Rutgers University has been admitted to the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) beginning July 1, 2013. The CIC is the prestigious academic consortium whose membership includes all Big Ten institutions and the University of Chicago. The invitation to join CIC is a concomitant advantage of membership in the Big Ten athletic conference, which Rutgers will join in 2014.
These exciting new developments will bring many benefits to Rutgers, such new learning and research opportunities for students and faculty, as well as collaborative programs for the university library. In a letter to university faculty, Richard L. Edwards, Rutgers Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, described the advantages of CIC membership as follows:
"The CIC, which is governed by the chief academic officers/provosts of the member universities, is committed to advance its members’ academic missions, leverage campus resources such as libraries and equipment, share expertise, and expand academic and research opportunities for students and faculty. With the addition of Rutgers and the University of Maryland (which has also been admitted), the CIC universities collectively engage in $9.3 billion in funded research and own more than 100 million library volumes.
Our students will gain new academic opportunities because of Rutgers’ membership in the consortium. To give one example, CIC’s CourseShare program gives students access through distance technology to more than 120 less commonly taught languages. There are also summer research opportunities, shared study abroad programs, and reciprocal library borrowing, among other benefits."
A CIC membership will greatly expand Rutgers faculty and students’ access to library materials in East Asian studies. Through the reciprocal borrowing program of CIC, members of Rutgers community will be able to borrow library books directly from other CIC institutions, most notably University of Chicago and University of Michigan, both with top-tier East Asian collections in North America. A similar program (EZ Borrow) has already existed between Rutgers and research universities in Pennsylvania, which includes University of Pennsylvania and University of Pittsburgh, both with fine East Asian collections.
For more information on the CIC, visit www.cic.net. To view a four-minute video overview of the consortium, visit www.cic.net/Home/NewsAndPubs/Multimedia/Videos/CICVideo.aspx.
