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Centrepiece Online | Fall 2008
by Abby Malik, Coordinator of Media Information
? In January 2008, the board of trustees adopted Centre’s most inclusive and ambitious plan ever. Titled Centre Forward, the document is the result of more than three years of strategic thinking and planning, a process that evaluated the College’s existing strengths and took the dare to imagine what the College might become in the longer future—2033, to be precise.
Of the plan’s nine goals, President John Roush judges three elements to be key: 1) creating global citizens, 2) expanding the College’s rich tradition for engaged and experiential learning, and 3) strengthening the financial base.
Global Citizens. Educating young people to be global citizens is among the College’s top priorities. “We’ve made a big commitment to this ideal, and we’re planning to make an even bigger commitment to it,” Roush says. “Some of this effort will be expensive, but it’s the right thing to do and the necessary thing to do. Preparing students to function in a global environment is a prerequisite for the next generation of citizen-leaders.”
What exactly does the College mean when it says it wants to create global citizens of its graduates? Some schools focus on foreign language instruction. Others focus on study abroad or on recruiting a large number of international students. However, Centre’s niche will be “to bring together all three, in order to become the premiere undergraduate experience in global citizenship,” explains Clarence Wyatt ’78, Pottinger Professor of History, special assistant to the president, and chief planning officer.
To do so will require expanding opportunities for on-campus language study and exploring new destinations for international programs. This fall two students launched a new option at Shanghai University, with perhaps as many as a dozen to follow next fall. In conjunction with the residential semester in Shanghai, the College hopes to offer Mandarin Chinese language courses in the very near future and is exploring adding other languages. In addition, the Centre-in-Mexico program in Merida has expanded to two semesters (instead of just the fall).
The second aspect of the College’s global citizenship initiative is to create an on-campus environment that continues the off-campus experience—whether it is study abroad, internships, or both—after students return. Centre will become more strategic about incorporating their experiences into the rest of their education.
Centre will encourage students to consider global career opportunities, as well. For example, science majors interested in medicine might pursue public health in Africa. Those interested in environmental issues could look at opportunities in Latin America. And the College will develop a set of experiences to prepare students interested in global commerce—studying the liberal arts and sciences while adding in coursework and international experiences that prepare them for lives of work and service in commerce.
Additionally, Centre wants to retool itself as a place where students who return from abroad will add more depth to their international experiences. And for the 14 percent (on average) who don’t study abroad, Centre will bring the international experience to them, through ongoing campus programs and a greater presence of international students, doubling, in time, the number of foreign, degree-seeking students. The new Global Citizenship Committee, headed by Nayef Samhat, associate dean and Hower Associate Professor of Government and International Studies, will focus on ways to enhance the student experience.
Engaged and Experiential Learning. Engaged and Experiential Learning (EEL) gets students and professors engaged both inside and outside the four walls of the traditional classroom to provide a whole-world focus.
“This is a long and established tradition for the College,” Roush says. “Now we need to be more intentional about it.”
As valuable as a traditional classroom experience can be, one of the College’s goals is to combine it with innovative teaching methods that treat the campus, Danville, the larger community, and the world as “learning labs.”
The value of a liberal arts degree in the world is changing. Centre wants to be the place that offers the best preparation by providing collaborative research, internships, service learning, and team-taught interdisciplinary classes.
“Rather than just reading chapters in a book, students will do the work of a historian or a biologist, what the strategic plan identifies as ‘theory to practice,’” says Jacky Thomas ’02, director of alumni affairs and planning associate.
Four high-profile construction projects resulted from the plan and relate directly to the EEL goals: Pearl residence hall, a new science building, a new campus center, and the Norton Center for the Arts refurbishment. The science building will provide more space to do independent and collaborative research, new teaching labs, and new classrooms. The campus center and Pearl Hall will increase the quality of the residential experience, helping to blur further the education inside and outside the classroom.
The EEL component also addresses such faculty issues as achieving a better balance among such responsibilities as scholarly pursuits, community service, and student advising. The plan aims to examine the balance and equality among academic programs. The College supports the teacher-scholar model, where faculty balance teaching with their own professional activity, which if implemented correctly, will enhance teaching.
Expanded Financial Base. Naturally, enacting an action plan does not come without a price tag. Expanding financial resources is an essential goal of the strategic plan. Of the plan’s 93 different initiatives, some will cost little to implement, while others will be expensive.
According to the plan, Centre has set the goal of increasing its endowment to $750 million by the year 2020. While this goal was established before the worldwide economic crisis in fall 2008, Centre will continue to affirm that this level of financial support is what the College will require if it is to move in the direction of being the leader in highly residential, undergraduate education in the arts and sciences.
“This level of support will allow us to say yes to more of the very good ideas that we’re prepared to execute,” Roush says. And in increasing its endowment, Centre also hopes to strengthen its alumni community, by exploring ways it can be of more service to the alumni and vice versa.
“Centre is a college still in the process of becoming one of ‘those places’ in American higher education,” says Roush. “This circumstance should be viewed as a strength. The College’s people—trustees, alumni, faculty, staff, and students—stand ready to propel us in that direction. What a ride it will be for all those choosing such a challenge.”
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