Acknowledgments: this history could not have been prepared if it was not for the generous assistance from Marty Ringle, Director of Computing and Information Systems at Reed College, Portland, Oregon who served as the guiding light during the formative years of CLAC.

1984

In 1984, Frederick Starr, then president of Oberlin, persuaded a large number of his colleagues at other liberal arts I institutions that they needed to raise their visibility in Washington, especially with regard to NSF and other funds. He commissioned a study, performed by David Davis van Atta (the Oberlin institutional researcher) and the Oberlin provost, to show that science Ph.D. production from the top fifty liberal arts colleges was vastly out of proportion to the number of students graduated, i.e., these fifty "research colleges" were producing more future scientists than anyone realized.

1985

President Starr invited the presidents from the 50 colleges to a meeting at Oberlin in 1985 to talk about collaboration on lobbying and other efforts.

1986

A second meeting was held in June, 1986 at Oberlin College. This was the pivotal meeting that led to the creation of CLAC. A list of the forty-nine participating institutions is contained in Appendix 1.

"The presidents and senior academic officers of the forty-nine member colleges identified two areas of primary concern: (1) the support and development of undergraduate science education; and (2) the enhancement of academic computing facilities, including library automation. Committees to examine each of these issues were created." [Rin687]

One of Oberlin's trustees at the time was a VP for AT&T, who had recently created a computer division (ATT - IS) as a result of the breakup of the company. President Starr invited this fellow (and his associates) to give a presentation to the presidents. The meeting was a minor disaster. AT&T embarrassed itself by trying a fairly naive sales pitch.

"I was at the meeting to represent Vassar because the president couldn't make it. There was a sprinkling of other 'non - presidents' as well. During the meeting I suggested that a 'committee' be formed to pursue future collaborative efforts in technology and telecommunications. The presidents agreed and Bob Gavin (then of Haverford but later of Macalester) volunteered to chair the committee and I volunteered to do the scut work. The presidents of Lafayette and Davidson colleges and the provost at Williams (later the president at Colgate) also volunteered to serve. Bob and I recruited Ed Meyers (then of Haverford), David Todd (then of Wesleyan), and Janet Price (then of Lafayette) to participate as well." [Rin897]

The Oberlin "Computing and Telecommunications Committee" met in New York, a month later. Bob Gavin chaired the meeting. "We decided that while the AT&T effort had been a fiasco the idea of collaborating on group purchases was still worth pursuing. I suggested that we collect some data about each of the institutions first so we would have a basis for identifying common interests and needs. The suggestion was accepted and I volunteered to do the data collection."[Rin897]

When I returned to Vassar after the meeting it occurred to me that it might be useful to create two groups, a presidential "board" and a technology officer "steering committee" to insure that we would have both institutional support and operational efficiency for the data gathering. Bob and I identified 2 more presidents to invite to be on the board and I identified a few people besides Ed, David, and myself to form the "steering committee." I believe they were Carl Henry (Carleton), Joanne Badagliacco (Pomona), and Charles Staelin (Smith). I volunteered to serve as chair.

During the next couple of months the members of the steering committee met (I can't remember where) and we talked about naming the group. At roughly the same time, the head librarians of the schools that were invited to Oberlin had coalesced into the "Oberlin Library Group." I suggested that we try to move beyond the Oberlin - centric origin of the initiative and take a name that would not single out any individual institution. Being an acronym - obsessed computer nerd, I proposed CLAC (Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges). I regret to say that the reaction was lukewarm. In fact, several people thought it was downright silly. But no one managed to come up with another name that we could all enthusiastically endorse so in the end we went with CLAC. Not an auspicious beginning, I'm afraid.

I proposed that we assess a modest - though required - fee for being a member of the Consortium. We agreed on $100.

1986-87

As we got into the 1986 - 87 academic year, Ed Meyers suggested that we hold a conference to bring the chief academic computing officers (later the chief technology officers) together. He spearheaded the first conference in Philadelphia, with assistance from Tom Warger (Bryn Mawr) and John Boccio (Swarthmore). The conference was hugely successful and the steering committee decided to make the conference an annual event, hosted by a different school (or group of schools) each year. At the same time, Ed started a "CLAC Newsletter" and hosted the first CLAC listserv.

In June, 1987 a report "Status Report on Academic Computing" was published. Martin Ringle, then of Vassar College, produced the final report. The report came about through "the activities of the Computing and Telecommunications Committee (CTC), chaired by Robert M. Gavin" [Rin687], then President of Macalester College.

