The Council of Independent Colleges has accepted an invitation from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation to administer its nationally renowned Visiting Fellows program. Under the new arrangement, which began January 1, 2008, CIC is administering the program, expanding the roster of Visiting Fellows, and matching Fellows with individual colleges’ needs and interests. The program will continue to bear the Woodrow Wilson name.

The Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellows program brings prominent artists, diplomats, journalists, business leaders, and other nonacademic professionals to campuses across the United States for a week-long residential program of classes, seminars, workshops, lectures, and informal discussions. For 35 years, the Visiting Fellows have been introducing students and faculty members at liberal arts colleges to a wide range of perspectives on life, society, community, and achievement. The Visiting Fellows program is available to all four-year colleges and universities.

In announcing the transition, Arthur Levine, president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, said, “The Visiting Fellows program has a special place in my heart, and CIC is a natural fit for it. Woodrow Wilson is a fellowship organization, an incubator for new programs, and an administrator of a small number of continuing programs. We asked CIC to administer the Visiting Fellows initiative because of the Council’s leadership, its history, and the number of its member colleges that participate in the program. So we feel we’ve found a wonderful new home for it.”

“CIC is delighted and, indeed, honored that Foundation officials have confidence in the Council to take on the administration of such an important and well-respected program,” said Richard Ekman, president of CIC. “We believe that the Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellows program will be a perfect complement to the range of programs offered by CIC to colleges and universities. As the program moves into its 35th year in 2008, CIC looks forward to continuing the high standards for the program set by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation,” Ekman added.

Allegheny College (PA) is one of many CIC institutions that have participated in the Visiting Fellows program for years. Allegheny President Richard Cook said, “Our experiences with the Visiting Fellows program have been nothing but positive. The Visiting Fellows have been highly accomplished, willingly accessible to students and faculty, and enthusiastic participants in this important program. Their commitment to undergraduate education and the liberal arts is clear.”

The program will continue to be available to all four-year colleges and universities, not only those that are members of CIC. Roger Bowen, CIC senior advisor and director of the Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellows program, has a distinguished record of leadership in higher education. He has served as general secretary of the American Association of University Professors, president of the State University of New York at New Paltz, and vice president for academic affairs at Hollins University. Bowen is a graduate of Wabash College, and his Ph.D. is from the University of British Columbia.

Since assuming directorship of the Visiting Fellows program, Bowen has added 20 new Fellows to its roster of nearly 100 distinguished professionals in fields ranging from journalism to business to health policy to diplomacy. New Fellows include:

• Dale McCormick, the first woman in America to complete a carpentry apprenticeship with the carpenters’ union and currently director of the Maine State Housing Authority;
  
  
• Joseph Treaster, New York Times journalist and author;
  
  
• South African jurist Richard Goldstone, also known for his prosecution of war crimes trials occurring in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia;
  
  
• Harold Piper, award-winning former Baltimore Sun foreign correspondent and editor;
  
  
• David Wagoner, poet, novelist, playwright, former editor of Poetry Northwest, winner of the Ruth Lilly Prize, and nominee for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry;
  
  
• Gretchen Sandles, a retired analyst for the CIA who also edited the President’s Daily Brief and for 27 years reported on intelligence gathered about the former Soviet Union;
  
  
• Gary Smith, record producer for such musical stars as the Pixies, Ten Thousand Maniacs, and Natalie Merchant;
  
  
• Nancy Tate, executive director of the League of Women Voters;
  
  
• Charles Hauss, peace activist and foreign policy analyst;
  
  
• Andris Barblan, recently retired secretary general of the Magna Charta Observatory on the Universities’ Fundamental Values and Rights in Bologna, Italy, and former secretary general of the Association of European Universities;
  
  
• Jameel Jaffer, national security director for the ACLU;
  
  
• Kevin Powers, division counsel for the Drug Enforcement Agency;
  
  
• Robert Quinn, executive director of Scholars at Risk;
  
  
• Janisse Ray, poet, memoirist, and environmentalist;
  
  
• Dede Bartlett, former officer of two Fortune 25 companies;
  
  
• Joan Bertin, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship;
  
  
• Lee Feigon, Sinologist, seafood company executive, author, and film-maker;
  
  
• Mary Tabor, author and former public affairs director of the American Petroleum Institute;
  
  
• Lee Fritschler, former assistant secretary of education in the Clinton administration; and
  
  
• Samin Zia-Zarifi, deputy director of Human Rights Watch.

The new Fellows join a roster that includes former New York Times correspondent and Pulitzer Prize winner David Shipler; columnist Eleanor Clift of Newsweek; poet Margaret Gibson; New York Supreme Court Justice Emily Jane Goodman; Kevin Quigley, president and CEO of the National Peace Corps Association; and Callie Crossley, TV news magazine producer and documentary filmmaker. More information is available here on CIC’s website or by contacting CIC at visitingfellows@cic.nche.edu.