WFU Draft Strategic Plan

UNIVERSITY STRATEGIC PLAN PRELIMINARY DRAFT October 29, 2007 Please send comments and questions to: provost@wfu.edu UNIVERSITY STRATEGIC PLAN PRELIMINARY DRAFT Preamble This first draft of the Wake Forest University strategic plan builds upon the 78 unit plans that were developed in 2006 and 2007 by every constituent of the university. Through these plans one can see not only the accomplishments of the University, but also the hopes, the dreams, the challenges, and the aspirations of the faculty, staff, and students. Many units are already hard at work implementing components of their own plans. The following plan derives from the themes emerging from these 78 plans. The plan addresses the five priorities put forward by the University Planning Council in the summer of 2006: • • • • • Build Academic Programs of Nationally Recognized Excellence Enhance Faculty Distinction Attract Talented, Diverse Student Body and Build Exceptional Young Leaders of Character & Service Create a Richer Sense of Community Strengthen Connections to Communities beyond Campus Build Academic Programs of Nationally Recognized Excellence I. Strengthen the academic programs across all departments and schools. - The core of a university is its academic programs. Both the brightest students and best faculty are attracted to programs of excellence. Therefore, we must strengthen the academic programs across all disciplines and schools by strategically adding endowed chairs and new tenure stream positions, improving teaching and research space, and increasing instructional support by enhancing the library and providing cutting-edge computing technology and support. The faculty positions are critically needed to build areas of research expertise, enhance the curriculum, improve diversity, and create new links across departments. However, given that the current student/faculty ratios must be maintained or increased in all schools (e.g., up to 11/1 in the College), we must investigate increasing enrollment and/or transitioning visiting faculty positions to tenure track positions as ways of supporting an increase in the sizes of the tenure stream faculties. II. Establish four interdisciplinary institutes. – Over the next decade, we will establish four new institutes that will foster new directions in faculty research and creative activity; increase interdisciplinary research opportunities for our students; enhance the reputation of the University as a center of research excellence and innovation; and build intellectual community on campus. 1 How will institutes further our academic mission? First, and most importantly, they will enhance interdisciplinary collaboration across all schools (the institute faculty director will act as a “matchmaker” – bringing the right people together) – collaboration between faculty and between faculty and students. Bringing faculty and students from a variety of disciplines and schools together to work around a common interest creates intellectual energy – energy that both enhances learning and leads to new discoveries. Secondly, institutes will offer support for collaboration by providing instructional support (team teaching, new course development, program development, service learning, pedagogical conferences, space and equipment) and research support (organizing conferences, grant writing, grant management, summer funding, shared facilities and equipment, publishing conference proceedings, lab support, hosting collaborators, visiting faculty and post-docs). The institutes build on the strengths of Wake Forest as they will connect the dots between existing initiatives as well as build new complementary programs. Institutes will also provide shared space and facilities. Finally, institutes will garner national attention for the university and attract external funding and gifts. 1. The Institute for Public Engagement will support existing partnerships and build new connections to the broader community by supporting scholarship and teaching that facilitates the public good. It will provide critical support for collaboration between Wake Forest University and the broader community by building innovative relationships among faculty, students, staff and community partners to encourage the expression of public voice, cultivate economic development, pursue scientific inquiry and social entrepreneurship, and nurture the practice of democracy. Academic participation in public discourse and problem solving has been critical to our national history and culture, but has waned considerably in recent years as many academic disciplines have moved toward intense specialization, as political debate has become increasingly polarized, and as transformations in public media have watered down meaningful public conversations. This Institute will cultivate the role of the public intellectual by encouraging opportunities for our faculty and students to bring their knowledge and skills to bear on the pressing needs of the world, by suggesting solutions to contemporary problems, by considering public applications of medicine, science and technology and their practical and philosophical repercussions, and by bringing context and perspective to world affairs, histories and cultures. The Institute will facilitate ways to make the work of our Wake Forest scholars and their students public by supporting scholarship and teaching that can address the interests and needs of the broader community. The Institute will help to create public forums on pressing contemporary issues, provide assistance in conveying scholarship beyond traditional academic venues, offer training in how to present ideas to the larger public, facilitate collaborative scholarship across disciplines and schools, assist in the coordination of partnerships with community organizations and institutions, support service learning, internships, and 2 community-based research for students and expand the role of the Pro Humanitate Center. 