CIC conducted winter follow-up meetings in January and February for its program on Presidential Vocation and Institutional Mission, funded generously by Lilly Endowment Inc. Ten college and university presidents and seven spouses met for an afternoon and a morning immediately following the 2007 Presidents Institute in Tucson, Arizona. The program focused on the costs and advantages of vocational thinking as seen through the experiences of the presidents and spouses in their lives and work since they met in July 2006 at Glendorn in Pennsylvania for their initial seminar. In Atlanta, Georgia the seminar for prospective presidents and their spouses reconvened for a day-and-a-half follow-up meeting on February 26–27. The key questions under discussion included what vocational thinking has to do with applying for, interviewing for, and living in the presidency of a college or university. Altogether there were 23 participants and 18 of their spouses in attendance.

CIC Senior Advisor Bill Frame, the project director, remarked that one of the most gratifying effects of the seminars is how discussion about vocation “moves quickly from the personal to the public, yet neither enters the private sphere.” He added, “The remarkable camaraderie that has developed among each of the four groups we have so far convened reflects new senses of fulfillment and anticipation” among the participants. A third seminar for prospective presidents and spouses will take place in July 2007, again at Glendorn. Plans are also underway for a third group of current presidents to participate in the Presidential Vocation and Institutional Mission program beginning in summer 2008.