Strategic Plan

Strategic Planning

Differentiator 1. Small, global, and diverse

We seek to be small, yet global and diverse.

Small

Union has played an historic role in developing the distinctive tradition of the small American liberal arts college, and we will continue to be a path breaker. Our small size differentiates us from those large universities with which we compete for students. While size alone does not differentiate us from most of our liberal arts peers, it is a component of our distinctive character that we will use in a distinctive way.

Union's size makes possible a living and learning community characterized by close personal interaction between faculty and students and a supportive environment in which students can develop both academically and personally. To take full advantage of this circumstance, Union will not only continue to have small classes and individualized instruction, but it will also pay close attention to the importance of integrating academic and personal development as mutually reinforcing components of a liberal education. Nationally, there has been increasing recognition that academic and personal development are mutually reinforcing. Union, given its small size and existing initiatives, including increased emphasis on faculty advising and the Minerva system, is indeed strongly positioned to provide a differentiating blend of intellectual, social, and cultural opportunities to facilitate the integrated academic and personal development of a diverse community of students.

To take full advantage of a Union education and their eventual career opportunities, our students must achieve the maturity, independence, and confidence to function as responsible adults. They need both the resilience to meet challenges and the judgment to manage successes at Union and beyond. They need the perspectives gained from learning to live in a community of their peers, from taking responsibility for the consequences of their choices to learning first-hand the values of citizenship and civic responsibility. We will ensure that we have the mentoring and personal attention that will facilitate the academic and personal development of our diverse community of students. Students from diverse backgrounds and places will need more advising resources and support services to have a successful experience at Union. We will therefore use our small size to build a College community that will provide our students with an expanded range of opportunities to develop personal qualities that foster their intellectual development and potential. We will work with individual students in a highly personal way, taking into account their differing needs and developmental stages.

Strategy: Help all Union students find their passion.

We will develop a collaborative and coherent approach to mentoring and advising that recognizes a broad range of aspirations and encourages students to explore a variety of curricular and extracurricular opportunities. Our aim will be a continuous engagement by all students in a process of self-discovery to develop purpose, realize potential, and find their passion.
Strategy: Enhance our individualized academic curriculum.

We will continue to develop specialized academic programs available to students throughout their four years. These include the small First-Year Preceptorial and Sophomore Research Seminars, numerous undergraduate research and scholarly opportunities, and senior capstone experiences, which most often take the form of one-on-one instruction. We will also expand first-hand experiential opportunities such as internships, civic engagement, and service learning.
Strategy: Focus on academic advising.

The College will reaffirm the importance of, and increase accountability for, effective advising and mentoring. The academic leadership must clearly communicate to the faculty how important academic advising is among their job responsibilities. A starting point will be to implement the recommendations in the 2006 “Advising at Union” report.
Strategy: Improve student development and support services.

We will need additional staffing in student support services in order to fulfill the goals we have outlined above. We will work to reduce the traditional and increasingly artificial boundaries between academic and student affairs and to integrate the offices and programs that engage in advising, mentoring, counseling, and other student support services. Such an approach will enhance the effectiveness of these programs, improve their efficiency, and turn them into a strategic advantage for the College. Examples of other efforts to be supported include peer-mentoring programs, increased RA training, and more student programming in the residence halls and the Minervas. New initiatives that might be explored include electronic portfolios.
Strategy: Enhance services of the Becker Career Center.

We will promote awareness of the Becker Career Center and its services. We need to increase collaborative efforts between the Career Center and the rest of the campus, particularly with Academic Affairs and College Relations. These collaborative efforts will help students recognize the connection between curricular and extracurricular interests and skills. For example, we need a more effective alumni database to facilitate student-alumni networking, a regular program of alumni participation in classes and Career Center presentations, and the development of more robust summer internship opportunities.
Strategy: Utilize a web-based information system.

We will prioritize the extension of centralized, web-based information system to facilitate access to information by all members of the campus community. We will implement an online registration system incorporating electronic approval capabilities for advisors and make better overall use of network technologies to streamline administrative functions.
Strategy: Enhance opportunities for personal development.

We will encourage more extensive use of the Minervas and the enhancement of other opportunities to develop more out-of-classroom chances for students to confront challenges, exercise responsibility, develop social and communication skills, work cooperatively with others, meet objectives and deadlines, take risks, and face the possibilities of both failure and success.

