In 1953, Frank Chodorov founded ISI as the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists, with a young Yale University graduate William F. Buckley Jr. as president. E. Victor Milione, ISI's next and longest-serving president, established publications, a membership network, a lecture and conference program, and a graduate fellowship program. ISI has been teaching various forms of intellectual conservatism on college campuses ever since. Past ISI president and former Reagan administration official T. Kenneth Cribb led the institute from 1989 until 2011, when current president Christopher G. Long took over. Cribb is credited with expanding ISI's revenue from one million dollars that year to $13,636,005 in 2005.
Programs and activities
ISI runs a number of programs on college campuses, including student societies and student papers. The organization also hosts academic-style conferences for undergraduates at various locations across the U.S. In providing what ISI calls a classically liberal education to its member students, ISI runs other programs as well. It publishes a number of "Student's Guide to..." books, for example A Student's Guide to Liberal Learning, providing a classical introduction into several disciplines. It also holds other events, such as conferences, that feature prominent conservative speakers and academics, and provides funding for students to attend these conferences. In this funding capacity ISI is affiliated with the Liberty Fund. In the summer of 2005, ISI Books, the imprint of ISI, published It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good, by Pennsylvania Republican Senator Rick Santorum, which premiered at #13 on the New York Times Best Seller list. Passages from the book generated controversy during Santorum's 2006 reelection campaign, as well as during his 2012 presidential campaign. ISI administers the Collegiate Network, which provides editorial and financial outreach to conservative and libertarian student journalists. In the fall of 2006, ISI published the findings of its survey of the teaching of America's history and institutions in higher education. The Institute reported, as the title suggests, that there is a "coming crisis in citizenship."
ISI Books
Intercollegiate Studies Institute operates ISI Books, which publishes books on conservative issues and distributes a number of books from other publishers. Focus is largely on the humanities and the foundations of Western culture and its challenge by left-wing progressivism.
