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CIC PRESENTS
TOP ACADEMIC AWARDS FOR 2003

WASHINGTON, DC – The Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) announced today the winners of its top two annual CIC awards for 2003. Kent John Chabotar, president of Guilford College in North Carolina, received CIC's Academic Leadership Award, while Marie Joan Harris CSJ, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Avila University in Missouri, received CIC's Chief Academic Officers Award.

The awards were presented at the Chief Academic Officers (CAO) Institute, held at the Savannah Marriott Riverfront Hotel in Savannah, Georgia. The honors were conferred by the chief academic officers (CAOs), who are typically the second-ranking officer after the president at each of CIC's 525 member colleges and universities.

During the awards presentation, CIC President Richard Ekman noted that Chabotar’s “distinguished career as a leader of professional development programs and author of many publications on economics and finance in higher education has had a significant impact on the fiscal management
of independent colleges and universities. His expertise in strategic budgeting, endowment management, and myriad financial issues has influenced academic leaders, who praise his ability to engage them in a challenging topic.”

Chabotar’s career has blended teaching, research, and administrative service in higher education as well as nonprofits and business. He is the author of New Yardsticks to Measure Financial Distress and Financial Responsibilities of the Board. Prior to his appointment as Guilford’s president, Chabotar was vice president for finance and administration at Bowdoin College and a lecturer on education at Harvard University. He received the Fussa Distinguished Teaching Award at Harvard in 1988 and the Distinguished Educator Award for teaching excellence at Michigan State University in 1973.

Marie Joan Harris was selected for the Chief Academic Officers Award in part because of her service as chair and member of the CIC CAO Task Force, which helps CIC plan conference programs and other events for CAOs, and for her “unfailing willingness to help colleagues find solutions and address challenges on campus.” Ekman congratulated Harris for her “sustained service to both Avila University and the CIC Institute for Chief Academic Officers Task Force,” and said that her “outstanding creativity and leadership, advice and counsel, and illumination and instruction, has been an inspiration to members of the higher education community.”

Harris has been a member of the advisory board of KC REACHE, a distance-learning consortium in Kansas City, Missouri, and was a member of the board of trustees of Fontbonne University. She has assisted her new colleagues by speaking at CIC’s New CAO Workshop and serving as a mentor.

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The Council of Independent Colleges is an association of 530 independent, liberal arts colleges and universities and higher education affiliates and organizations that work together to strengthen college and university leadership, sustain high-quality education, and enhance private higher education’s contributions to society. To fulfill this mission, CIC provides its members with skills, tools, and knowledge that address aspects of leadership, financial management and performance, academic quality, and institutional visibility. The Council is headquartered at One Dupont Circle in Washington, DC.

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