2. The Institute for Issues of Conscience and Voice will foster intellectual inquiry and innovation among faculty and students and the wider community on the ways consciousness, values, power, ideas and religious traditions shape our understanding of the world, past, present and future. Wake Forest was founded upon the principles of freedom and dissent, and has heralded the relationship between mind and conscience since its beginnings. This legacy encourages the advancement of humanistic studies by posing critical questions about principles, ethics and voice within the traditional humanities and arts but also across them, in the sciences, social sciences, and professions. A humanistic education invites discourse that supports the exploration of civic and professional responsibility across our university, our communities, and our world. To facilitate such scholarship, teaching and dialogue, this Institute can support interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research and pedagogy. It can foster a vibrant and exciting intellectual environment through lecture series, faculty and student seminars, performances and workshops, and research and course development grants, as well as support for faculty participation in national and international conferences. The Institute can provide coordination for connected research and teaching, foster cooperation with all departments, programs and schools, and bridge the academic study of conscience and voice with programs that engage students in service and leadership. 3. The Integrative Science Institute for Learning and Discovery will foster multidisciplinary collaboration and education and establish the mechanisms that facilitate the flow of new knowledge and ideas between faculty and students in multiple disciplines. Traditional boundaries make some sense in shaping many of the elements of formal education, but boundaries easily become barriers. Over the coming decades, the greatest advances in science will be in areas where our traditional disciplines converge. Through the Institute, educated students will learn to look beyond narrow disciplinary boundaries to apply a broad set of perspectives to the challenges of the twenty-first century. Wake Forest has the right expertise and the right culture to be a leader in this new science. We have assembled a substantial interdisciplinary faculty in several key areas, yet we remain small enough to be nimble. Our faculty, more than those usually found at larger institutions, have a view of and commitment to universitywide needs. Many interdisciplinary collaborations have already developed, as have a few interdisciplinary educational initiatives. However, natural boundaries of discipline, department, and space do not encourage realizing the full potential of interdisciplinary work. This Institute will provide the interdisciplinary support that will enable such initiatives to flourish. The Institute will provide administrative support for potential centers in behavioral, natural, and computational sciences, and the existing Center for 3 Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials. It will coordinate both a visiting scholars program and interdisciplinary research seminars in these areas. 4. The Institute for Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise will envelop the University’s existing centers on entrepreneurship (Angell Center, Family Business Center, Office of Entrepreneurship and Liberal Arts, and University Center for Entrepreneurship) under one umbrella and support the continued development of initiatives for social enterprise and avenues for creative exploration. It will encourage innovative thinking and action towards the creation of value - social value, artistic value, intellectual value, as well as economic value. Entrepreneurial thinking and action are necessary for liberal arts and professional school faculty and students preparing for a more challenging, competitive and rapidly changing world. Therefore, the Institute will provide opportunities for intellectual leadership and innovation in cross-institutional entrepreneurship programming by stimulating creativity, entrepreneurship, and collaboration across academic units and campuses, thus distinguishing Wake Forest nationally and internationally. The Institute will build on the strengths of Wake Forest and its mission of Pro Humanitate by showing how skills and knowledge from the liberal arts and the professions can be combined to produce value to the individual and others. It will enable students, faculty, staff, and other constituencies to pursue their entrepreneurial passions and dreams, and in many cases the social good, regardless of their disciplinary interests. III. Create Crossroads Centers – Crossroads Centers will be nationally recognized interdisciplinary research centers that are often organized under the institutes. These centers will engage faculty and students across schools and attract external funding and scholars. They will be led by interdisciplinary faculty research teams. Center development will be supported by an administrative process for identifying and supporting center proposals in the future. Development also will include the study of possibilities for creating Crossroads Centers overseas to enhance our academic reputation abroad. To support the creation of strong Crossroads Centers, initially as many as