Global and diverse

Increasing diversity among both students and faculty is an important goal for Union, as higher levels of diversity are associated with increased student satisfaction, cognitive development, and academic success. Diversity will help the College achieve many of its important strategic objectives in admissions: it will increase both the number of applicants and our attractiveness to high achievers, improve retention rates, and result in a more intellectually engaged student population that has a heightened sense of social responsibility and global awareness.

To achieve these objectives, we need to bring Union to the world and the world to Union. People cannot innovate unless they are capable of seeing the world differently. Without an appreciation of diverse cultures and other ways of knowing, our society will be stuck in our current approach to problems. As an institution with a core mission of preparing students for the 21st century, Union must represent the world at large. We are recognized as one of the top two dozen colleges in the United States in the percentage of students studying abroad. To be even more international and forward looking, however, we need to integrate these experiences more solidly into the life of the College, including the classroom, and better clarify the role of International Programs. The quality of our study abroad experiences should reinforce other key goals, including close contact with faculty; exposure to the cultures, languages and ways of knowing in other societies; and opportunities for service and civil engagement. Further, students should find that global education does not begin and end with a term abroad. We need to recruit more international students and people of diverse backgrounds to study at Union. Our very name is associated with the goal of diversity that we are now trying to promote. The history of Union as an innovator in education and community building can be an important asset in this endeavor.

Union’s commitment to innovation, student research, and the integration of engineering with the liberal arts positions us well as we employ creative program development to help increase our diversity and internationalism. More emphasis on interdisciplinary programming and the integration of service, study abroad, and cultural awareness into the curriculum will not only increase the coherence of our vision for a Union education, but also attract the kind of students who will help us achieve our goals.

Diversity is key to research in the modern college. It allows researchers in the social sciences and humanities to understand that the very problems they choose to study, the methods they choose to use, and the results they obtain are culturally bounded. In science and engineering, there is an increasing emphasis on multidisciplinary research teams and global collaborations that our faculty and students can practice at Union.

Students need to learn from faculty members who bring to the classroom a world of experiences and perspectives. Diversifying the faculty not only helps attract and retain historically under-represented students, but it also promotes innovative thinking in all our students. The classroom must be a place where ideas are challenged and new perspectives are heard. For this to happen, the classroom requires the presence of both men and women, and of students who represent a variety of religious, ethnic and racial backgrounds. It is also important that we have staff that reflects this variety.

Diversity is also essential to building a learning community that fosters democratic values, social responsibility, and ethical modes of conduct. It is important that we continue the tradition of community service – and explore ways of integrating it into the curriculum -- to imbue our students with compassion for the less fortunate and with an understanding of the complexities of ethical decision making and behavior.

Strategy: Increase diversity at Union.

Increasing the diversity of the faculty and staff at Union is necessary for the College to be attractive to a more diverse student applicant pool. We will develop an effective staffing model to give diversity issues high administrative priority. In order to increase the diversity of our students, we will recruit outside current competitive markets and improve yields of students from diverse national and ethnic backgrounds, including those who are less dependent on financial aid. This effort involves recruiting targeted international students and developing relationships with feeder schools. We will make more effective use of alumni in key locations as recruiters. We will develop more effective marketing techniques. We will develop and strengthen programs that are attractive to women. We will also highlight our special strengths in engineering, the sciences, and math in ways that reach out to women, particularly those from diverse backgrounds. Once students are at Union, the Minervas have the potential to serve as a venue for involvement by students from under-represented backgrounds as well as international students.
Strategy: Increase global experiences for students at Union.

Building on our current strengths, we will extend our efforts to provide better international study experiences for our students through our International Programs. We will also seek to develop domestic off-campus study opportunities; internships and partnerships with colleges, businesses, and nonprofit organizations; and possible 5-year Masters programs with key partnership institutions. We will encourage students to apply for fellowships and grants leading to travel, service, and study abroad.

In addition to recruiting more international students, we will seek to enter into joint degree programs and exchanges with overseas institutions. Both initiatives will provide valuable opportunities for our students to interact with members of more diverse student communities. In addition, we will find ways to enhance global experiences in Union classrooms by increasing the number of visiting scholars and speakers from abroad, as well as encouraging our own faculty to attend international meetings and apply for awards and grants that will enhance their international experience. The result will be a natural infusion of global issues into the curriculum. As part of this process, we must advance our new core curriculum and the study of languages.

