DePauw Bold & Gold 2027

Five-Year Strategic Plan

In October 2020, the DePauw community gathered for the first time to begin a process that would, 18 months later, launch a new strategic plan to create a renewed liberal arts university for the 21st century. We invited trustees, faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends of the university to share their ideas, hopes, and dreams for DePauw in an inclusive, in-depth process led by a Strategic Planning Steering Committee. More than 15 smaller working groups identified, explored, and prioritized the strategic questions, themes, and aspirations as they emerged. In shaping and reshaping ideas through discussion, debate, and critical inquiry, this process reflected the best of the liberal arts tradition that is always the “DePauw will be a new model for a foundation for DePauw. 21st Century Liberal Arts and Sciences From those roots now arises, as we approach our bicentennial University – one steadfast in its belief in the power of the liberal arts and sciences year, a bold new vision, conceived in the spirit of our founders, who brought this university to life in a frontier village. The 21st century calls for renewal – for DePauw to rise to further greatness, bringing to prepare students for lives of leadership, new energy and purpose to the liberal arts. Our first president, creativity and service. Matthew Simpson, charged us with using “the utmost exertion for

To cement our status as a world class the amelioration of the conditions of mankind;” as those conditions liberal arts college, we will cultivate the have changed, so too must we. This new liberal arts education must skills and competencies employers want from extend not only to scholarship and the professions, but also to our graduates with the intellectual rigor and profound experiences families demand.” careers not previously imagined; it must embrace the full, marvelous varieties of leadership and creativity. Just as DePauw cultivates humanity among students who have different perspectives, – Lori S. White, President, DePauw University identities and purposes, we must cultivate equity, inclusion, and ethics throughout the fabric of the institution. Emerging from this collective work – aspirations, agreements, disputes, debates, and resolutions – is our strategic plan for 2022-2027. We have anchored it with four overarching goals: academic renewal, exemplary student experience, institutional equity and flourishing university. This plan reflects the collective wisdom of trustees, faculty, staff, students, and alumni; it demonstrates our community spirit. Writing it clarified our strategic direction and forged new connections among people across the campus. Its success rests on our commitment to find the human and fiscal resources needed to bring it to life, the agency of our leadership team, and the conviction of each member of our community to work together to realize our vision.

Overarching goals

ACADEMIC RENEWAL

We will revitalize our academic programs – centering and strengthening our College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, establishing a School of Business and Leadership, and reimagining the School of Music to become the Creative School.

EXEMPLARY STUDENT EXPERIENCE

To make students’ experiences richer and more connected, we will reinvest in the residential experience, better support student organizations and activities, build an inclusive and valuescentered fraternity and sorority life model, and sharpen our focus on students’ well-being. “DePauw’s Bold & Gold 2027 plan is about accelerating our renewal of academic programs by building on our strengths, which have always been the liberal arts and sciences and a strong School of Music … We’re striving to use those strengths as a springboard to new disciplinary areas, specifically business, leadership and programs that focus on creativity and innovation.”

– DAVE BERQUE, Vice President for Academic Affairs

“When students find places to belong, engage in meaningful endeavors, and successfully navigate their well-being, they set themselves up for a lifetime of substance. Focusing on the Exemplary Student Experience allows us to partner with our students as they realize the full potential of a

DePauw education.”

– JOHN MARK DAY, Vice President for Academic Affairs

INSTITUTIONAL EQUITY

To become a more fully inclusive university, we will appoint a cabinet-level vice president to lead our expanding efforts to ensure that all aspects of the student, employee and alumni experience are fully aligned with our values of diversity, equity and inclusion. “The Bold & Gold 2027 strategic plan weaves institutional equity into the fabric of the DePauw community by intentionally approaching our policies, processes and resources through a lens of what is fair and just, eliminating obstacles that hinder access to and opportunity from the DePauw experience.”

– DIONNE B. JACKSON, Vice President for Institutional Equity

FLOURISHING UNIVERSITY

We will combine operational excellence, careful fiscal stewardship, investments in our exceptional workforce, and deepen connections with alumni and with Greencastle, to make DePauw a flourishing institution and a preferred employer. “A tenet of the Flourishing University goal is to make strategic investments in a strong workforce and employee excellence.”