five planning grants (up to $50,000 for one year) will be made available to prospective centers that have bubbled up from the unit strategic plans. Some possible new centers that have been proposed are: Center for Behavioral Health Bioethics Center Center for Ethics, Religion and the Law Center for Human and Cultural Diversity Center for MicroEnterprise Development Center for Public Scholarship and Expression 4 Center for Quantitative and Molecular Biosciences Center for the Arts and the Spiritual Global Humanities Center IV. Create a nationally recognized mentoring program. Wake Forest is known for its teacher-scholars and for its attention to educating the whole person. We can capitalize on these strengths and this unusual reputation among universities by consolidating what we already do and growing it into distinctive mentoring programs for students in all of our schools. Because academic advising is fundamental to our mentoring efforts, we will study and enhance the advising programs in all schools. We will complement this review by providing additional resources to the Teaching and Learning Center to support faculty across the university in their roles as mentors. We will also expand the mission and resources of the Office of Career Services to become the Office of Career and Vocation, thus helping students link their passion for ideas and their experience in the world with career opportunities and graduate study. We will more fully engage staff and alumni, along with faculty, in mentoring students. This includes possible faculty/staff partnerships and training programs for lower division advising and mentoring. Our overall goal is to provide all students with the opportunity to have a mentored experience through research, internships, public scholarship or international experiences. We will capitalize on current programs within the Division of Student Life by providing a structure to students’ co-curricular undergraduate experience through The Journey. This mentored development program emphasizes personal responsibility and citizenship during the freshman year, introspection during the sophomore year, experiential learning during the junior year, and reflection during the senior year. We also will explore the Freshman Residential Engaged Experience. This program will engage faculty and staff as “house fellows” who help support and shape the activities, intellectual and otherwise, with freshmen residences. We will implement the Chaplain Fellows Program. These Fellows will be Divinity or Rabbinical School graduates who seek experience in university chaplaincy. During their short-term appointment they will provide spiritual mentoring of students through relationship-building and spiritual programming and serve as a resource for students seeking connections to Campus Ministry and other campus religious groups. Because of our commitment to mentoring our students, a logical extension is to continue these relationships with recent alumni who seek to be such mentors in their own lives. Therefore, we will establish one-year fellowships for those who are interested in careers in higher education by having them serve in the President’s Office, Admissions, Advancement, or other areas of university administration. 5 V. Enhance business education through improved collaboration between the Babcock School of Management and the Calloway School of Business and Accountancy. Both schools have developed distinctive areas of strength and expertise yet collaboration presents opportunities to improve the core academic programs, to engage in discourse about ethics and social responsibility, to explore the many aspects of corporate and social entrepreneurship and to implement the best international study options for undergraduate and graduate business students in rigorously preparing them for the global economy in which they will work and lead. Enhance Faculty Distinction Wake Forest is known for its teacher-scholars – dedicated scholars who are also superb teachers. We affirm that teaching (dissemination of knowledge) and scholarship (generation of new knowledge) are equally important parts of the teacher-scholar mission. This model is at the heart of a Wake Forest education and is the foundation for continuing to build academic quality and reputation. Therefore, we must enhance faculty quality and distinction by fostering an environment in which faculty can truly flourish as teachers, scholars and mentors. I. Build a Great Faculty – In the competitive world of higher education, we face the critical challenge of hiring and keeping the most talented faculty members who are passionate about both teaching and research. Establishing new endowed chairs is essential to properly recognizing and retaining our top scholars. New endowed chairs will be instrumental in attracting top scholars to Wake Forest. Attracting and retaining great faculty requires competitive salaries. The university will establish an appropriate peer group for each school and create a five-year plan for reaching parity in compensation with this group. The Provost and Chief Financial Officer will provide an annual report on faculty compensation in each school. To build a great faculty, Wake Forest must hire the best junior faculty, give them clear expectations, and support them in meeting those expectations. Providing junior faculty fellowships that include research funds and summer salary for three years will help attract outstanding faculty and will accelerate their establishment of strong programs of scholarship. Faculty in all schools deserve a tenure and promotion practice that is fair, that is transparent, and that reflects the highest standards of the