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Strategic Plan Sets Course for the Future of Rose-Hulman
A strategic plan that will guide Rose-Hulman to even greater academic heights by the year 2014 has been endorsed by the Rose-Hulman Board of Trustees. The vision is:
"To be the best in engineering, mathematics and science undergraduate education, to make an impact upon the world in which we live, and to be a leader in every aspect in the delivery of education and the development of tomorrow's leaders."
Excellence:
Rose-Hulman will be the
best, offering the highest-quality undergraduate
education possible. This will
require recruiting the brightest faculty,
staff and students while providing forward-
thinking academic programs.
Impact:
Excellence in the absence of
relevance means nothing. Therefore, Rose-
Hulman will make an impact in the lives
of its students and in the world in general.
Our graduates will, in turn, make an
impact on their professions, on society
and on the world in which they live. Leadership:
Rose-Hulman will lead and
be the role model in engineering, science
and mathematics education. Not only
must we be ready for the next change in
education, but we will define what that
change will be. Our faculty and staff will
lead in their professions, and they will
provide growth opportunities to students
who will be the intellectual, technical,
business and civic leaders of tomorrow. Work on the plan evolved during the
last three and a half years with input from
students, faculty, staff, alumni, corporate
partners, educators and other long-time
friends of the Institute. The Rose-Hulman of 2014 will reflect
and embody the following characteristics
that will distinguish Rose-Hulman from
its competitors and advance its leadership
position:
- A more diversified student body
learning and drawing from each other’s
differences and similarities and therefore,
resulting in a more diversified
alumni body;
- With a focus on greater access and
affordability the college will provide
resources for student financial aid,
resulting in future graduates with less
indebtedness;
- An increased competitive edge in
recruiting and retaining the very best
faculty and staff;
- Academic programs featuring
multi- and interdisciplinary courses and
projects; and
- A bolder and more extensively recognized
national position of excellence in
engineering and science education.
The Strategic Plan - Excellence, Impact
and Leadership is a vision formed against
a backdrop of a rapidly changing world
where the need for engineers, scientists
and mathematicians has never been
greater. It is a vision that sees Rose-
Hulman facing increasing competition
from other institutions for the best and
brightest students, for faculty and staff
who are dedicated to teaching and for limited
philanthropic dollars. It is a vision
that remembers, cherishes and builds on
our strong heritage. It is a vision that will
put Rose-Hulman at the forefront of providing
the engineers, scientists and mathematicians
needed to make our world a
better place. Excellence, Impact and Leadership will
be approached on three fronts: academic
initiatives, facilities and infrastructure, and
access and affordability. These approaches
also represent early discussions of the next
comprehensive campaign for the institute. ACADEMIC INITIATIVES
As the Rose-Hulman community examined
its academic priorities for the coming
decade, attention focused, as it has in past
decades, on issues that impact society: the
quality of life for individuals and nations.
Our faculty and students explore the collective
knowledge resulting from centuries
of discovery and invention. Their studies
run the gamut from the smallest particles
to the edge of the visible universe, from
the exquisite abstractions of pure mathematics
to the down-to-earth practical
details of buildings that are safe and
machines that run reliably. Yet behind
these explorations remains the fundamental
quest for knowledge, not for its own
sake, but for the betterment of
humankind. Academic initiatives for the next decade
fall into six key strategic thrust areas:
• Energy and Environment
• Health and Safety
• Transportation
• Materials
• Information, Computation and
Communications
• Biomedical Engineering. INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH
An undergirding foundation for the
college’s academic future will be an interdisciplinary
approach to curricular development.
Rose-Hulman will honor the traditional
disciplines such as chemical, civil,
electrical and mechanical engineering.
But we must move to a more multidisciplinary,
interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary
approach within the curriculum. Problems such as energy, the environment,
sustainability, and health care will
require engineers from various disciplines.