The report highlighted the following issues that were important to the participating institutions [Rin687]:

·        Integration of all academic computing hardware - mainframes, minicomputers, and microcomputers - within a single, campus-wide network

·        Development of datalinks to residences as well as to academic buildings

"About a half a dozen schools have begun to establish datalinks to residence halls in the form of centrally located terminal clusters and a few, such as Amherst, Harvey Mudd, Union and Alma, are already placing computer connections directly into dormitory rooms." [Rin687], page 1

·        Introduction or enhancement of automated library facilities and integration of those facilities within a campus-wide network

"Nearly a fourth of the schools have introduced some level of library automation, and a fourth are actively reviewing library automation packages for installation during 1988." [Rin687], page 1

·        Connection to a national computing network in order to support direct inter-campus communications

"Twenty schools have joined the Bitnet national computing network, seven schools are planning to join, and another five are currently considering membership." [Rin687], page 1

·        Enhancement of academic computing facilities with advanced function workstations, laser printing, optical disc storage, etc. in addition to the best mainframes and microcomputers available

"Ten schools have recently replaced aging mainframes with advanced minicomputers, a third have made substantial investments in sate-of-the-art microcomputers, and nearly half of the schools have acquired at least one advanced function workstation." [Rin687], page 1

As a result of the success and enthusiasm of the above efforts the Computing and Telecommunications Committee decided to "(1) revise and distribute this report on an annual basis; (2) maintain a directory of contact persons at each institution similar to the one provided at the end of this report; (3) coordinate annual Consortium meetings which will include external groups such as vendors and foundations." [Rin687], page 2

1987-88

During 1987-88 the second "Status Report on Academic Computing" was produced [Rin88], again prepared by Martin Ringle of Vassar College. The membership of the Consortium changed slightly. "Three schools withdrew from the Consortium and five schools were added." [Rin88], page 1. Those added included: Allegheny College (PA), Lawrence University (WI), Mills College (CA), Skidmore College (NY) and Trinity University (TX). Those who withdrew were Antioch College, Whitman College and Barnard College.

In light of the issues that were of major concern the year before, the following accomplishments were noted in the 1987-88 report:

·        "Forty CLAC schools have connections to some sort of national network" (thirty-three are connected to Bitnet)

·        "Thirty-seven schools have installed full-function networks on some portion of their campuses"

·        Twenty-eight schools indicated that they had installed library automation systems, and eight more were in the process of selecting a system

Members of CLAC were active in other organizations, and five members of CLAC institutions were elected to the Educom Board of Trustees:

Carol Lennox, Mills College

James Powell, Reed College

Martin Ringle, Vassar College

David Smallen, Hamilton College

David Todd, Wesleyan University

It was noted that "an effort will be made to have one or two sessions at each EDUCOM annual conference devoted to small liberal arts colleges and to have CLAC play a role in the coordination of these sessions." [Rin88], page 12.

1987-89

The organization progressed nicely from 1987 to 1989. Although the "board" was largely symbolic, Bob Gavin was very active in helping to insure that member schools paid dues, attended conferences, and responded to surveys.

Successful discount and grants programs were negotiated with several different vendors including Apple, DEC, HP - Apollo, Sun, Claris, and others. The weight of CLAC helped to raise the visibility of small liberal arts colleges at Educom, and other national organizations.

1992

The book Computing Strategies in Liberal Arts Colleges is published by Addison-Wesley in the EDUCOM Strategies Series on Information Technology. The book is edited by Martin Ringle, and most of the authors are from CLAC member institutions. A listing of the chapters and the authors is contained in Appendix 3.

1993

In April 1993, after six years of informal activities, the steering committee and governing board agreed to change CLAC from a "pilot project" to a permanent, incorporated organization. Bob and I agreed that the presidential governing board would evolve into a "presidential advisory board" and that the steering committee would become the legal "board of directors." I enclosed (in MS - Word 5.1) the minutes from a 1989 and a 1993 meeting (first of the steering committee and then of the board) to give you some of the flavor of what we were up to.

CLAC Conferences and Sponsoring Institution

Bibliography

[Rin687] Ringle, Martin. "Status Report on Academic Computing," June 30, 1987. The Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges.

[Rin88] Ringle, Martin. "Status Report on Academic Computing." 1988. The Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges.

[Rin897] Ringle, Martin. Email message sent to David Cossey dated August 18, 1997.

Appendix 1 - Roster of Participating Institutions at June, 1986 Meeting at Oberlin College

Source: Status Report on Academic Computing [Rin687]