teacher-scholar ideal. The university will adopt campus-wide policies and practices that meet this standard. A flexible system of joint appointments between schools, departments, and programs and across our campuses will provide greater support for crossdisciplinary work and foster new collaborations in teaching and scholarship. The best faculties are diverse. We will adopt resources for diversifying our faculty, including funds for targeted opportunity hires, training in recruiting of diverse 6 faculty, and programs that provide occasions for diverse faculty to visit campus and build relationships with our university. Attracting and retaining a great faculty and ensuring their success requires a world class library. The acquisition and serial budgets of the library must be increased so that the University’s libraries can collect and provide access to premier library resources in formats that are tailored to the evolving needs of each academic discipline and provide exceptional levels of service in engaging faculty in new expressions of scholarly communication. Similarly, attracting and retaining a great faculty and ensuring their success requires appropriate computing technology to foster student learning and to support research. Academic computing needs not only appropriate technology, from laptops to high performance computing, but also proper coordination of support services. The university must establish a structure for coordinating academic computing and must provide adequate funding for both technology and support. Attracting and retaining a great faculty and ensuring their success also requires adequate space for both teaching and research. Efforts must be undertaken to address critical space needs. An interdisciplinary science building will address urgent space needs in the sciences, as will a new building which will house the Institute for Public Engagement and several appropriate academic departments in the Social Sciences. This will free up needed space in Carswell and/or Tribble Halls. These spaces will be renovated to respond to today’s needs. Appropriate space also is needed to address crowding in Theater and Dance, Music, and Art. Our location and community offer a competitive advantage in recruiting that we must fully exploit. We will document these advantages and communicate them effectively to candidates for faculty positions. Also to be more competitive, we must establish a day-care center for children of faculty and students and develop better parental and maternity leave programs. Furthermore, we will provide formal relocation and spousal employment assistance in cooperation with the medical school. II. Create a Comprehensive Faculty Development Program – While the teacher-scholar role is rewarding, it is also a challenge for faculty to balance the demands of teaching, scholarship and service. We will create a first-rate faculty development program to support faculty in their roles as teacher-scholars and as academic leaders on campus and in their professions. A three-year professional development program for junior faculty will combine new initiatives with workshops that we are currently offering. A mid-career planning/mentoring program will address the needs of associate professors. A great faculty has great leaders. We will be intentional in providing leadership development opportunities for faculty across the university. Leadership 7 development should not only include regular workshops for chairs, deans, associate deans, and associate provosts, but should also include opportunities for all faculty to learn how to lead committees and groups to function more effectively. We will create a faculty development program for faculty whose primary assignments are instruction and who teach on a continuing but non-tenure track basis. This program will formally define the role and evaluation criteria and provide evaluation and recognition that will create community with and among these colleagues. Teaching across the university will be enhanced by expanding the resources, responsibilities, and programming of the Teaching and Learning Center so as to fully serve the entire campus. III. Support Vibrant and Focused Graduate Programs that Enhance Faculty Distinction– In some disciplines, graduate programs are critical to attracting the best faculty and to enhance their scholarly productivity. We will create and nurture such programs, providing resources to attract strong graduate students and ensure thriving programs. These resources include stipends that are competitive and sufficient in number, health care benefits, and day care. We will create flexible graduate programs that allow graduate and professional students to take advantage of interdisciplinary opportunities within and across both campuses We must provide graduate students with an outstanding education, so that they may fully realize their potential in the field of their calling. Many graduate students will benefit from increased opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration. A professional development program on how to become a productive teacher-scholar will not only benefit our students, but will in turn benefit their future students. Complementing these graduate programs can be a university-wide post-doctoral fellows program that increases collaboration and research synergies between those who visit at Wake Forest and our tenure-stream faculty. Wake Forest can be known as a place renowned for post-graduate training for those who want to be teacherscholars. IV. Highlight and Herald Faculty Research – The most effective way of amplifying Wake Forest’s reputation for academic excellence is showcasing the work of