DRAFT
Foundations for the Future
A Strategic Plan for
Wells College
2005 to 2010
Wells College
Aurora, New York
March 2005
DRAFT
Foundation for the Future
A Strategic Plan for
Wells College
2005 to 2010
Wells College
Aurora, New York
March 2005
DRAFT
Foundation for the Excellence
A Strategic Plan for
Wells College
2005 to 2010
ba
Wells College
Aurora, New York
March 2005
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS
INTRODUCTION
COLLEGE MISSION STATEMENT
VISION FOR STRATEGIC PLAN
FOUNDATIONS FOR THE FUTURE
GOALS
AND INITIATIVES
Students
Faculty
Staff
Alumnae
Community
Curriculum
Culture
History
Campus
Facilities
Funding
CHECKLIST FOR
REVIEW
BENCHMARKS AND KEY
INDICATORS
TIME LINE
COLLEGE
MISSION STATEMENT
The
mission of Wells College is to educate students to think critically, reason
wisely, and act humanely as they cultivate meaningful lives.Through Wells’
academic program, residential atmosphere, and community activities, students
learn and practice the ideals of the liberal arts. The Wells experience
prepares students to appreciate complexity and difference, to embrace new ways
of knowing, to be creative, and to respond ethically to the interdependent
worlds to which they belong. Commitment to excellence in all areas of its
reach, Wells College equips students for lifelong learning and for sharing the
privileges of education with others.
VISION
STATEMENT FOR THE STRATEGIC PLAN
By
2010, Wells College will be a high quality institution with an exceptional
academic program.This quality will be demonstrated in a sound, relevant, and
rigorous academic program; a respectful, inclusive, and communicative campus
culture; a diverse and engaged student body; and a professional faculty and
staff, supported by ample financial, academic, and technological, and physical
resources with on-going efforts to assess and plan for future development.In
order to accomplish this goal we will strengthen and enhance the following
foundations that we believe are critical for the future of Wells College.
FOUNDATION
FOR THE FUTURE
The Strategic Plan is broadly governed by a desire to
strengthen the foundation that is necessary to sustain the College’s ability to
carry out its mission. The Strategic Plan is designed to solidify, enhance, and
nurture the foundation that supports the life of the College so that Wells can
move into the future with confidence and optimism. We call our work “A
Foundation for the Future.”
STUDENTS
Wells College will attract
and maintain a, diverse, coeducational student body that enjoys institutional
initiatives that support their academic pursuits and their safe and holistic
development.
Specifically,
Wells will
A.
Maintain a sustainable enrollment of culturally
diverse and academically promising students who reflect our commitment to
social justice.
1. Increase
applicant pool to 800 students by 2010.
2. Increase
student enrollment by 40% (See Enrollment Projection Schedules).
3. Continue
to select an entering class that reflects of commitment to diversity in race,
gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion and region.
4. Increase
male enrollment to 30%.
5. Use
merit scholarships to attract a diverse student body with high potential for
leadership and academic success.
6. Explore
ways to better serve, attract and retain non-traditional age students at the
College.
KEY PERFORMANCE
INDICATORS
Number
of Applications
Admissions Yield
Demographic
Profiles of Student Population
Retention Rate
for Every Cohort
Scholarship
Offers
Scholarship
Acceptance
Graduation Rate
B.
Strengthen
and establish academic support resources that help students to be successful in
their academic work.
1. Review
and evaluate study spaces and computer access in residence halls.
2. Establish
a one-hour Freshmen Orientation course that introduces students to academic and
student service resources.
3. Provide
academic and teaching resource centers to support curricular and co-curricular
activities
4.
KEY PERFORMANCE
INDICATORS
Freshman
Retention
Orientation
Enrollment
Student Surveys
Grade Point
Averages
C.
Increase, develop, and support intercollegiate,
intramural, and recreational activities for all students.
1. Repair
and refurbish the student athletic center to eliminate roof leaks, poor
ventilation, and worn equipment.
2. Provide
locker rooms and weight room equipment for male students.
