Presidents and senior foundation officers gathered in New York on September 19, 2005 for CIC’s 17th Annual Conversation between Foundation Officers and College and University Presidents. The highly successful meeting attracted record attendance, with 134 CIC member presidents and 13 senior foundation officers. The event was again held at TIAA-CREF headquarters.

The 2005 Foundation Conversation theme was “Who Will Achieve Social Change? What Do Foundations Expect from Colleges?” Martha D. Lamkin, president of the Lumina Foundation for Education, gave the keynote address on the topic, “Can Independent Higher Education Play a Distinctive Role in Creating Opportunities and Progress in America and the World?” In her address, Lamkin cited Thomas Friedman, saying “CIC institutions are well-positioned to help meet the challenge” and respond to Friedman’s “clarion call that government, society, and education must adapt to a brave new world” economic order. Colleges and universities, like corporations, must abandon what made them successful in the past in order to focus on dreams appropriate for the future, Lamkin stressed.

She said the Lumina Foundation is committed to helping more people enroll and complete degrees, as a key to solving the problems that American society faces today. She urged presidents to ensure that their institutions help students be prepared for college study; serve the underserved; contain costs in order to make college affordable for families, including “arresting the tuition discounting disaster”; and ensure that students complete degrees so that their investment in higher education is worthwhile. The discussion that followed addressed access to college for adult women, the challenge of balancing foundations’ limited resources to support institutions with institutions’ limited energies to undertake new programs, and the important but daunting task of developing closer cooperation between higher education and secondary schools.

Two panel discussions followed Lamkin’s presentation. The first was on the topic, “Why Foundations Support Students (and Sometimes Don’t),” and included Matthew J. Quinn, executive director of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation; Eugene M. Tobin, program officer in the liberal arts program at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and Thomas Hellie, president and executive director of the James S. Kemper Foundation. The second panel focused on “Why Foundations Support Academic Programs (and Sometimes Don’t).” The panelists were Anita Pampusch, president of the Bush Foundation, and Donna Heiland, vice president for programs at the Teagle Foundation.

CIC’s 18th Annual Foundation Conversation will take place on October 10, 2006, again at the TIAA-CREF headquarters in New York City. CIC has moved the date of this popular annual event to later in the fall after experiencing difficulties in finding hotel rooms because of the U.N. General Assembly meeting that takes place in September each year. Details will be sent to all CIC member presidents in April.