our faculty. We must provide support for faculty to engage in their scholarly communities and in the important national and international conversations of our time. Travel funds will be increased, so that Wake Forest faculty are regular participants in national and international scholarly conversations. We also will provide assistance and support to faculty who host conferences on our campus, since such conferences present our accomplishments to a larger community of scholars. Furthermore, we will establish a process to regularly and consistently nominate our 8 faculty for national scholarly and teaching awards. Finally, we must fully exploit opportunities to present faculty achievements in the media. Initiatives may include a Wake Forest research magazine, more effective use of the web site, additional dedicated staff in the news bureau, and an improved process for documenting faculty achievements. We must place our academic mission front and center in all electronic and print media publications. Attract Talented, Diverse Student Body and Build Exceptional Young Leaders of Character & Service The quality of the educational environment at Wake Forest depends on the nature of our student population as well as the quality of our faculty and our academic programs. It is critical that we attract students who have intellectual curiosity, strong academic qualifications and significant leadership potential. It is equally critical that we attract a more diverse student population to expand the range of ideas and perspectives represented on our campus. Once these students enroll, we must provide them with a range of well-coordinated opportunities for intellectual, social, physical, moral, and spiritual growth. To accomplish these goals, we will: I. Increase Financial Aid – In order to attract a talented and diverse student body and to continue Wake Forest’s tradition of being a place of opportunity, we must offer more generous financial aid packages to undergraduates with demonstrated need and more competitive stipends and scholarships in our graduate and professional schools. This can be accomplished by raising significant endowment for financial aid in order to increase grants so that no undergraduate’s financial aid package includes more than $4000 per year in loans. Also, scholarship budgets can be increased in the graduate and professional schools to improve academic quality, increase diversity, and reduce the debt load for graduates so that they have the ability to pursue their callings. Create an opportunity program for first generation college students – Over the years, Wake Forest has been a beacon of opportunity for students who were the first in their families to attend college. However, in recent years, this traditional constituency has become a smaller and smaller percentage of our student body. We must increase the representation of this core constituency by actively recruiting them, offering them generous need-based financial aid packages and stipends for summer study, and creating special programs to ensure their success. Grow our admissions efforts – In order to improve our national and international profile and to enroll an increasingly talented and diverse student body, we will expand our admissions recruitment efforts and update our strategies and procedures. This includes not only building good will with high school guidance counselors, but also growing and improving our efforts in presenting our excellent academic programs to prospective students through the website, videos, targeted letters in student areas of interest, and the on-campus visit. We must improve the 9 II. III. University’s online presence (with special attention to our admissions, financial aid, departmental, and program pages) as well as renovate and expand the undergraduate Admissions Office to accommodate the increasing number of visitors and project a more inclusive, energetic, and youthful appearance. To broaden and diversify our applicant pools, we must improve our outreach efforts. This includes: hiring a senior level admissions officer to coordinate and grow diversity initiatives in the undergraduate Admissions Office; developing targeted diversity approaches within the graduate and professional schools; identifying opportunities to work with athletics in recruitment, and stepping up international recruitment efforts across academic units through collaboration participation in international admissions travel programs and admissions conferences. IV. Recognize the importance of staff in attracting the best and most diverse student body – Our staff is an important, and often the first, contact for potential students and their families. Therefore, we will enable them to provide timely and accurate information by offering more opportunities for them to learn about curricular and co-curricular initiatives and encouraging them to participate in university events. Along with a faculty/staff newsletter as a new avenue for sharing information, regular all-staff meetings where senior administrators update staff on key initiatives will be established. The staff advisory council will be tasked with leading these efforts. Develop interdisciplinary joint degree and certificate programs – These programs will attract the best students to our professional schools. Concurrently, explore the creation of preferential admissions programs for Wake Forest undergraduates applying to the professional schools and to graduate programs in the health sciences. Create an Undergraduate Research Center – By establishing an organizational and conceptual space for advanced undergraduate research across all disciplines and divisions, we will enhance and