3. Repair
tennis courts to make usable for all students.
4. Make
steps to establish men’s intercollegiate soccer, field hockey, baseball, and
swimming teams in the by 2007.
5. Hire
new coaches as needed to provide intercollegiate competition for men and
women’s teams.
6. Explore
the feasibility of adding volleyball and basketball teams for women and men by
2010.
7.
KEY PERFORMANCE
INDICATORS
Deferred
Maintenance Reports
Participation
of Men and Women in College Sports Activities
Number of
Sports Activities Offered to Students
Student Surveys
D. Establish
and maintain support systems for all students as they develop personally and
socially as they transition to a coeducational environment.
1. Provide
on-going opportunities for students to discuss the challenges and the successes
of coeducation.
2. Provide
regular on-campus counseling services for male and female students.
3. Establish
an active advisor system for all student organizations.
4. Establish
a student mentor/advisee system for incoming students.
KEY
PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
Student
Surveys
Student Retention
D. Provide
safe, comfortable, and healthy living facilities for men and women students.
1. Provide
dormitories to reflect students desire for single sex and coeducational choices
in living arrangements.
2. Increase
maintenance schedule for repair and extermination in all dormitories
3. Establish
a committee of students, staff and faculty to review ways to provide more
healthy choices for students in Dining Services
4.
KEY PERFORMANCE
INDICATORS
Student
Surveys
Student Retention
Maintenance Schedules
Dining Choices
E.
Evaluate and enhance Career Services for ways to
improve service to students as they plan for careers after college.
1. Provide
an administrative assistant in Career Services to assist with the coordination
of internship services to a greater number of students.
2. Make
steps to increase internship opportunities for students.
3. Make
the internship fair a larger event (Career and Internship Fair) to include job
recruiters and graduate and professional school recruiters.
4.
KEY PERFORMANCE
INDICATORS
Internship
Opportunity Report
Student Surveys
Career Services Budget
FACULTY
Wells College will attract, retain, and
provide support to a professional faculty that is among the best qualified,
liberal arts faculty in the nation.
Specifically, Wells will
A. Provide
competitive compensation in line with IIB2 requirements in order to attract and
retain high quality faculty.
1. Develop a schedule of increases that will
allow the College to reach IIB-2 by 2010.
2.
Establish a long-term
plan for periodic review of faculty salary structure within IIB-2 guidelines.
B. Provide sufficient faculty to meet core,
teaching requirements for each department.
1.
Hire at least three
new tenure-track faculty members each year for the next three years as
designated by the College’s current transitional plan and as recommended by
Dean of the College.
2.
Establish a process to
review and report faculty needs annually to make sure the available faculty
meets desired faculty student ratios and the core curricular needs of each
department.
C.
Provide staff, equipment, and instructional opportunities that
facilitate and improve faculty access and use of instructional technology.
1.
Hire additional technology
staff to meet instructional needs of faculty.
2.
Review the needs of faculty
for administrative support in each department and provide support in areas
where need is greatest.
3. Hold
training sessions for faculty to become proficient in current technology
support services available at the College.
4. Provide
well-equipped classroom for current needs in teaching and learning
D. Provide funds and other resources for
scholarly, curricular, and institutional development
1.
Review faculty travel
budgets to find ways to encourage faculty to attend meetings for their
discipline as well as those that focus on curricular initiatives and teaching
strategies for liberal arts colleges
2. Provide opportunities—workshops, forums,
lectures-- on campus for professional development in those areas that are of
interest to the faculty and that are designated as focus areas by the Dean of
the College.
STAFF
Wells College will maintain a staff
that is well compensated, technically proficient, and who enjoys a flexible,
comfortable, and supportive work environment.
Specifically,
Wells will
A. Provide competitive salaries that reward
performance and compare favorably with CUPA and New York Civil Service ranges.
1. Establish and maintain annual
review schedules to monitor performance and salary ranges at the state and CUPA
levels
B. Explore and provide, as feasible,
non-insurance benefits to attract and retain staff employees.
