Press Releases

Home > Press Releases > CIC Presents Top Academic Awards for 2005

CIC PRESENTS
TOP ACADEMIC AWARDS FOR 2005

WASHINGTON, DC—The Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) announced today the winners of its top two annual CIC awards for 2005. Richard Chait, professor of higher education and director of the Study of New Scholars at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, received CIC’s Academic Leadership Award, while Judith Conrad Wimmer, professor of religious studies and former vice president for academic affairs at Edgewood College, received CIC’s Chief Academic Officers Award.

The awards were presented at the Chief Academic Officers (CAO) Institute, held at the Hyatt Regency San Antonio in San Antonio, Texas. The honors were conferred by the chief academic officers, who are typically the second-ranking officer after the president at each of CIC’s 548 member colleges and universities.

Chait received CIC’s Academic Leadership Award for his pathbreaking research on the management and governance of colleges and universities. For more than 20 years, Chait has taught in Harvard’s summer institute programs for executives in higher education, influencing many private college and university leaders. He has expertise on the terms and conditions of faculty employment; has studied the roles, responsibilities, and performance of boards of trustees; and has written on faculty work life. His current research focuses on job satisfaction of junior faculty as part of the Study of New Scholars.

During the award presentation, CIC President Richard Ekman noted that Chait “is a popular and gifted teacher in Harvard’s Institute for Management and Leadership in Education… [and] is an imaginative researcher who has created fresh understandings of critical campus issues, ranging from shared governance, to faculty employment and evaluation, to academic freedom.”

Judith Conrad Wimmer, vice president for academic affairs at Edgewood College from 1986 to 2005, was awarded the 2005 CIC Chief Academic Officer Award for contributions to her colleagues at private colleges and universities. As a CAO with long tenure at one institution, she has fostered its remarkable growth in academic programs, faculty, and enrollment. Through her work on CIC’s CAO Task Force, which she chaired, she has influenced colleagues throughout the country. She has been especially helpful in sharing her experience and wisdom with new colleagues and women CAOs.

Ekman congratulated Wimmer for her “dedicated service at the CIC Institute for Chief Academic Officers and on the CAO Task Force,” and for demonstrating “creativity in all aspects of her work—developing new majors and graduate programs, professional opportunities for faculty members, an Honors Program, a learning resource center, and support programs for freshmen and students at risk.”

****

The Council of Independent Colleges is an association of 548 independent colleges and universities, including liberal arts, comprehensive, and international institutions as well as 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.

Copyright ©1997-2008 Council of Independent Colleges. All rights reserved.