For Immediate Release
 
Contact:	
			Director, Public Relations
			(909) 621-8219
			nina_mason@pitzer.edu

 America's Most Progressive Colleges to Meet at Pitzer College

Claremont, Calif. -- Nov. 21, 2001 -- A group of the youngest and most progressive colleges 
and universities in the nation will meet in Claremont next month to begin discussing how each 
has transformed student learning, to share strategies and resources, and to develop a plan to 
help reinvigorate American higher education.

The work of the new Consortium for Innovative Environments in Learning (CIEL) is being 
funded by a $772,000 grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education 
(FIPSE). The meeting, which follows a year of conversations and planning among the 
participating schools, will be held Dec. 6 - 8 at Pitzer College, the youngest and most innovative 
of the five undergraduate institutions in The Claremont Colleges cluster.

Pitzer is one of seven progressive schools comprising CIEL.  The other members are Arizona 
International College of the University of Arizona in Tucson (1995); Alverno College in 
Milwaukee, Wisc. (founded in 1887, but revamped in 1973); The Evergreen State College in 
Olympia, Wash. (1971); Fairhaven College at Western Washington University (1967); 
Hampshire College in Hampshire, Mass. (1970); and New College of the University of South 
Florida in Sarasota (1960). 

Most CIEL participants were founded in the '60s and early '70s, a turbulent era of pervasive 
social and political questioning and change.  These fervent times gave birth to scores of new 
colleges, most focused on student learning and new pedagogies labeled "experimental" or 
"alternative."  In the '80s and '90s, student interests became more vocationally focused, 
enrollments shrank and funding dwindled at many American colleges and universities.  While 
many progressive schools did not survive the changing times, others thrived.

"Innovative institutions, rather than being viewed as being on the margins of higher education, 
should be seen as leaders whose experiences can be adapted to other colleges and universities 
to improve student learning and institutional culture," said Ted Pope, who co-directs the project 
with Edwin Clausen of Daemen College in Amherst, N.Y.  Pope is director of academic 
programs and planning at Arizona International College.  "Unlike in the past, when education 
was awash in resources and could afford to be smug in its intent and pedagogy, institutions of 
higher education today tout the need for student-centeredness, liberal learning, interdisciplinarity, 
civic responsibility, visual literacy, diversity, globalism, interactive learning, service and powerful 
assessment.  These are all lessons that can be learned by drawing from the vast reservoir of 
experiences of more innovative institutions."

According to the project directors, there have been three gatherings of "alternative" colleges in 
the past 20 years, but "they did not yield the deep dialogue and self-examination that will result 
from our proposed project, which will work with a greater number of alternative institutions and 
institutions inviting change."

For maximum effectiveness, the three-year project will focus on program development, sharing 
and problem solving among the participants along with broad outreach programs aimed at 
sharing the lessons learned with a wider group of colleges and universities.  These outreach 
programs will include multi-media programs, a web site, exchange programs, partnerships, 
program-review teams and summer institutes, Pope explained, "enabling others to learn, borrow 
and modify what is germane to their own development. CIEL institutions will construct and 
disseminate a collective picture of how specific innovations succeed in idiosyncratic 
environments, providing models for innovation that foster high-quality learning without pre-
empting the uniqueness of individual institutions."

The Pitzer meeting will focus on the internal dialogue among participating institutions.  
Representatives from all seven institutions are expected to attend.  Officials from Daemen 
College also will be attending.  Daemen, which is redesigning its core curriculum, is serving as a 
pilot for CIEL's Institutional Partners Program, the major outreach component of the project.

"For the exchange of ideas on innovation facilitated by the grant, each CIEL partner school has 
identified areas of powerful, student-centered learning it can showcase as models to other 
institutions," said Carol Brandt, vice president for international programs at Pitzer and a CIEL 
representative. "Pitzer College, nationally known for its excellence in international and 
intercultural education, will feature its successful field-based study-abroad programs, as well as 
its cutting-edge programs of community-based learning, neuroscience and media studies."
FIPSE, a unit within the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Postsecondary Education, 
administers grant programs supporting innovative educational reform projects that can serve as 
national models for the improvement of postsecondary education. 

Founded in 1963, Pitzer College a private, undergraduate, coeducational institution of the 
liberal arts and sciences is consistently ranked among the best such colleges in the country. 
Located in Claremont, Calif., a city about 35 miles east of Los Angeles, Pitzer is an intimate 
college backed by the resources of The Claremont Colleges. Blending classroom instruction 
with fieldwork, Pitzer engages a student's mind, heart and spirit by integrating educational 
resources on-campus, abroad and in the local community. Pitzer offers a curriculum that spans 
40 major fields and focuses on interdisciplinary, intercultural education with an emphasis on 
social responsibility and community service.

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