expand research opportunities to support vigorous learning and facilitate meaningful mentoring relationships that will attract our best students. The center can centralize current student research funding opportunities, provide new ones in the form of additional travel grants for research and funding for undergraduate conference presentations, and organize an annual college-wide undergraduate conference. V. VI. VII. Create a campus climate that truly welcomes and celebrates diversity – The best students are attracted to a dynamic, diverse and vibrant academic community. Creating such a community will begin by including a clear, concise and direct statement of our commitment to the concept of diversity at all levels of and in all units of the university community on the university website and publications. This commitment will be reflected not only in faculty hiring, but also in our physical spaces and curriculum, both of which will become more inclusive. In particular, 10 funds will be provided to appropriate departments and programs to make their physical spaces celebrate diverse cultures as successfully as their curriculums do. Furthermore, establishing majors in African American Studies, Latino Studies, and International Studies will be explored, as well as growing existing programs that can contribute to our commitment. Regular learning opportunities for faculty and staff to develop an appreciation for all aspects of a diverse campus also will be established. An annual award will be given for the best efforts across the university that promote diversity on campus. VIII. Cultivate Leadership – Wake Forest leaders are those that are both engaged and reflective. In addition, to be prepared to lead in the twenty-first century our students must be both internationally connected and locally concerned, creative and interdisciplinary, and appreciative of difference. Rather than relying on a singular, selective leadership program to develop these traditional and emerging liberal arts skills, our strategic plan refocuses education at Wake Forest on these vital skills through The Journey led by the Division of Student Life and through centers and programming within the institutes. We will develop leaders that are: 1. Civically Engaged – Through centers within the Institute for Public Engagement, including the Pro Humanitate Center, students will develop leadership skills of deliberation and expression on issues of relevance to the community and the public good. They also will develop servant leadership skills through their work with faculty, staff and peers in addressing problems in local, national, and international communities. 2. Reflective – Through the Office for Career and Vocation, which will build upon Wake Forest’s signature mentoring program, students will have the opportunity to discuss and balance all of their goals, including their aspirations as future leaders. 3. Creative – In today’s economy, creative leadership skills are vital. These skills can be nurtured and developed through both artistic expression and innovative thinking. The Institute for Conscience and Voice and the Institute for Public Engagement can coordinate and sponsor performances that can enrich students’ creative talents through the arts. Also, students can explore and develop their innovative skills through the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise and the Integrative Science Institute for Learning and Discovery. 4. Interdisciplinary and analytical – Outstanding leaders are skilled problem-solvers with broad perspectives and understanding. By bringing together the best minds from a variety of disciplines such leadership skills can be developed within students. Each of the institutes will give students the opportunity to work side-byside with faculty members to solve problems. 5. Global – Through new or enhanced intercultural training programs, study abroad experiences, international service, and international service-learning, students will develop intercultural competency skills that better prepare them for global 11 citizenry and leadership. Also, a Global Scholars Program will be implemented in which exceptional freshmen will be selected each year to participate in prescribed curricular and co-curricular programs throughout their remaining three years at Wake Forest. 6. Appreciative of difference – Along with our international programs and diversity initiatives that celebrate different cultures and languages, the Institutes for Conscience and Voice and for Public Engagement will foster intellectual inquiry and dialogue on differences in values, ideas, and ideals that can shape students’ leadership and understanding. Create a Richer Sense of Community To nurture a deeper and richer sense of community, we will create more meaningful ways for faculty, staff and students across all the schools and on both campuses to come together informally and formally in our shared embrace of the university’s mission and of each other. We will build more academic and social spaces to bring people together, and more opportunities for personal and professional growth, so that we may all be engaged participants in the Wake Forest community. I. Build a shared sense of purpose and values – Opportunities to gather, engage, reflect and inform are fundamental to strengthening and sustaining our sense of shared purpose and values. Through events, such as lectures, symposia, and convocations, we will not only address critical topics, but also celebrate our history, our values, and our community of faculty, staff, students, and alumni. Further, by engaging our retired faculty in meaningful interactions with these campus events, we