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Home	Strategic Planning Differentiator 1. Small, global, and diverse We seek to be small, yet global and diverse. Small Union has played an historic role in developing the distinctive tradition of the small American liberal arts college, and we will continue to be a path breaker. Our small size differentiates us from those large universities with which we compete for students. While size alone does not differentiate us from most of our liberal arts peers, it is a component of our distinctive character that we will use in a distinctive way. Union's size makes possible a living and learning community characterized by close personal interaction between faculty and students and a supportive environment in which students can develop both academically and personally. To take full advantage of this circumstance, Union will not only continue to have small classes and individualized instruction, but it will also pay close attention to the importance of integrating academic and personal development as mutually reinforcing components of a liberal education. Nationally, there has been increasing recognition that academic and personal development are mutually reinforcing. Union, given its small size and existing initiatives, including increased emphasis on faculty advising and the Minerva system, is indeed strongly positioned to provide a differentiating blend of intellectual, social, and cultural opportunities to facilitate the integrated academic and personal development of a diverse community of students. To take full advantage of a Union education and their eventual career opportunities, our students must achieve the maturity, independence, and confidence to function as responsible adults. They need both the resilience to meet challenges and the judgment to manage successes at Union and beyond. They need the perspectives gained from learning to live in a community of their peers, from taking responsibility for the consequences of their choices to learning first-hand the values of citizenship and civic responsibility. We will ensure that we have the mentoring and personal attention that will facilitate the academic and personal development of our diverse community of students. Students from diverse backgrounds and places will need more advising resources and support services to have a successful experience at Union. We will therefore use our small size to build a College community that will provide our students with an expanded range of opportunities to develop personal qualities that foster their intellectual development and potential. We will work with individual students in a highly personal way, taking into account their differing needs and developmental stages. Strategy: Help all Union students find their passion. We will develop a collaborative and coherent approach to mentoring and advising that recognizes a broad range of aspirations and encourages students to explore a variety of curricular and extracurricular opportunities. Our aim will be a continuous engagement by all students in a process of self-discovery to develop purpose, realize potential, and find their passion. Strategy: Enhance our individualized academic curriculum. We will continue to develop specialized academic programs available to students throughout their four years. These include the small First-Year Preceptorial and Sophomore Research Seminars, numerous undergraduate research and scholarly opportunities, and senior capstone experiences, which most often take the form of one-on-one instruction. We will also expand first-hand experiential opportunities such as internships, civic engagement, and service learning. Strategy: Focus on academic advising. The College will reaffirm the importance of, and increase accountability for, effective advising and mentoring. The academic leadership must clearly communicate to the faculty how important academic advising is among their job responsibilities. A starting point will be to implement the recommendations in the 2006 “Advising at Union” report. Strategy: Improve student development and support services. We will need additional staffing in student support services in order to fulfill the goals we have outlined above. We will work to reduce the traditional and increasingly artificial boundaries between academic and student affairs and to integrate the offices and programs that engage in advising, mentoring, counseling, and other student support services. Such an approach will enhance the effectiveness of these programs, improve their efficiency, and turn them into a strategic advantage for the College. Examples of other efforts to be supported include peer-mentoring programs, increased RA training, and more student programming in the residence halls and the Minervas. New initiatives that might be explored include electronic portfolios. Strategy: Enhance services of the Becker Career Center. We will promote awareness of the Becker Career Center and its services. We need to increase collaborative efforts between the Career Center and the rest of the campus, particularly with Academic Affairs and College Relations. These collaborative efforts will help students recognize the connection between curricular and extracurricular interests and skills. For example, we need a more effective alumni database to facilitate student-alumni networking, a regular program of alumni participation in classes and Career Center presentations, and the development of more robust summer internship opportunities. Strategy: Utilize a web-based information system. We will prioritize the extension of centralized, web-based information system to facilitate access to information by all members of the campus community. We will implement an online registration system incorporating electronic approval capabilities for advisors and make better overall use of network technologies to streamline administrative functions. Strategy: Enhance opportunities for personal development. We will encourage more extensive use of the Minervas and the enhancement of other opportunities to develop more out-of-classroom chances for students to confront challenges, exercise responsibility, develop social and communication skills, work cooperatively with others, meet objectives and deadlines, take risks, and face the possibilities of both failure and success. Global and diverse Increasing diversity among both