America's private colleges and universities include most of the oldest institutions of higher education in the country, and their evolving physical campuses say much about American education. In recent years, the study of campus history, preservation, and adaptive reuse has received increasing attention by many sectors of the educational community. Institutions are working to more completely understand their physical environments and how they relate to educational mission and wider historical trends. In recognition of these trends and as part of a short-term, focused initiative of the Getty Foundation, in 2002 the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) proposed the development of the CIC Historic Campus Architecture Project (CIC HCAP). This project resulted in the first national architecture and landscape database of independent college and university campuses. The CIC HCAP recorded the historical and cultural significance of the architecture on the campuses of independent liberal arts colleges and universities in the United States in a commitment to making a lasting contribution to the documentation of the architectural, landscape architectural, and cultural history of these institutions. Campus planners, alumni, admissions officials, and prospective students and their families are just a few of the audiences of the CIC HCAP. Individuals from these groups can choose to look at the most prominent features on one college campus or on 100 campuses. Currently, the CIC HCAP will continue to be hosted by ARTstor, where the material will be accessible to everyone. It is hoped that it remains a useful instrument in researching, planning, and understanding more deeply the vast array of historic resources on college and university campuses across the country. (Contains 11 figures.)