They will not be solvable within individual
silos of engineering. Our courses must
embrace a transdisciplinary approach
while elevating the integration of sciences
and mathematics with engineering. EXPANDED CURRICULUM
To take a truly strategic approach to
academics, Rose-Hulman is considering
additional programs to make our graduates
more competitive in the marketplace.
Students need to be exposed to business
skills, management techniques and entrepreneurship.
The strategic plan calls for
expanding our graduate engineering management
program into an engineering
management, entrepreneurship and business
program and making it available to
undergraduate students as well. Rose-Hulman also must continue to
evolve its bioinitiative started 10 years
ago. The bio sciences will be to engineering
and science this century what physics
was to those fields during the last century. GLOBALIZATION
As we look ahead to curricular changes
and the development of interdisciplinary
programs, we also must address the need
to further incorporate globalization into
curriculum and campus conversations.
Already, engineers located across the
world participate in design teams that
allow work to continue 24 hours a day.
Chances are very high that a Rose-
Hulman graduate will have to work with
companies and engineers outside the
United States at some time during his or
her career. We must prepare graduates for
this reality by exposing them to other
customs, cultures and languages. Our
goal is to make sure that 100 percent of
our students have some sort of an international
experience before they graduate.
The statement that “the world is flat” has
moved from cliché to reality. Our students
must be ready to perform as leaders
in that world. DIVERSITY
Tied to globalization is the need for
improving diversity in our campus community.
For a number of reasons, including
our geography and the history of engineering
enrollments, Rose-Hulman is
mostly white, male and Midwestern. Our
students are educated in an environment
that does not completely reflect the society
in which they will utilize their Rose-
Hulman education. Diversity is not tied
solely to the color of a person's skin. It
includes gender, geography, ethnicity and
socio-economic background. It all boils down to providing a more
qualified graduate and better preparing
our students for the realities of a realworld
workforce. HIRING AND RETAINING THE BEST
FACULTY AND STAFF
Key to enhanced academics will be
professional development for faculty and
staff. We must continue to recruit and
hire the best, and we must be sure all
faculty and staff are tooled to meet the
ever-changing nature of engineering,
science and mathematics education. Rose-Hulman must provide the
resources for faculty professional development.
Our faculty must stay at the cutting
edge of rapidly changing technologies and
continue to remain professionally engaged
and intellectually challenged. Our faculty members are hired to teach
and they must be experts in their fields,
must be willing and able to transfer that
information to our students, and must be
accessible to students. What our faculty
members do goes to the very heart and
soul of the Rose-Hulman mission, and
our students expect it. Bringing bright,
motivated, curious students together with
a challenging, intellectual and caring
faculty yields results that make the
Rose-Hulman educational community
a cut above the others. Not only can we
not afford to lose that dynamic, we must
build on it. The same goes for our staff who support
the academic mission and who teach
as well through their daily interactions
with students. Our staff mentor and
encourage students and play a pivotal
role in the overall education. FACILITIES AND INFRASTRUCTURE
To make our academic goals reality will
also require up-to-date facilities and infrastructure.
A campus master plan is being
developed to identify priorities and their
costs. This plan assumes a competitive
world where high school students make
comparisons among the various universities
they are considering. Our facilities
must be highly functional and rise above
those of competing colleges and universities.
Prioritizing and funding new academic
buildings, residence halls and technical
infrastructure must be a part of our future
as we move to 2014. CLASSROOMS AND LABS
Rose-Hulman must provide adequate
space to carry out an interdisciplinary
approach to education. With the expansion
of the project-based education, more
useful space will be required in all academic
areas. This will require new construction
and renovation of existing facilities. We absolutely owe it to our students to
deal with this space issue. We cannot continue
to meet the demands of growing
space and technical needs with stop-gap
renovations. Tied to space growth is the
need to provide the lab equipment and
communications infrastructure that will
keep us at the cutting edge of undergraduate
engineering, science and mathematics
education. Central to any collegiate educational
center is the library. The strategic plan
calls for taking advantage of changing
technologies by constructing a 21st
Century Knowledge Center and Library.
