In November, CIC launched a new website, the CIC Historic Campus Architecture Project (HCAP), the first nationwide architecture and landscape database of independent college and university campuses (www.cic.edu/hcap).

The CIC HCAP website provides extensive information about significant buildings, landscapes, campus plans, and heritage sites of American higher education. Through a user-friendly search engine and a rich set of bibliographic materials, it also guides viewers to a wide variety of sources that they can use for further study. Supported by two generous grants from the Getty Foundation, the HCAP website documents nearly 2,000 campus sites of historical significance that have been provided by nearly 400 institutions. One of the resources that visitors will find on the website is a collection of more than 4,300 images relating to the featured sites.

The website has been enthusiastically received by campus officials, who say they see great potential for the site and have already begun to use it in a variety of ways. Jonathan Brand, president of Doane College (NE) said “my sense is that higher education is in a more serious historic preservation mode, and having such a thorough site of historic campus architecture is essential to chronicling this effort. Such a resource will help all of us in the years to come as we ensure that our campuses evolve but still remain true to our individual pasts.” And Henry Tisdale, president of Claflin University (SC), said the site will help “make the case for the sustained development and enhancement of the university. Our strategic goals call for continued restoration and preservation of important buildings.” Others said the HCAP website will be used in recruitment materials, as a resource in architectural coursework, and as a way of inspiring high-quality architectural design and campus planning. In addition, representatives of the public college and university sector have expressed interest in using the site as a model for a similar website devoted to the historic architecture of state higher education institutions. 

“CIC is delighted that the HCAP website has been so well received,” said CIC President Richard Ekman. “It offers an information-packed window into the physical world of independent colleges and universities in all of their variety. The campus is more than just a place; it’s an emblem of what the institution values and how it brings its community together, a physical manifestation of educational philosophy. The thousands of photographs and drawings that CIC has assembled for this project, and all of the descriptive materials that go with them, form a treasure trove for understanding the places where students have learned and professors have taught from colonial times to the present.” Ekman added, “CIC expects that people with a variety of interests in independent colleges and universities will find new and valuable materials here. Campus planners, alumni, admissions officials, and prospective students and their families, to name just a few of the audiences for HCAP, can choose to look at the most prominent features on one college campus or one hundred of them.” Web users can search the collection by building style and type, architect, time period, state or region, and in many other ways.

CIC Senior Advisor Barbara S. Christen, an architectural historian, directs the project. Christen pointed to “the wealth of texts and images of buildings and sites on the HCAP website.” In addition to buildings of every type found on a campus, the site includes many landscape sites and campus plans. She emphasized that the website has been designed to help researchers along with other users, and is available to the general public. “Architectural styles, designers, building types, changing functions over time, and the historical, educational, and religious contexts of each institution can all be easily explored using the search functions that CIC has built into the website.”

The Getty Foundation “is proud to support CIC’s ambitious documentation project,” said Joan Weinstein, its Interim Director. “Through Getty’s Campus Heritage Initiative, we have worked since 2002 to assist colleges in the United States to manage and preserve the integrity of their historic buildings and landscapes. With its wealth of material, the HCAP website has the potential to advance the interest in campus preservation to a wide audience across the country.”