– CAROL SMITH ’85, Chief Information Officer

ACADEMIC RENEWAL

GOAL STATEMENT

DePauw will renew and revitalize its academic programs, deepening its longstanding commitment to the liberal arts while creating new and distinctive programs that reflect advances in academic disciplines, respond to students’ changing priorities and the demands of a rapidly evolving marketplace.

OBJECTIVES

• Deepen DePauw’s commitment to the liberal arts and strengthen research and scholarship in the humanities, arts and sciences through an enhanced and renamed College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. • Extend liberal arts methods and philosophy to business education and establish a new School of Business and Leadership to build on our historic success preparing ethical leaders the world needs in a range of disciplines and for business and non-profit organizations. • Create a new school with the working name, The Creative School, that encourages new disciplinary connections and develops new career tracks in the creative and performative arts. • Reimagine the Centers, Honor Scholar and Fellows Programs to better leverage their roles in supporting interdisciplinary pursuits and in creating strong connections among the curriculum and co-curriculum. • More clearly communicate the High Impact Educational Practices we already do well and expand and integrate others into every student’s academic and co-curricular plans.

“To be prepared for decades of a life and career, you need to be able to think broadly, to position yourself to continue to learn and be able to take on new challenges that we can’t even imagine yet …”

– DAVE BERQUE, Vice President for Academic Affairs

Liberal Arts Strengths Extended to Business, Creativity and Innovation

Our DePauw Bold & Gold 2027 Strategic Plan will come to life through the Academic Renewal goal, especially when we announce the new three-school academic model in spring 2022.

Guided by data about evolving student preferences, we know that many of today’s students are drawn to businessrelated majors, but also are becoming more interested in expressing themselves creatively and combining programs in non-traditional and synergist ways. They do not define themselves by one interest or in one way, but in myriad ways – and they want to explore all of them!

The professional and personal success of our Gold Within alumni throughout their lives proves that our liberal arts-based education prepares our students for a life of meaning and means. This new model leverages that historical success and evolves it to interconnect creativity, business, humanities and sciences for our hyperconnected and continually changing global society.

Photo: Brittney Way

COLLEGE OF Liberal Arts and Sciences

THE HEART OF DEPAUW

DePauw will deepen its commitment to the liberal arts and sciences, strengthening research and scholarship around them and centering them in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

n All students invited to attend DePauw will take courses in an enhanced liberal arts and sciences general education curriculum during their first two years, regardless of their eventual major. n Students will be accepted to DePauw University – not individual schools – and will have ample time to explore many courses and before declaring a major at the end of their second year. n For decades, our graduates have told us that DePauw’s comprehensive general education ignited their curiosity and transformed their lives; alumni attribute their professional success to an education that stresses breadth, problem-solving, creativity, critical thinking, communication and teamwork. n The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences will continue to prepare graduates to pursue a multitude of careers and to address the most critical problems of our times. n DePauw is positioned through its study-abroad program, ranked

No. 3 nationally, to encourage immersive learning in global contexts to benefit students in any major.

“My liberal arts education at DePauw taught me to adapt quickly, analyze thoughtfully and engage broadly with my peers.”

– JON FORTT ’98, CNBC Anchor

SCHOOL OF Business and Leadership

BUSINESS EDUCATION GROUNDED IN THE LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES

DePauw will extend liberal arts and sciences methods and philosophy to business education and establish a new School of Business and Leadership to build on our historic success preparing ethical leaders the world needs in a range of disciplines and for business and non-profit organizations. n The Creative School will center creativity and innovation for students interested in careers in arts, design, creative writing, theatre, film and media arts and who want to combine creative pursuits with other programs to blaze their own trails. n Increasingly, the creative arts are the access points to culture for students from every part of the world, aligning the new school with DePauw’s mission to attract, retain and serve a diverse student population. n The new school will offer a variety of cocurricular opportunities in innovative design spaces and labs. n By tapping opportunities in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the School of Business and Leadership, students will be able to craft new career paths and exciting collaboration opportunities, such as merging arts with business, entrepreneurship, health sciences, data analytics and sports marketing. n Music programs will be housed in the School’s Division of

Music.

n The SBL will leverage 60 years of DePauw’s steadily growing reputation in business. n DePauw will be the only top 50-ranked national liberal arts university in the Midwest with a business school, and one of only four in the nation. n New programs will allow students to combine businessfocused courses with traditional liberal arts studies. n The SBL will house: • The Sanger Leadership Initiative: provides cocurricular leadership programming for all three schools and funds the Sanger Professor of Leadership and Sanger Scholars students. • The Management Fellows Program, which connected students’ academic and cocurricular experience for four decades, is open by application to students from across the university. n For students interested in business combined with the liberal arts experience, DePauw will be THE choice.

