The quarter century since the first significant meeting of campus planners, in 1959, has been a time of enormous changes for American higher education, steering between the Scylla of student enrollment explosion and the Charybdis of financial shortfall. The analogy is not perfect, neither is the division of the period into five-year periods, but both are useful in looking at SCUP's role and performance within higher education context. The surge of enrollment in universities and colleges, the combined effect of an increasing 18-24 population and a steadily rising participation rate, leads to explosive physical expansion of campuses.
Leaders are too busy to plan.
Enrollment increases will continue for the next decade but at a slower rate. So will physical plant expansion. Leaders still too busy to plan. SCUP-1 held at Portland in August. SCUP reaches 737 individual members by 1970 and adds corporate membership category.