraduate science programs (Teaching Scholar Partnerships, Heuer Awards). These are issues on which independent colleges and universities can play leadership roles within higher education (and thus also contribute to the "making the case" challenge). Another such area of likely future activity for CIC is teacher education. Initiatives such as these, focusing on particular subject areas or educational approaches, would not be permanent CIC programs but rather opportunities to help campuses reach new levels of performance.

Finally, the Tuition Exchange Program provides a staff benefit that should continue to be useful in recruiting and retaining faculty members as well as other administrators and staff members.

Other Educational Leaders

To address some of these challenges, CIC should also include other key administrators. For example, CIC's contact with public relations directors should continue, via a listserv and "Communications Resources," and could very well expand as we address the "making the case" challenge. CIC's work with the chief information officers might now be redirected, since other useful resources have emerged.

We can also envision greater attention to several newer (for CIC) constituencies-trustees, chief financial officers, development officers, and institutional researchers. As mentioned above, CIC should initiate programs that enhance the president-board relationship through regional meetings for presidents and trustees, and through referral to consultants. Given the primary attention to the financial challenge noted in the roundtable discussions, CIC should consider workshops that enhance the relationship between the president and the chief financial officer, perhaps in conjunction with the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Similar cooperation with development officers (through the Council for Advancement and Support of Education) or library directors (through their organizations) are possibilities to consider. This paper has noted several times that CIC should develop an increased capacity to access and work with data. Such an intent suggests that CIC might also develop relationships both with campus institutional researchers and their national association, the Association for Institutional Research.

Prospective Students, Parents, the Media, and Government Officials

CIC will never be in a position to advise individual students or their families on the advantages of study at its member campuses. Nor will CIC attempt to duplicate NAICU's focus on Washington legislative and regulatory matters. Making the case more broadly for a particular form of higher education, however, remains very much in CIC's interest, and the roundtable discussions suggested repeatedly that CIC more aggressively put forward the arguments to the media, selected state government officials, and the general public.

These shifts in programmatic emphasis also will have implications for the CIC organizational issues discussed in the following section.

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CIC as an Organization

To offer the programs and services described above, CIC must consider the kind of organization it wishes to be and kind of national office it wishes to support. Overall, participants in the roundtable discussions thought that a radically different type of organization was not needed, and staff concur. Accordingly, this paper reviews basic organizational purposes and structures to pinpoint those areas where modest revisions may make sense.

Mission and Name

There does not seem to be a compelling reason, at this point, to alter either CIC's mission statement or name. In general, roundtable participants found the mission statement serviceable, although not inspirational. The six identified challenges are certainly encompassed by CIC's current mission to "support college leaders, "advance institutional excellence," and "enhance private higher education's contributions to society."

Roundtable participants said that CIC's name is now somewhat inaccurate, since a number of member institutions are "universities" and a "council" connotes a smaller body, but nevertheless recommended maintaining the name for now because "CIC" has achieved brand recognition. The issue of the association's name might usefully be revisited sometime in the future.

Membership

There are two core membership issues-who can become a member and how many members there should be. The Bylaws distinguish college and university ("institutional") members from other nonprofit educational organization ("affiliate") members, and financial sponsor ("corporate") members. The Board will submit for general membership approval this January the addition of a membership category for international institutional members. These categories seem appropriate and sufficient at this point.

The second issue-size of membership-probably warrants at least some discussion. For the past few years, CIC has been steadily approaching a Board-set goal of 500 institutional members and may reach this goal within the next few months. The question, then, is whether CIC should continue to grow. That is a difficult question for staff to answer. To date, increased membership seems to have benefited institutions: feedback on core activities has continued to be highly positive; the range of programs and services has grown; and these activities have become available to a greater number of institutions. The number of possible members may be considerable. Using the Carnegie Classification as one starting point, there are nearly 800 independent institutions in the four categories comprising most CIC members-Master's I & II, and Baccalaureate-Liberal Arts and General-but some (perhaps 200) are not anchored in liberal arts programs, as CIC's Bylaws stipulate as a requirement of membership.

Sources of Revenue

Those who participated in the roundtable discussions were generally pleased with CIC's existing activities and would like CIC to do more, as the last section indicated. Paying for expansion is not likely to come exclusively from increases in dues or increases in the number of members, although both must be included in any plans. More likely means to expanded activity will be continued success in obtaining grants and contributions, which in turn depends on continued confidence by "outsiders"-that is, observers of higher education that are not themselves colleges-that CIC is a wise investment for strengthening higher education. There may be no optimal size for CIC. It remains an important goal for CIC to be the organization that encompasses the concerns of all small and medium-sized private, teaching-oriented institutions whose programs are based in the liberal arts.

CIC's annual operating revenue of nearly $3.8 million comes from multiple sources. For the past year, the proportions were as follows: dues (35 percent), registration fees (16 percent), external gifts and grants (47 percent), and interest and miscellaneous income (2 percent). We think that these relative proportions are appropriate for CIC at this moment. In the abstract, dues are a simpler form of revenue (as long as membership in the association remains attractive), while seeking external funding has the advantage of keeping CIC at the leading edges of program development; and asking institutions to pay participation fees means that institutions receiving specific benefits bear larger shares of those particular costs. Indeed, a number of the new CIC initiatives are relying on external funding for at least the initial development phases, and a few of the possible new services (for example, Information Technology Advisory Service or access to comparative data sets) might rely on participation fees for ongoing (in contrast to developmental) expenses. Currently, CIC falls in the middle of the range of associations with respect to the percentage of its annual support from dues.

An additional question is whether dues are calculated in the most appropriate way. Presently, dues are based on undergraduate, full-time-equivalent enrollment. Currently more than 75 percent of member institutions also have master's level programs, so it would be possible to include graduate enrollments in the formula. Another possible metric, used by some other associations either alone or in combination with enrollment, is budget (for example, educational and general expenditures). There does not seem to be a reason to institute a significant change now, but CIC should continue to assess the various options.

Staffing

There are two basic staffing issues-specific skills and expertise, and overall staff size.

The changes in emphasis in CIC's activities that are suggested by the strategic planning process would call for some changes in staff organization, even with a staff of approximately the same size. The current arrangement defines staff assignments in terms of (a) conferences, (b) special projects, including regrant programs, (c) communications, and (d) such core functions as membership, business and administrative operations, development, and publications. The new emphases imply expansion of many of these (conferences, special projects, and communications) and the initiation of at least one new functional area of data collection and analysis.

The question of staff size has several facets. CIC currently has about 20 staff members, and ten part-time senior advisors. By these measures, CIC is a smaller organization than many of the other Washington higher education "presidential" associations. CIC's list of current activities, however, is equivalent in range (except for governmental representation) and volume to the lists of several larger organizations, and could indicate a need for additional staff members. Yet current-and recently renovated-office space cannot handle many more individuals. Also, in many instances part-time senior advisors bring to CIC a level of expertise not always found in full-time staff. So in considering the development of additional activities, we expect to remain open to various combinations of full-time, DC-based staff, part-time senior advisors, and outsourcing.

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