1.
ID cards for all employees of the college
2. Possibilities
for college supported childcare center for faculty and staff on campus or in
the community.
3. Opportunities
for alternate work schedules, including job sharing and flextime.
C. Establish opportunities and criteria for
employee recognition.
1.
Develop a committee to plan a Staff Recognition Day Ceremony
Each Spring.
D. Maintain technological support levels that
facilitate and improve the work of the staff.
1. Ensure that staff members have the
technological support necessary to complete their assigned duties.
2. Hire more professional
technological support staff to support the growing needs of the College
E.
Provide incentives that support the education and
improvement of skills and involvement in College activities.
1.
Develop a staff committee to plan a Staff Development Day once
per semester or during the January term where the entire staff gets the
opportunity to focus on areas where staff need education and improvement
2. Establish
guidelines for flexible work arrangements when staff members want to attend on
campus events.
3. Provide
opportunities and encouragement to staff to participate in the extracurricular
life of the College
4. Provide
instructional opportunities for each staff member to gain proficiency in
current College technology.
5. Require
new employee orientation of all newly hired staff.
F. Provide workspaces
that are comfortable and safe and that are fully equipped for the work required
1. Provide
safe entry and exit ways for staff.
2. Explore
ways to provide air-conditioning for staff offices in the most critical areas.
3. Ensure
that each department provides all employees the equipment, furniture, and
technology needed to perform assigned duties.
ALUMNAE
Wells will have an alumnae/i body that is
formally and informally engaged in the life of the College, communicates
regularly with the College, and supports the College’s initiatives.
A. Provide
formal and informal opportunities to strengthen the connection between
alumnae/i and the college by
1. Sharing information about college
programs, events, initiatives, priorities and needs on a regularly, timely
basis through the Express, the website, direct mail, telephone calls,
group activities and individual visits.
2. Collecting feedback and updated
information about alumnae including responses to college initiatives and
priorities.
3. Working cooperatively with the WCAA
Board, the FARGO Board, the Board of Trustees and other college-sponsored
volunteer groups to strengthen the flow of information and the lines of
communication.
4. Maintaining active alumnae
participation in college traditions such as Convocations, Reunion, and Founders
Day
B. Seek increased financial
support for College priorities from alumnae through
1. A comprehensive campaign
2. The Annual Giving program
3. Reunion giving programs, and
4. Project-specific fundraising
initiatives
C. Support and strengthen the involvement of
alumnae/i as volunteers in support of college priorities through
1. Board of Trustees.
2. Wells College Alumnae Association
(WCAA).
2. Friends
and Recent Graduates Organization (FARGO).
3. College’s
Experiential Education, internship and Career Development programs.
4. Visiting
speakers, artists and experts-in-residence.
COMMUNITY
Wells will sustain and enhance its role as a welcoming
neighbor and have establish mutually beneficial relationships within our local,
regional, national, and global communities.
A. Participate in and/or host a greater
number of service programs that are beneficial to entire local community. (voter
registration drives, exercise classes, commemoration ceremonies)
B. Develop and implement a comprehensive
plan to ensure that the college’s key messages and successes are delivered
consistently internally and externally, including in print, on the web, and in
the media.
1. Invite local and regional residents to campus events.
2.
Strengthen relationships with
local media outlets.
3.
Improve usage of the colleges
website for providing timely information.
C. Develop strategic alliances with targeted
organizations that have the potential to offer resources in support of the
College’s goals.
1.
Continue to strengthen collaborative relationships with
regional colleges and universities and seek out additional opportunities for
collaboration.
2.
Work to establish relationships with larger educational and
humanities foundation.
B. Develop
a “campus experts” guide/service to offer the college’s faculty and staff
expertise or “intellectual capital” to regional and national organizations and
media as appropriate
CURRICULUM
Wells College will
maintain and strengthen an academic curriculum of the highest quality that is
relevant, culturally diverse, gender-balanced, and pedagogically sound.