will embrace a part of our heritage that helps build and sustain the ideals we share. Also through efforts such as a faculty/staff newsletter, a master calendar, and regular electronic communiqués about university events, the entire campus community will be strengthened and better connected. II. Foster Staff Professional Development – The members of our staff play many important roles in support of the academic mission. They serve the diverse needs of a complex institution and are ambassadors for visitors, prospective students, alumni, students, and faculty. We must renew our commitment to creating an environment of learning and growth for staff with new initiatives. We will strengthen our sense of community by fostering the inclusion of staff in campus-wide committees and events, supporting their voice through the Staff Advisory Council; and revitalizing events to recognize exemplars. Also through robust recruiting efforts and competitive compensation and benefit programs, our community will grow stronger by attracting and retaining talented and diverse people. Because professional development is a mutually beneficial investment that supports the university and the individual, we will implement an evaluation system which recognizes performance and provides substantive feedback for personal and 12 professional growth. We will initiate a broad range of development opportunities for staff that promote enhanced skills and capability. Correspondingly, we will provide department leaders and individual staff with resources and support to aid in their quest for education and professional development. This includes offering universitywide opportunities for qualified staff members to successfully pursue career enhancing transitions. III. Create physical spaces on campus to bring people together – We will undertake a campus master planning initiative that focuses a significant effort on identifying spaces – both indoors and outdoors – that encourage the sense of community that is important to a vibrant campus culture. This initiative will include renovating and renewing key academic, residential and administrative spaces to meet current and future needs, creating new social spaces for faculty, students and staff in a variety of configurations and places, enhancing the Z. Smith Reynolds Library so it can better serve its role of being a campus crossroads, improving dining choices for faculty, students and staff, and constructing a recreation/wellness facility that will provide recreational and fitness space and health awareness programming for students, faculty and staff. IV. Increase the number of undergraduates that live on campus – Our sense of community can be strengthened as more undergraduates reside on campus and stay more fully engaged in the life of the university. To make residential life a preferred choice, we will improve and expand residential accommodations, and provide additional space for student social organizations. Correspondingly, we will institute a system that includes a “self-select” room assignment option for juniors and seniors as well as implement the Division of Student Life’s Engaged Living Community program that calls for intentional events in the residence halls. A study on the impact of a three-year residency requirement also will be undertaken. V. Foster Richer Collaboration with Medical School – The Wake Forest community includes both the Reynolda and Bowman Gray campuses. By strengthening ties between the two locations we provide a more enriched and expansive sense of community that serves the faculty, students, and staff across the campuses. Several joint initiatives will be undertaken to foster a richer collaboration between the Medical School and the academic units on the Reynolda Campus. We will pursue and facilitate joint faculty appointments, joint degree and certificate programs, and more joint training and center/program project grant applications. We also will establish a joint Academic Leaders Program in which faculty from across the university will be chosen through a competitive process and will receive course release to participate in the semester-long program. To further foster collaboration, we will support intellectual property licensing and economic development that utilizes the downtown research park. We also will provide funding for the Translational Science Institute and Cross-Campus Seed 13 Grants. Furthermore, we will share resources on community engagement initiatives through the Institute for Public Engagement. Strengthen Connections to Communities beyond Campus Our university has a public responsibility to serve and engage in the broader community as citizens, leaders and learners. We must embrace our local community, where a greater Wake Forest presence is desired, and where potential educational benefits are readily accessible, but we must also establish ourselves as a national university with global interests. We will cultivate educational opportunities that facilitate our understanding of local, national and transnational communities, while pursuing expanded opportunities for service across the region, nation and world. I. We will build these connections by cultivating stronger relationships with the local and regional community. Wake Forest seeks to grow community partnerships by promoting mutual understanding and supportive relationships between the university and community and by engaging in new outreach efforts with area nonprofit agencies, schools, businesses, local governments and residents. By establishing an administrative position to oversee this commitment, we will create a liaison between senior administrators and the community, coordinate