Richard Ekman has served as president of the Council of Independent Colleges since 2000. During this time, Ekman has led the 50 percent growth in CIC’s membership and participation in CIC’s major programs. He has launched many new programs and services to colleges and universities on the major issues in independent higher education. During his tenure, CIC has formed partnerships with the American Academic Leadership Institute to offer the Executive and Senior Leadership Academies and with the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation to manage the Visiting Fellows program. Also, Ekman facilitated the merger into CIC of the Foundation for Independent Higher Education—with 29 state-based affiliates and the distribution of approximately 550 scholarships each year funded by the CIC/UPS Educational Endowment. CIC also created and manages the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education, which now has more than 200 college and university members. Under Ekman’s leadership especially generous financial support has been obtained for CIC’s programs from foundations including Lilly Endowment Inc., Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, UPS Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Lumina Foundation, Walmart Foundation, Strada Education Network, Teagle Foundation, and Henry Luce Foundation.
Previously, Ekman served as vice president for programs of Atlantic Philanthropies and as secretary and senior program officer of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. In his early professional life, he was at the National Endowment for the Humanities, successively as director of the Division of Education Programs and the Division of Research Programs; at Hiram College as vice president and dean, where he also was a tenured member of the history faculty; and at the University of Massachusetts at Boston as assistant to the provost. He currently serves as a member of many boards, including those that provide guidance to the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, Harvard University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, American Academic Leadership Institute, Emeriti Retirement Health, and Project Pericles. He has been awarded honorary degrees by Alvernia, Otterbein, St. Edward’s, and Marywood Universities, and Alderson-Broaddus, Bethany, Davis & Elkins, Georgetown, Hastings, and Ursinus Colleges, and is a recipient of the W.E.B. DuBois Medal of Harvard University. He is co-author, with Richard E. Quandt, of Technology and Scholarly Communication (University of California Press, 1999). His essays have appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education, University Business, Inside Higher Ed, Carnegie Reporter, and Washington Post. Ekman earned his AB in history and PhD in the history of American civilization from Harvard University.