Trustees endorse a strategic plan aimed at keeping Union at the forefront of selective colleges
Name three overarching themes that embody Union College and set it apart from peer institutions. Then define three separate foundational concepts that support those overarching themes.
You have 15 minutes to answer this question.
That’s not an easy quiz yet finding a consensus answer is critically important to the future of Union College. Taken together, the answers comprise a vision for the College and create a specific list of Union’s top goals. The answers drafted over the last 18 months by the Strategic Planning Group comprise the backbone of College’s recently endorsed strategic plan. The group, led by College Trustee John E. Kelly III ’76 and Therese McCarty, interim vice president for Academic Affairs and dean of the faculty, was made up of about 40 members who collected surveys, synthesized data and completed about 80 interviews.
“The strategic plan lays out a vision for the College. It describes where we want the College to go, what we want the College to be over the next five to 10 years. And it describes strategies for fulfilling that vision,” McCarty said. “Students will come to realize that we really want to imagine the world being a different place. And to realize they have the skills and ability to bring about beneficial change in the world and that we want to help them with that project.”
As major decisions are made by College leaders, they should help advance the plan’s foundational themes and differentiators. College leaders can use more the more specific goals like improving the Minerva House System to assess progress towards overarching goals such as creating a healthier learning environment. That’s the essential differences between the strategic plan and previous College-wide plans. The Plan for Union approved in 2001 is still in place but focuses more on fundraising campaign goals.
Also, the College must be reaccredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education every 10 years. The nonprofit membership group evaluates colleges and universities across the United States. That group assures that institutions maintain academic quality and progress toward strategic goals. So, The Plan for Union and periodic reaccreditation intersect with strategic plan but are not the same.
The groundwork for the strategic plan was done by former Interim President James Underwood. The completion of the plan was also a critical part of the search for a new president, Ainlay said.
What is titled “A Strategic Plan for Union College” is being presented to alumni groups around the country by President Stephen C. Ainlay. Ainlay and his staff are refining priorities and setting a blueprint for implementing the plan.
The plan also outlines a strategy that Ainlay says will more succinctly articulate the College’s role in molding students, a defining aspect of the mission at Union since the mid 1800s, when then-President Eliphalet Nott introduced engineering courses on equal footing with liberal arts offerings. The Balanced College Concept remains a hallmark of Union’s 19th-century innovations.
“I believe we are at a similar place in history. This world is changing faster than anyone could have imagined in the 19th century. Technology has changed the way we do our work and the world our students will live in,” Ainlay told faculty and staff in February. “We have to design a Union College that speaks to that world just like they did in the 1800s.”
In late 2006 the strategic planning group was divided into five groups, each tasked with creating strategies to help the College plan for five separate areas: demographics, campus culture, vision and strategic elements, resources, and student development. That work was collected in January 2007 and recast as a nearly complete plan in February.
"We used a very open process, involving all the key stakeholders in Union College,” John E. Kelly III said. “We gathered data about our environment and our competitors before developing strategic alternatives."