Specifically,
Wells will
A. Conduct internal review of the entire
core curriculum to make sure that it is coherent and supportive of the mission
of the college, represents diverse contributions to knowledge, responsive to
student needs, and reflective of current knowledge in the field, and that it
meets the accreditation standards for each area.
1.
Establish internal
evaluation teams from each division and a core of outside reviewers to begin a
comprehensive self-study, using the above criteria for each major beginning
Fall 2006.
2.
Complete the
recommendations made by the New York Board of Education to make the Education
Department fully accredited by Fall 2008.
3.
Create and administer
student surveys for current students and alumni to assess the value and
effectiveness of the College’s undergraduate programs.
4.
Use information
gathered in self-studies and student surveys to begin preparation for external
review by Middle States Commission on Higher Education to be completed in 2009.
5.
Provide the faculty
development opportunities for the study and keep up-to-date on current
curricular and teaching initiatives in liberal arts colleges.
C.
Make experiential
learning a more visible approach to learning in the college curriculum by
expanding opportunities to enroll in courses that focus on experiential
learning as a way of knowing
1.
Explore ways ensure
that students have at least two off-campus, experiential learning experiences
while enrolled at Wells.
2. Hire
an OCS Director to centralize and facilitate the administrative and curricular
duties required of the study abroad curriculum.
3. Provide
greater opportunities for internships in each major area including a internship
requirement for each major and soliciting greater corporate support for
internship opportunities.
D. Continue
to evaluate opportunities to expand the curriculum to meet the needs of current
students and to attract new students to the College.
1. Expand
the economics and business program to include a management major.
2. Conduct
feasibility study for nursing and physical therapy program.
3. Review
the needs and requirements for a Master of Arts in Education Program with a
goal of launching the program by Fall 2008.
4. Explore
the establishment of a First Nation/Indigenous Studies Program.
5. Spotlight
the programs and support the curricular initiatives in the Book Arts Center to
enhance curricular offerings and certification in order to attract more
students to study in this area.
6. Explore
ways to strengthen cross registration arrangements with Cornell so that more
Wells students can take advantage of Cornell’s curricular offerings.
CULTURE
Using the College Honor Code and Community
Standards Statement as a guide, Wells College will cultivate a community
culture where respect, diversity, and inclusiveness, social justice are
understood, embraced, and supported.
A. Annually review the community standards statement to
make sure that the College community standards are known and encouraged.
1. Include
summary discussion of community standards at the first staff, faculty, and
collegiate meetings each year.
2. Host “community standards week” to
bring attention to key aspects of the standards in campus discussion, signage,
and programs.
B. Make the College Honor Code a visible and
engaging part of life of the College for students, faculty and staff.
1. Include discussion of Honor Code in
First-Year Seminars
2. Include Honor Code in new employee
materials.
3. Institute a more active role for
advisors for student organization, making adherence to the honor code a
governing principle of each organization.
C. Provide programs and training that
emphasize diversity, respect, and inclusiveness as a core values of the College
1.
Develop and support programs that celebrate the diverse,
underrepresented groups on campus—Internationals, LGBT, Hispanics, African
Americans.
2.
Seek to fund scholarships and make special recruiting
efforts to reach out to underrepresented students.
3.
Explore ways to honor the land and culture of the Cayuga
nation.
4.
Establish policies and practices that encourage mutual
respect in interpersonal relationships and in the nature and tone of campus
wide communication.
HISTORY
Wells
College will honor its history as a women’s college by demonstrating in
programs and curricular initiatives contributions that women have made to Wells
College and the nation.
Specifically, Wells will
A. Establish guidelines for making gender
balance a valued component of theCollege curriculum, programs, hiring
practices, and campus community culture.
1. Include
gender balance as criteria for annual curriculum review by each division.
2. Devise
community surveys to monitor the perceptions of attention given to the
College’s history.
B. Develop
curricular and programmatic initiatives that focus on the development of women
leaders.
1.
Develop a women’s leadership scholarship for promising young
women.
2.
Encourage and support women students to attend leadership
seminars provided by organizations, schools, and corporations.
