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Introducing the Elmhurst Experience

This contemporary framing of liberal learning is at the heart of Elmhurst College’s new strategic plan.

It is a time when American colleges and universities are beset by the encompassing economic crisis and are anticipating widespread retrenchment. It is also a time when Elmhurst College—while not immune from larger trends and difficulties—is in the midst of the most dynamic period in its history.

Those words set the stage for The Elmhurst College Strategic Plan 2009-2014. The product of an intense, robust, eight-month process of engagement and debate—on campus and beyond—the plan was approved unanimously by the College’s Board of Trustees on Saturday, March 14. The faculty had approved the plan a month earlier.

To read the complete plan, click here.

Described as “a constitution or charter for the College’s development over the next five years and beyond,” it is the most comprehensive and ambitious planning document in the institution’s 138-year history. 

“This innovative plan has a straightforward goal: to move Elmhurst College to a higher level of service to students and society,” said President S. Alan Ray. “Over the next few years, we intend to grow convincingly in quality, impact, and prestige, and to build an institution of genuine distinction among the small colleges in the Chicago area and beyond.”

In its vision statement, the new strategic plan states plainly that “Elmhurst College will become nationally recognized for the Elmhurst Experience: a contemporary framing of liberal learning.” The plan describes the “hallmarks” of the Elmhurst Experience as “student self-formation” and “early professional preparation.” The goal is to “educate the whole student for life in a global society.”

For students, the varied elements of the Elmhurst Experience can be summarized in a word: engagement. This “contemporary framing” of undergraduate education aims to provide students with new opportunities for purposeful engagement—in classrooms, laboratories, and professional and cultural settings throughout the Chicago area and beyond; in original research with talented faculty; and with the pressing issues of the global society and the individual human spirit.

For the College, the goal is to graduate students who are “committed and prepared to continue their self-formation as intellectual and moral beings,” who think and act for themselves, and who dedicate “themselves enthusiastically and imaginatively to lives of service.”  

The new strategic plan also outlines a series of goals, strategies, and priority actions that it describes as “integral to our vision of the College and the Elmhurst Experience.” The goals include:

• Forging “innovative relationships”—with the larger local and academic communities, with the United Church of Christ, and with the College’s own alumni, among others—“to advance learning, scholarship, and service.”
• Building and supporting a more diverse faculty, administration, and staff.
• Constructing a physical environment “that will shine as a model for liberal education.”
• Demonstrating “outstanding stewardship of resources.”

The process that produced the Elmhurst College Strategic Plan was radically open by design. In a letter to the campus community on July 1—Dr. Ray’s first day in office—the new president invited “all of the College’s stakeholders” to “provide ideas and respond to work in progress. I encourage you to think boldly,” he added. 

The Advisory Council for Strategic Planning, an established committee of the College, guided the process. Its nineteen members include faculty, students, trustees, and members of the president’s cabinet (including the president himself). The Council began meeting on the strategic plan with a week-long series of sessions in August, and continued to meet regularly on Tuesday afternoons and at other times through the fall and winter.

In November, teams of Council members met with variegated groups of institutional stakeholders, including students, faculty, and staff; alumni and alumnae; community leaders and area employers; trustees, donors, and friends. Because the College is affiliated with the United Church of Christ, the Council also consulted with selected UCC congregations throughout the Midwest.

In all, Council members convened 45 sessions where constituents engaged in lively debate about the College’s opportunities, challenges, and direction. The volume of ideas and observations from these meetings—as well as abundant feedback provided to the Council via the Internet—informed the group’s intensive discussions of Elmhurst’s mission, vision, core values, and specific plans for the near-term future.

“Everyone involved in the process was acutely aware of the need to plan in a manner that aimed high but also took account of a difficult economic environment,” said James Kulich, the College’s executive vice president and chair of the Advisory Council. “We were determined to ensure that the final set of institutional goals and expectations were deeply grounded in reality.”

Toward that end, the strategic plan includes carefully considered, explicitly stated target dates for implementing its initiatives, along with an estimate of each move’s financial impact. Moreover, College administrators are developing a comprehensive financial plan to support the objectives of the strategic plan.

“Our new strategic plan articulates a concrete and attainable set of goals and strategies for the College that are completely consistent with our mission, vision, and values,” said Kenne P. Bristol, chair of the Board and a member of the Advisory Council on Strategic Planning.

“This is a proud and promising College—one that has yet to reach the limits of its ambitions. Our goal is to build a more exceptional, more inclusive, and more effective learning community in Elmhurst. As a careful reading of this plan suggests, that goal is within our reach.”