efforts with the Institute for Public Engagement, provide a campus resource person for community groups including chambers, local government, civic groups, grassroots organizations, neighborhood groups, churches, and school systems, and facilitate more intentional relationships with local minority communities, especially African American and Hispanic populations. Many community members offer expertise that is invaluable to learning on this campus. We will explore an affiliated community fellows program that provides them greater visibility and institutional respect. The Institute for Public Engagement can facilitate these relationships as well as convey the needs of local constituencies to those on campus with relevant expertise. II. Local and regional public schools desperately need the knowledge and resources that universities can provide. We can improve partnerships with area public schools by making a sustained commitment to teachers and by strengthening our summer enrichment programs for middle- and high-school students, especially those that bring future first-generation college students to campus. III. We recognize that, because of their broad appeal, the creative and performing arts provide special opportunities for Wake Forest to engage with the surrounding communities and the world beyond. Therefore, we will undertake a strategic plan in the arts that pursues extensive, interdisciplinary collaboration between campus programs, and between campus programs and the community, and that examines space needs (including but not limited to performance, gallery and storage space needs). 14 We also will consider creating an artist-in-residence program or offering competitive residence fellowships to local and regional artists, appointing a Community Arts Relations Coordinator from the faculty to build cooperation and collaboration between Wake Forest and the larger arts community, investigating the creation of a Center for Culture and the Arts, and pursuing more opportunities for community partnerships and collaborations (i.e. with the Arts Council, Piedmont Craftsmen, Old Salem/MESDA, NCSA, Winston-Salem Symphony, Piedmont Opera, Little Theatre, etc.) IV. We will enrich our international focus and efforts. International study and international understanding are essential for achieving our vision of becoming a crossroads of discussion on important international issues of our time and of attracting the brightest educators and students from throughout the country and the world. To establish such a crossroads in today’s global community requires that students, faculty, and staff be actively involved in international initiatives and endeavors that will make them stronger global citizens and the university a stronger global player. We will establish a Global Advisory Board that will recommend and review global initiatives for the university. To better identify our current programs, we will inventory international activities across the university and develop a Wake in the World webpage. We will develop and expand academic and service opportunities for faculty and students across campuses with particular focus on Latin America, Asia, and Africa. On campus we will focus on increasing the number of international students by expanding our recruitment efforts overseas. We also will offer new programs similar to our undergraduate Intercultural Competency Program that will focus on preparing faculty, staff, and graduate students for intercultural experiences both on and off campus. A Global Scholars Program for selected freshmen and a visiting professors program for international scholars will be developed as well. In the broader community, we will explore new opportunities with Winston-Salem State University, the North Carolina School of the Arts, and Salem College for collaboration on international initiatives. We also will further our current efforts with the ACC schools on international programs involving academic coursework and faculty development. To enhance our academic reputation abroad, we will investigate and establish overseas Crossroads Centers as appropriate. V. During their time on campus, students form valuable relationships with the faculty and learn from them both in and out of the classroom. Beginning with graduation continuing through all phases of their lives, we seek to engage and involve alumni in the life of Wake Forest, for they are valued members of our campus community. Alumni can support the greater interests of Wake Forest through engaging in mentoring relationships with students and networking with fellow alumni, 15 participating in programs regionally and on campus that reunite them with faculty and classmates, and providing financial support. These opportunities reaffirm the unique qualities of this community - strong character, personal relationships and intellectual curiosity. We pledge to reach out to alumni and engage them in new and vital ways. We will create an Alumni College coordinated by an Alumni College Director that offers a comprehensive program for alumni educational engagement, including seminars, week-long educational programs at international locations, and imaginative lifelong learning courses that coordinate marketing and maximize efficiencies. We will make creative use of alumni expertise as a resource for students and faculty by building better alumni relationships with departments, strengthening the Alumni Career Assistance Program in Career Services, creating an Alumni Executive in Residence program, exploring new mentoring opportunities and including alumni representatives with appropriate experience on relevant advisory boards, such as the Global Advisory Board. 16