This year’s CIC Presidents Institute’s concluding session featured a panel of presidents who demonstrated leadership in a time of significant transformation on their campuses. Elizabeth Kiss of Agnes Scott College (GA), Walter Kimbrough of Dillard University (LA) and Jeffrey Docking of Adrian College (MI) served on the panel hosted and questioned by Scott Jaschik, editor of Inside Higher Ed. Striking, but not surprising given the panel participants and the tenor of the conference, was the transparency of the responses and story-telling. All three presidents referenced the challenges of risk-taking and the positive power of truth-telling. And these themes seemed to summarize and serve as an exclamation point for this year’s PI.

Throughout the conference we heard the call for greater risk-taking. The lead keynote Kevin Warren of Xerox reminded his audience that opportunity was the flip side of risk, offering a clarion appeal for private higher education to rise to the challenges posed particularly by employers to broadly equip students for the world—and life—of work. Later in the conference, columnist James Stewart of the New York Times and the New Yorker hailed the theme of truth-telling as a hallmark of colleges and universities like those represented by CIC. His experience as a student of the liberal arts at DePauw opened his eyes to the value of not only knowing the right answers but knowing the right questions. These two big ideas were evident throughout the conference agenda.

This year, RHB was represented on the program as a result of our collaboration with The Lawlor Group in conducting the 2016 Independent College Presidents Survey that measured the perceptions, interests and practices related to marketing on these campuses. We concluded data collection in October of last year with an excellent response; more than 22% fully completed the lengthy survey.

To download an executive summary of the survey and read Rick’s topline recommendations fill out the form below.