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The Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) announced the recipients of its two top academic and leadership awards for 2018.
John D. Kolander, provost of Wisconsin Lutheran College, was named as the recipient of the CIC Chief Academic Officer Award. The
Johns Hopkins University Press (JHUP) received CIC’s other major award, the Academic Leadership Award. The awards ceremony took place at the CIC Institute for Chief Academic Officers, held November 3–6 in St. Louis, Missouri. The chief academic officers of CIC’s 657 member colleges and universities conferred these honors on the basis of nominations by chief academic officers.
The Chief Academic Officer Award honors a Chief Academic Officer who has served in an exemplary way to enhance the role and work of the private college CAO. Kolander was awarded the CIC Chief Academic Officer Award in recognition of his significant support of colleagues at other independent colleges and universities. He has participated as a presenter at nearly every CIC Institute for CAOs since 2004 and has served as a mentor to many of his newer colleagues as they began their tenure as CAOs. Kolander has been CAO at Wisconsin Lutheran College since 2004. He also is president of the Edgar H. and Meta A. Hoenecke Vulnerable Children’s Foundation, Inc., which serves over 500 students in Lusaka, Zambia.
Leanne Neilson, provost and vice president for academic affairs at California Lutheran University, and chair of the 2018 CAO Task Force, congratulated Kolander, noting that he has “ guided the academic enterprise at Wisconsin Lutheran College with skill, respect, and dignity” and has been willing “to help other campus leaders better understand the challenges facing them.”
The second major award that was announced is the CIC Academic Leadership Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions to American Higher Education. Gregory Britton, editorial director of Johns Hopkins University Press, accepted the CIC Academic Leadership Award on behalf of the Press. JHUP not only publishes a large number of highly rated scholarly books and 85 journals, but it has also been a pioneer in developing widely accessible electronic resources, such as Project MUSE. The Press is the oldest university press and one of the largest publishers in the United States. In recent years it has produced many award-winning scholarly books in the field of higher education.
“With critically acclaimed titles in history, science, medicine, the humanities, classics, and an extraordinary array of higher education titles, the Press publishes 150 new books each year, while maintaining a backlist of more than 3,000 titles,” said CIC President Richard Ekman when presenting the award. “The meteoric increase in the number of books published by the Press, such as
The Challenge of Independent Colleges, a 2017 collaboration between CIC and the Association for the Study of Higher Education, continues to underscore the importance of research to good practice and policy,” Ekman said. “I am pleased to recognize these and other contributions to independent higher education.”