It would be a modern computerized information
hub with Internet access to books
and journals and a sophisticated communications
center with studios and laboratories
that can be used for international
design projects and distance education. BEYOND THE CLASSROOM
An enhanced student experience requires
a strong residence life component. Active,
involved students are successful students,
and much of that success can be attributed
to living on campus. Our residence halls
are learning/living centers where students
can take an active role in all aspects of
campus. Our campus must provide suite/apartment
style of living that students seek
when attending college today. This is
more conducive to enhancing the community
experience for our students. Co-curricular areas also must be
addressed. They include food serving
areas, meeting rooms, and activity areas.
With more than 60 student organizations
on campus accompanied by various special
academic projects, co-curricular space
must be made available to allow students
to have a complete living experience. This
is another area where students make comparisons
among universities. Academics develop the mind of our
future engineers, scientists and mathematicians,
but the co-curricular element
develops the whole person who will need
to be able to lead, communicate and work
with others to solve the problems of
tomorrow. ACCESS AND AFFORDABILITY
The third emphasis of the strategic plan
focuses on access and affordability. Access
is making sure all students who meet our
admission standards and want to come to
Rose-Hulman can do so. Affordability is
making sure that we keep the cost of net
tuition down . that we make it as affordable
as possible for students to be able to
attend Rose-Hulman. Obviously, one way
for achieving access and affordability is by
providing more scholarships and by
increasing financial aid. Rose-Hulman also
must create additional revenue streams. Some of the best minds in the country
want to come to Rose-Hulman. Yet we are
becoming more of a school of those who
can afford to attend, versus those who
want to attend. Our competition has
poured resources into this area. This competition
includes not just other private
schools, but also public schools with lower
tuition which have also become much
more aggressive in offering substantial
scholarships. The answer to this dilemma is quite
simple: more dollars. We need to raise
additional funds to be used specifically for
scholarship and financial aid. One of our
priorities must be increasing our endowment
to allow for more financial aid. There are other ways of finding additional
dollars for scholarships and financial
aid. One of those is through creating
additional revenue streams. This could be
generated through a series of new outreach
efforts such as continuing education,
Rose-Hulman Ventures, off-campus
courses, distance education, corporate
development and partnerships, distance
education, professional seminars and an
alumni college for alumni. New technologies will allow Rose-
Hulman to provide its education to
broader audiences, while maintaining its
core delivery on campus. IT WILL BE A WORTHY CHALLENGE
Rose-Hulman is challenged to continue
getting better because our vision and the
competitive collegiate environment compel
us to do so. We face increasing competition
from other institutions for the best
and brightest students, for faculty and staff
who are dedicated to teaching and for limited
philanthropic dollars. High school
students are applying to more universities
today than ever before; they are much
more sophisticated when comparing institutions
and they are being much more
selective in their choices. We need to continually
improve our academic offerings,
facilities, and financial aid packages to
keep us competitive. WE WILL NOT DISCARD OUR PAST
Our vision seeks to move us forward proactively and decisively now. It remembers, cherishes and builds on our strong heritage and maintains the positive characteristics that set Rose-Hulman apart from other institutions. We will not grow our enrollment; we will
continue to focus on undergraduate engineering, science and mathematics education and will not start doctoral programs; we will continue to dedicate ourselves to teaching while promoting intellectual inquiry in areas appropriate to the mission of the institution and the academic disciplines; we will
continue to provide a "hands-on, project-based"
approach to learning; and we will maintain
a sense of community among faculty,
staff and students in a caring, nurturing
environment. SO WHAT'S NEXT?
The vision is in place and the college
will continue to fine-tune the specifics and
build on this foundation. As with all
plans, the Rose-Hulman strategic plan is a
living document. The next step will be the
formulation of a final timeline and plan
under the direction of the Board of
Trustees, campus leaders, and others.
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