HOLLAND - Hope College President Dr. James E. Bultman has been elected to the Board of Directors of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU).

He was elected to the board during NAICU's annual meeting in Washington, D.C., in February. He will serve a three-year term representing private colleges from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. Bultman became the 11th president of Hope College on July 1, 1999, and assumed office having already had more than two decades of direct experience with the college.

He joined the Hope education faculty in 1968, chaired the department of education from 1976 to 1982, and was dean for the social sciences from 1982 until 1985. He was head baseball coach at Hope from 1971 to 1985, and an assistant football coach from 1970 to 1984. He also experienced Hope as a student, graduating from the college in 1963. He took office at Hope having had extensive experience as a college president. For the previous 14 years, from 1985 to 1999, he was president of Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa. Present memberships include the Michigan Colleges Foundation (MCF), Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA), Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA), and the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Michigan (AICUM). Bultman is also a member of the College Sports Project, an initiative of select liberal arts colleges funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the purpose of keeping athletics in perspective at NCAA Division III institutions.

He is a member of the Holland Area Chamber of Commerce and the Holland Rotary Club, and serves on the Board of Directors at The Bank of Holland. The National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU) serves as the unified national voice of independent higher education. Since 1976, the association has represented private colleges and universities on policy issues with the federal government, such as those affecting student aid, taxation, and government regulation.

With nearly 1,000 members nationwide, NAICU reflects the diversity of private, nonprofit higher education in the United States. Members include traditional liberal arts colleges, major research universities, church- and faith-related institutions, historically black colleges and universities, women's colleges, performing and visual arts institutions, two-year colleges, and schools of law, medicine, engineering, business, and other professions.

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