With $233 million of the proposed $250 million Wesleyan Campaign raised, President Doug Bennet recently published an outline of the University’s strategic plan and invited the Wesleyan community to comment.
The new strategic plan covers all aspects of the University, from changes in course scheduling to the creation of quiet housing zones, as well as how the University presents itself to prospective students and the media. The issues were divided into categories concerning curriculum, science, campus community, finance and fundraising, and communications.
Bennet said the new strategic plan, which was presented to the student body in a Mar. 31 e-mail, is “a rationale for fundraising.”
Drafted by Bennet and other administrators with the Board of Trustees and select students and faculty members, the new strategic plan is the product of a January retreat and a two-day spring break meeting. It can be seen in its entirety at http://www.wesleyan.edu/wesleyanplanning.
To create the plan, those involved engaged in workshops addressing different concerns raised in a series of over 60 essays written by students, faculty, and staff. The essays were solicited by Bennet at the end of last year in a campus-wide email.
“We broke the group that was there up into several working groups on various issues … and the working groups were organized around the issues that were raised by the essays,” Bennet said. “People were required to report back from those working groups with the three top issues plus anything else they wanted to report.”
Proposed changes to the curriculum include a reevaluation of the student’s key capabilities and their importance in academic life and promoting “global” thinking. The plan also advocates reducing the amount of overlaps between courses and adding a few faculty positions to the social sciences.
In addition, the plan involves a renovation to Olin Library and other libraries to adapt to student study needs and create an “information commons” to better incorporate new technologies.
“The art and music in particular need to be redesigned to embrace information in all formats,” wrote University Librarian Barbara Jones in her essay.
Bennet said that the renovation may occur in the next two to three years.
The new strategic plan devoted a separate category to how the University perceives its science departments, an issue was raised in several essays.
“Wesleyan must continue to do whatever it can to publicize the remarkable opportunities that undergraduate science majors here have to delve deeply into their chosen subject,” wrote Professor of Chemistry Albert Fry.
The plan calls for attracting more students to the sciences at Wesleyan by advertising them more in admissions materials, placing stories in the media about research done at Wesleyan, and creating introductory courses to “[open] the doors of science to non-science students.”
“Learning in many ways requires a knowledge of the sciences that certainly wasn’t the case in my time and it seems to be accelerating, so there is a continuing academic challenge to meet that,” Bennet said about the emphasis on science.
He added that, despite the strength of the sciences, few students are science majors.
“It’s something that I think has not been adequately recognized in the past,” he said. “The [science] departments are anxious to have more students major in them.”
The strategic plan includes the construction of a new science building, as outlined in the campus master plan. The project is expected to be one of the last ones to be built in the master plan and the money for the building, unlike other master plan projects, will not be covered by money raised in the Wesleyan Campaign.
In the category of campus community, the plan calls for continuing to attract the best students and faculty by making the University more visible nationally through marketing.
A main part of the category, a section calling for “environmental stewardship,” was the product of a large number of essays advocating the use of more green energy and better environmental standards on campus. The essays were authored by different members of the Environmental Organizer’s Network (EON).
The plan proposes evaluating campus environmental standards, but makes no suggestion favoring the use of green energy sources or any other specific effort.
“Despite widespread campus support for purchasing a percentage of our energy from ‘green’ energies (as evidenced by two unanimous WSA resolutions of support and countless signatures on many petitions) the University continues to purchase all of its energy from nonrenewable sources,” wrote Leon Hilton ’07 in his essay.
“The recycling program, especially in the dorms, is disorganized and confusing, with rumors circulating that the custodial staff empties the recycling bins into the trash,” wrote Anna Moench ’06.
Bennet said that the University will probably move to green power sources in the future, but said that greater returns have been seen in making campus buildings more energy efficient.
“Wesleyan is a big institutional citizen and has got some public values and environmental responsibility is one of them,” Bennet said.
The new Fauver Field residence halls will be Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified, a step EON member Nora Connor ’07 attributed to the group’s efforts.
“Those essays did make a big difference, because environmental stewardship is now part of the university’s overall strategic plan,” wrote Connor in an email to the EON listserv.
Another potentially contentious section of the plan is its proposal to consolidate campus houses, replace wood-frame houses, and institute quiet zones to houses “in parts of town where student behaviors have adversely affected neighbors’ quality of life.”
“At the end of the day it means that people have to be responsible and behave responsibly and respect their neighbors,” Bennet said.
The strategic plan also advocates for using diversity as an educational asset and adding resources to improve admission outreach toward minority students, but made no specific suggestion as to how to improve campus diversity.
“We need to take full advantage of our diversity, so that the students graduate with a real ability to deal with others from different backgrounds, both locally and globally,” the plan says.
The plan states that the new University Center should serve as a “campus commons” and will use the Claremont College Athenaeum as a model for an “academic dining environment.”
The category on finance and fundraising discusses the difficulty of rising financial aid costs, but also states the importance of fundraising to enable the University to adhere to its commitment to need-blind admissions. It says that the University will continue to try to meet all demonstrated student financial need.
The strategic plan expects the eight percent rise in the Annual Fund will continue until it reaches $10 million in 2007. It also says it expects $5.7 million a year in the Campus Renewal Fund over the next five years, which the plan says will pay for the new science building and teaching museum.
“Post-Campaign we will restructure the University Relations Office with renewed focus and coordination among reunion fund-raising, the Annual Fund, and Planned Giving,” the plan says.
Bennet said he has been pleased with the response toward the Wesleyan Campaign, which will conclude in December.
“We run very efficiently compared with a lot of other schools in terms of the relative size of our investment, academic instruction versus overhead,” Bennet said.
In the communications section of the strategic plan, emphasis is given on improving marketing to prospective students and testing the perceptions of alumni and parents. The plan also discusses ways of generating national attention to Wesleyan.
“Our external media placements about faculty now far outstrip our competitors’ both in their number and in the breadth of disciplines they represent,” the plan says.
In his original strategic plan essay, “Planning for the Future,” Bennet used rankings from U.S. News and World Report to assess the University’s progress in several areas. Many of the essays submitted said that doing so risks the unique character of Wesleyan. No mention to the rankings is made in the current outline of the plan.
Bennet said that while the University’s reputation does affect everything, strategic choices should not be based purely on reputation or the rankings.
“We suffer in U.S. News and World Report because of our relatively small financial base,” Bennet said about the rankings.
The plan also encourages regular meetings with student groups and other student and faculty representatives.
“Regular consultation with the faculty executive committee and the leadership of the Wesleyan Student Assembly must become the norm,” the plan says.
The plan also mentions the creation of an online newsletter to facilitate campus communication, but Bennet said that there are no immediate plans to implement the newsletter.
Bennet will meet with the Board of Trustees again in May and during the summer to discuss feedback he receives over the next month and to finalize the plan.
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