Important lessons are emerging from a new CIC program as it enters its second year. College presidents participating in the Lilly-funded program on Presidential Vocation and Institutional Mission gathered again on January 7–8 in Naples, Florida at the conclusion of the 2006 Presidents Institute, to reprise their experience at the summer 2005 seminar that inaugurated this endeavor. Their counterparts in the program for prospective presidents met for a similar follow-up program in Atlanta, Georgia on February 24–25. Participants in both groups gave the seminars very high marks.

Joseph (Jay) McGowan, president of Bellarmine University (KY), has found the program a useful spur to his thinking about being “responsible for developing, for all sorts of institutional purposes, an authentic institutional saga anchored in the unique legacy of the institution.” He encourages other presidents “to identify and work with a select group of memory holders” on campus, as he has, “to help generate, create, and refine such a narrative.”

Among the prospective presidents who participated in the 2005–2006 program was Suzanne Shipley, vice president for academic affairs at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland. She lauds the seminar’s facilitators for guiding discussions that “prepared the heart, the soul, and the will to persevere” in considering a college presidency, “rather than just isolating the logical parts of us. It opened us to all sorts of new insights.” Shipley adds that the inclusion of spouses is a great strength of the program.

In 2006–2007, another dozen presidents will participate in the second year of Presidential Vocation and Institutional Mission, along with nine spouses. The parallel program for prospective presidents will involve 24 campus leaders as well as 19 spouses. The seminar for presidents will take place July 16–19 at Glendorn in Bradford, Pennsylvania. The seminar for prospective presidents, at the same location, will be held August 6–9.