students and faculty is an important goal for Union, as higher levels of diversity are associated with increased student satisfaction, cognitive development, and academic success. Diversity will help the College achieve many of its important strategic objectives in admissions: it will increase both the number of applicants and our attractiveness to high achievers, improve retention rates, and result in a more intellectually engaged student population that has a heightened sense of social responsibility and global awareness. To achieve these objectives, we need to bring Union to the world and the world to Union. People cannot innovate unless they are capable of seeing the world differently. Without an appreciation of diverse cultures and other ways of knowing, our society will be stuck in our current approach to problems. As an institution with a core mission of preparing students for the 21st century, Union must represent the world at large. We are recognized as one of the top two dozen colleges in the United States in the percentage of students studying abroad. To be even more international and forward looking, however, we need to integrate these experiences more solidly into the life of the College, including the classroom, and better clarify the role of International Programs. The quality of our study abroad experiences should reinforce other key goals, including close contact with faculty; exposure to the cultures, languages and ways of knowing in other societies; and opportunities for service and civil engagement. Further, students should find that global education does not begin and end with a term abroad. We need to recruit more international students and people of diverse backgrounds to study at Union. Our very name is associated with the goal of diversity that we are now trying to promote. The history of Union as an innovator in education and community building can be an important asset in this endeavor. Union’s commitment to innovation, student research, and the integration of engineering with the liberal arts positions us well as we employ creative program development to help increase our diversity and internationalism. More emphasis on interdisciplinary programming and the integration of service, study abroad, and cultural awareness into the curriculum will not only increase the coherence of our vision for a Union education, but also attract the kind of students who will help us achieve our goals. Diversity is key to research in the modern college. It allows researchers in the social sciences and humanities to understand that the very problems they choose to study, the methods they choose to use, and the results they obtain are culturally bounded. In science and engineering, there is an increasing emphasis on multidisciplinary research teams and global collaborations that our faculty and students can practice at Union. Students need to learn from faculty members who bring to the classroom a world of experiences and perspectives. Diversifying the faculty not only helps attract and retain historically under-represented students, but it also promotes innovative thinking in all our students. The classroom must be a place where ideas are challenged and new perspectives are heard. For this to happen, the classroom requires the presence of both men and women, and of students who represent a variety of religious, ethnic and racial backgrounds. It is also important that we have staff that reflects this variety. Diversity is also essential to building a learning community that fosters democratic values, social responsibility, and ethical modes of conduct. It is important that we continue the tradition of community service – and explore ways of integrating it into the curriculum -- to imbue our students with compassion for the less fortunate and with an understanding of the complexities of ethical decision making and behavior. Strategy: Increase diversity at Union. Increasing the diversity of the faculty and staff at Union is necessary for the College to be attractive to a more diverse student applicant pool. We will develop an effective staffing model to give diversity issues high administrative priority. In order to increase the diversity of our students, we will recruit outside current competitive markets and improve yields of students from diverse national and ethnic backgrounds, including those who are less dependent on financial aid. This effort involves recruiting targeted international students and developing relationships with feeder schools. We will make more effective use of alumni in key locations as recruiters. We will develop more effective marketing techniques. We will develop and strengthen programs that are attractive to women. We will also highlight our special strengths in engineering, the sciences, and math in ways that reach out to women, particularly those from diverse backgrounds. Once students are at Union, the Minervas have the potential to serve as a venue for involvement by students from under-represented backgrounds as well as international students. Strategy: Increase global experiences for students at Union. Building on our current strengths, we will extend our efforts to provide better international study experiences for our students through our International Programs. We will also seek to develop domestic off-campus study opportunities; internships and partnerships with colleges, businesses, and nonprofit organizations; and possible 5-year Masters programs with key partnership institutions. We will encourage students to apply for fellowships and grants leading to travel, service, and study abroad. In addition to recruiting more international students, we will seek to enter into joint degree programs and exchanges with overseas institutions. Both initiatives will provide valuable opportunities for our students to interact with members of more diverse student communities. In addition, we will find ways to enhance global experiences in Union classrooms by increasing the number of visiting scholars and speakers from abroad, as well as encouraging our own faculty to attend international meetings and apply for awards and grants that will enhance their international experience. The result will be a natural infusion of global issues into the curriculum. As part of this process, we must advance our new core curriculum and the study of languages.
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