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MELLON GRANT TO SUPPORT ADDITIONAL LIBRARY AND NEW LEARNING SPACES WORKSHOPS

WASHINGTON, DC—A $500,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will support five additional “Transformation of the College Library” workshops and two “New Learning Spaces” workshops over the next three years. Teams from more than 80 CIC member institutions have already participated in previous library workshops; the new grant will enable 100 additional institutions to participate.

“This most-welcome grant should go a long way toward meeting the high level of interest that has previously been expressed in these opportunities,” said CIC President Richard Ekman in announcing the grant and library workshops. “The workshops will focus on the dramatic changes now occurring in college libraries and are intended to help small and mid-sized colleges and universities deal successfully with those changes,” he added. The programs will address such critical issues as advancing information literacy as an element of liberal education; the role of the library in teaching and learning through collaboration between librarians and faculty members; the changing use and conception of the physical space of the library; the challenges of using technology in improving students’ learning; setting institutional priorities for library-related costs when they increasingly exceed standard budget guidelines; implementing institutional change; and assessing the institution-wide impact of changes in library services.

The new workshops are being offered by CIC in partnership with the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE), a group of 81 colleges that collaboratively strengthen teaching and learning through instructional technologies. In addition, the Council on Library and Information Resources and the Association of College and Research Libraries are co-sponsoring the workshops, and the Appalachian College Association (ACA) and the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) have endorsed them.

Dates and locations for the Transformation of the Library Workshops in 2005-2006 are:

Chicago, Illinois, September 29 – October 1, 2005
New Orleans, Louisiana, February 9–11, 2006
Boston, Massachusetts, April 20–22, 2006

Each institutional team that is accepted as a participant will receive a travel subsidy of up to $1,600. All independent colleges and universities are eligible to apply. Preference will be given to institutional teams that have not already attended one of these workshops and are members of CIC, NITLE, ACA, and/or the UNCF.

Jo Ellen Parker, executive director of the National Institute for Technology & Liberal Education, said “The transformative potential of digital technologies for academic libraries is enormous, particularly for libraries on small undergraduate-centered campuses. Envisioning the 21st-Century library is a pressing priority for America’s liberal arts colleges.”

Co-directors of the library workshops are Scott Bennett, Yale University Librarian Emeritus; Rita Gulstad, Dean of Graduate and Extended Studies and Learning Resources at Central Methodist University; and Thomas Kirk, Library Director and Coordinator of Information Services at Earlham College. The advisory committee for the project includes Michael Bell, Vice President for Academic Affairs at Elmhurst College; Sister Patricia Matthews, Vice President for Academic Affairs at Marywood University; and Susan Perry, Senior Advisor at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Director of Programs for the Council on Library and Information Resources.

In addition to the library workshops, CIC and NITLE will offer two “New Learning Spaces” workshops in 2006 and 2007 to be led by Jeanne Narum of Project Kaleidoscope. These workshops have not previously been available to most CIC members. Topics will include the overall planning process; creating spaces that support active, hands-on investigation; “cyber-infrastructures” and the library as an integrated learning center; sustainability issues; creating and locating informal spaces that students will use; and linking the development of new learning spaces to institutional planning. One of the most important lessons participants can expect to take away from this workshop series is that as colleges design new learning spaces, the problems they need to solve are tomorrow’s, not today’s.

For more information about the library workshops, click here. Information about the Learning Spaces workshops will be posted on the conferences section of CIC's website in June 2005.

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The Council of Independent Colleges is an association of more than 540 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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