3.
Hold annual Founders Day Program to honor the commitment of
the founders to the education of women and to celebrate women leaders who are
Wells alumnae, faculty, staff and students.
4.
Develop and sustain Women’s Leaders Lecture Series to support
an annual Women’s Leadership Lecture.
5. Develop
and fund a series of program—lectures, forum, informal discussion sessions-- to
address the challenges, responsibilities, and opportunities facing men and
women who are a part of a student body transitioning to a coed institution on
the 21st Century.
6. Include
informal discussion sessions for men and women as part of Wells warm up.
7. Establish
guidelines for making such programs part of the Campus Involvement Program.
CAMPUS
Wells will enhance the natural beauty of the campus and
surroundings by making sure that the campus is aesthetically pleasing,
accessible, and secure place to live and work.
Specifically, Wells will
A. Make
the campus more inviting and accessible to students, staff, faculty, and
visitors.
1. Improve
campus navigation for vehicular and pedestrian traffic considering the recommendations
of the College Master Plan.
2. Post
clearer, more attractive signage throughout campus, including welcome banners
to hang during special College events
3. Make
sure that notices and posters in campus public areas are current and that old
notices and posters, etc. are removed in a timely manner.
4. Make
sure that unsightly objects on campus grounds are removed in a timely manner.
B. Make better use of local natural
resources.
1. Increase
the use of the lake for learning and recreational activities.
2. Develop
nature trails in collaboration with students and faculty.
3. Improve
green spaces on campus, including the addition of blooming flower gardens where
feasible.
4. Use
current committee structures to recommend beautification initiatives for the
College campus.
5. Strengthen
the College’s recycling program.
FACILITIES
Wells will have a physical plant where facilities efficient,
safe, and modern and adequately support the College curriculum and the social
and recreational life of the campus community.
B. Conduct
and be guided by an overall assessment of building and grounds areas for
necessary improvements in staff, equipment, and procedures provided by Endman
and Holt Architects in 2001.
1. Develop
a plan and timeline for making buildings accessible for individuals with
disabilities.
2. Improve
physical safety of building and grounds, including installation of handrails,
repairs to stairs and entryways, etc. as necessary.
3. Improve
classrooms with technology necessary to support teaching.
4. Make
sure that all buildings are energy efficient, including installation of air
conditioning where feasible.
C. Explore feasibility study for new library.
D. Explore feasibility of new student center
(possibly using current library building) to include bookstore, mailroom,
technology cafes, snack bark, movie viewing room, recreational rooms meeting
rooms.
E. Review current staffing model for
building and grounds to ensure timely and safe upkeep of campus buildings.
.
FUNDING
Wells will be financially stable with a balanced budget due
to increased enrollment and a successful comprehensive campaign with
additional funds available to support the goals and initiatives of strategic
planning.
A. Increase gift income to the College by
___% within five years.
1.
Launch a comprehensive campaign to provide funding for college
priorities including initiatives identified through the college’s Strategic
Plan.
2. Increase
unrestricted and restricted support for annual operations, capital projects and
the endowment from both individuals and organizations.
B. Provide increased tuition revenue
while continuing to remain accessible to our target student audience, provide
adequate financial aid, and capitalize on rankings as a “best value” College.
C. Enhance revenue from auxiliary
enterprises by
1. Increasing the number of revenue
generating summer programs on campus.
2. Maintaining adequate numbers of
residential students.
3. Fostering development of Aurora Foundation
initiatives.
D. Maximize income available
from the endowment while reducing reliance on the endowment to meet operating
expenses.
1. Reduce the draw from the College
endowment 6% within the next five years.
3. Grow
endowment through prudent management of assets and addition of new gifts.
F. Maintain,
responsible spending that address the needs of the strategic plan while
balancing the College budget.
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BENCHMARKS
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FY
05/06
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FY 06/07
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FY 07/08
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FY 08/09
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FY 09/10
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Objective
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Required Activities
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Resources Needed
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Key Indicators
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