Elon University President Leo M. Lambert used his annual “State of the University” address on Monday to share details of the university’s draft strategic plan that was developed over the summer. Lambert said that many in the Elon community believe that the university has “a special destiny” to make important contributions to the landscape of American higher education.
Lambert’s Aug. 24 address to a packed McCrary Theatre kicked off Planning Week 2009 for faculty and staff as they prepare for the 2009-2010 academic year. The address was followed by group sessions around campus where faculty and staff shared impressions of the plan, including their likes, dislikes, and what they believe may be missing from the draft.
“Strategic plans at Elon are not like a detailed set of construction drawings that set out where every light switch and doorway in a new building will be placed exactly,” Lambert said. “More apt comparisons might be to an impressionist painting or a good sketch with many details to be filled in later or a story that captures the major themes of our collective hopes, dreams, and ambitions.”
Lambert said the plan is titled “Imagine Elon” and is organized around eight themes:
Theme 1: An unprecedented university commitment to diversity and global engagement
The new strategic plan will call on the university to do more to prepare students to live in a diverse 21st century world. Initiatives in support of that goal include the following:
- Doubling institutionally funded need-based financial aid so that Elon’s student body better reflects the world
- Continuing to build the endowment for increased need-based aid
- Encouraging more study in non-Western nations
- Building a multi-faith center
- Adding significant numbers of new international students and faculty
- Strengthening the multicultural center
- Building strong partnerships with the Alamance Burlington School System, especially with regard to serving low socio-economic and first-generation college students, and developing the Elon Academy as a national model
“The single area in which we have the most progress to make as a university, in my view, is engaging even more fully with a very rapidly changing global society and preparing students to successfully live in a very diverse 21st century world,” Lambert said. “In the future, our students’ first employment may very well be outside the United States, and they certainly will compete for a living on an international basis.”
Theme 2: Supporting a world-class faculty and staff
The Presidential Task Force on Scholarship report is a cornerstone in the Imagine Elon draft plan and the university will continue to make investments in faculty lines, the reassigned time program in support of scholarship, summer research grants, and other key aspects on the report.
The university will also work in the coming year to conceive a new program of leadership development for faculty and staff.
“We have a faculty and staff at Elon who are committed to student success, invested in this university’s future, and at the core of an intimate, caring intellectual community,” Lambert said. “Through the Imagine Elon strategic plan, we will continue to invest in the professional development of faculty and staff.”
Theme 3: Attaining the highest benchmarks for our academic programs
The Imagine Elon plan identifies areas “in which we should aspire to have preeminent programs,” Lambert said.
That includes a leading general education program, developing the best undergraduate research program in the nation, developing models for grooming students to compete for national scholarships, creating a National Center for Engaged Learning and encouraging academic programs – like some have already accomplished – to achieve national recognition.
“We can continue to make Elon even more excellent through our collective vision and strategic choices,” Lambert said. “The right choices will move Elon from our present position – one I like to call being on the cusp of recognition as one of the most innovative, selective, distinctive, and, dare I say, great universities in the U.S. – to one of true national prominence.”
Theme 4: Launching innovative pathways in undergraduate and graduate education
Many students arrive at Elon with a large number of AP and college credits, Lambert said. As such, one idea in the draft plan is to consider “4+1” or “4+2” programs where students earn their undergraduate degrees before staying an additional year to complete a master’s program.
“Graduate education at Elon is an important dimension of the university today, and I believe we would benefit from considering an expansion of graduate programs from our current five to as many as eight in the next ten years,” Lambert said. “We also discussed the advisability of establishing a gap-year experience for students prior to enrolling at Elon, giving some students opportunities to defer college enrollment for a year and to participate in a year-long Elon Service Academy.
“This would provide opportunities for students to grow and mature, to experience the world outside an educational institution, and to reflect on personal and life goals.”
Theme 5: Delivering on Elon’s promise as a best value university
Issues to consider in a draft financial model for 2020 include questions over enrollment size, the cost of new programs and salary plans, what constitutes realistic fundraising targets and how much the university can anticipate earning from its endowment.
Lambert said that Elon’s affordable cost is a huge asset in attracting prospective students, but growing university offerings in the next decade may affect that advantage.
“A great challenge before us in the construction of the new strategic plan is to balance the funding of our most critical aspirations with the need to continue to budget conservatively, perhaps by even heavier reliance on fund-raising, strategic reallocation, and modest growth in undergraduate and graduate enrollments,” Lambert said. “And while this may be stating the obvious, we will remain the poster child of the tuition-dependent campus for many years to come, not unlike the vast majority of private institutions in the United States.”
Theme 6: Engaging the next generation of alumni leaders and philanthropists
With 59 percent of Elon University’s alumni now in their 20s and 30s, Lambert said, it is essential that the university reach out to young alumni with relevant programming and tech-savvy communications strategies to keep them connected to their alma mater. It is also a goal to increase alumni participation in annual giving if the university is to maintain its value in the marketplace.
“Growing a new generation of active and committed alumni is one of the most important strategic tasks before us,” Lambert said, “and history will judge whether we seized this opportunity or squandered it.”
Theme 7: Advancing excellence in Phoenix athletics
One goal of the Imagine Elon plan is to construct a new multi-use convocation center and to complete a new field house at Rhodes Stadium. The plan also seeks for Elon to build athletics programs that win conference and national championships.
“The role of intercollegiate athletics is not to be underestimated in planning for our future. There is no question that a successful athletics program contributes to institutional pride, is of great interest to students and alumni, and contributes greatly to national visibility,” Lambert said. “In the Imagine Elon strategic plan, we seek to develop an athletics program that is both a model of academic integrity and successful in winning conference championships.”
Theme 8: Further building our beautiful campus and creating a thriving, safe, and environmentally friendly university
Many of the major elements of the plan are not surprises, Lambert said. Members of the community suggested several ideas during the input process last spring. Expansion space for science and the School of Communications are top priorities, along with a new 5,000-seat convocation center, a new multi-faith center and other facilities.
The university also plans to make a “dramatic investment” in residential facilities that would eventually allow every junior and senior with a desire to do so the ability to live on campus. As many as 1,600 new beds could be added to the campus through a variety of various living-learning communities, theme housing and perhaps faculty and graduate student residences.
The university hopes to be a catalyst for more private commercial investment in the Town of Elon. And the new strategic plan calls for the study of geothermal technology at Elon for powering the campus, as well as a the creation of a land preserve – Elon Forest – to protect a large swath of space north of University Drive.
Imagine Elon was developed by a 23-member strategic planning committee chaired by Trustee Wes Elingburg and Executive Vice President Gerry Francis The committee was made up of trustees, alumni, faculty, staff and students. During the last academic year, a community survey to gather ideas for the plan received more than 2,600 responses.
There were also a series of campus forums and a community exercise in the spring to allow members of the community to write “headlines” for the plan and refine the list of objectives. The first draft of the plan was developed during the summer to be ready for further discussion at the opening of fall semester.
The plan will be discussed at the Sept. 4 faculty meeting and there will be three campus forums: faculty/staff forums on Sept. 8 and 9 and a student forum on Sept. 23. The board of trustees will consider the draft at a special retreat set for Oct. 9-10.