In November of 1999, the Board of Trustees implemented a comprehensive Strategy for Wesleyan that outlined the direction the University would take over the next five years.
The plan outlined Wesleyan’s five-year objectives and established an aggressive fundraising effort called “The Wesleyan Campaign” that has sought to raise 250 million dollars by the end of this year.
President Douglas Bennet said he understood the benefit of community participation and that he looked to create an open forum.
“I’ve always thought it was important to do strategic planning on a community wide basis,”
Bennet said. “ Last time when we did the first plan there was a lot of participation.”
To initiate the discussion, President Bennet asked the Wesleyan community to participate in the decision via an online open forum that began last November.
“I invite all members of the campus community to comment on what they see as challenges and opportunities for the university and what themes should guide us in the coming years,” Bennet wrote. “ You are encouraged to be as specific as you wish, but I encourage you to think as broadly as possible to Wesleyan’s future.”
Members of the student group Environmental Organizer’s Network (EON) took advantage of the opportunity and voiced their personal concerns, emphasizing the need for the use of Green Energy on campus.
“I was surprised by the fact that no other student group really took advantage of the important forum that these essays represented,” said Jesse Young ’06. “With all the anger and frustration often directed at the administration by marginalized groups here, this would seem like an ideal opportunity to voice constructive concern for the future.”
EON member Nora Connor ’07 posted an essay in the forum in the hopes of raising concern beyond the administration and reaching the Board of Trustees. Connor also highlighted the determination with which EON plans upon pursuing the acceptance of green energy in what she feels is a liberal school that does not always support liberal policies.
Fellow member, Anna Moench ’06, also stressed the importance of communication between the students and the administration; a communication that Moench believes has been absent in recent years.
After the January 11 deadline for submissions, a committee comprised of faculty, students and administrative staff attended a retreat hosted by the Board of Trustees and reviewed the essays.
“The essays were grouped according to subject matter and the groupings – curriculum, the sciences, campus life, environmental and information infrastructure, and communication – formed the basis of subgroup discussions,” said Director of University Communications Justin Harmon. “Each subgroup yielded a list of priorities and action steps that were further discussed by the group as a whole. At the end of the discussion, the administrators present were charged with researching and presenting proposals that address the priorities in each area.”
Currently, the administrators are in the review process that is intended to generate a report to be presented to the Wesleyan community in the spring for evaluation. President Bennet was impressed by the committee’s performance during the retreat and the superior quality of the essays.
“I thought the essays were really excellent and what you’d try to do is – it’s not that it stops now either – [we] want to keep this process completely open and going forward,” President Bennet said. “[During the workshop] a lot of people had read the essays and they were paying attention. There was a lot of student interest in the environmental standards and people said ‘Yeah, we should do that.’”
In addition to student concerns, professors’ responses were also solicited by Bennet.
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