“The world around us is changing and DePauw needs to continue to evolve. I am so excited about the School of Business and Leadership combined with a liberal arts education. Very few schools in the entire world can do those two things well at one time. DePauw’s been doing it well for a long time. Now, we’re formalizing it.”

– JEFF HARMENING ’89, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, General Mills

THE Creative School

CENTERING CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION IN CREATIVE, PERFORMING AND MEDIA ARTS

DePauw will create a new school with that encourages new disciplinary connections and develops career tracks in the creative and performing arts.

“We’re joining together not just music, but visual arts, film, technology, theater, creative writing (and more) – and all of these genres enhance the word ‘creativity.’”

– JOYCE TAGLAUER GREEN ’75, Benefactor of the Judson and Joyce Green Center for the Performing Arts at DePauw

EXEMPLARY STUDENT EXPERIENCE

GOAL STATEMENT

DePauw will enhance the vibrancy and quality of the student experience in ways that bring our diverse community of students together while facilitating opportunities that support individual student interests and identities, motivate students to expand their horizons, develop skills for engaging in dialogue, provide healthy outlets for student stress reduction, and create a strong bond of belonging at the university.

OBJECTIVES

• Revitalize the residential experience as a core component of a

DePauw education through robust programs that support all students equitably. • Enhance student engagement and develop strong systems of support, advising, and leadership development that increase the vibrancy of the campus and enable students and organizations to thrive. • Build on our more than 170-year history of fraternity and sorority life at DePauw to develop an inclusive, equitable, and valuescentered 21st century liberal arts college model for fraternity and sorority life. • Exemplify a culture of care at DePauw that ensures students have access to resources, opportunities, and services that prioritize student wellness and well-being and can help students to thrive.

“DePauw has given me two things: leadership opportunities and a lot of confidence. I have been involved in so much and been a leader in a lot of spaces, and DePauw just enables you to do that. I’ve grown so much in these four years, and I wish I had another four ahead of me.”

– CHRISTINA BOURANTAS ’22

Photo: Brittney Way

INSTITUTIONAL EQUITY

GOAL STATEMENT

DePauw will become a more inclusive and equitable institution by ensuring all aspects of the student, employee and alumni experience fully align with our values of diversity, equity and inclusion.

OBJECTIVES

• Centralize and elevate an institutionallevel strategic focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion at DePauw to be led by a senior cabinet officer.

• Institute systems, policies, and practices that strengthen DePauw’s ability to recruit, retain, and support a diverse community to ensure that all of the students, staff, and faculty can pursue their interests, follow their passions, and feel they belong at DePauw. • Partner with university departments to support a comprehensive review of all programs to ensure that they are broadly accessible, inclusive, and equitably delivered.

• Develop, sustain and uphold a clear set of community values, standards, and expectations.

Photo: Timothy D. Sofranko

“Institutional equity is our commitment to making sure that every member of our campus community can take full advantage of all of the wonderful resources that our institution has to offer.”

– LORI S. WHITE, President, DePauw University

FLOURISHING UNIVERSITY

“DePauw is a place that at its heart has always been about relationships and community. When DePauw thrives, our people thrive, and this plan prioritizes investment in our people to help them to do their best work and contribute fully to the student experience.”

– CAROL SMITH, Chief Information Officer

Photo: Timothy D. Sofranko

GOAL STATEMENT

DePauw will flourish as a community, an educational institution, and an employer through strategic investments in our academic core mission, a strong workforce, operational excellence, and fiscal stewardship.

OBJECTIVES

• Ensure that compensation, benefits, and workplace policies, culture and climate make DePauw a preferred employer. • Adjust to changing institutional priorities and needs by shifting the responsibilities of current employees and/or by helping them develop the skills that align with these new priorities and needs. • Invest in training, professional development, and career advancement to strengthen the capacity and effectiveness of staff and faculty. • Encourage and support employees’ living in, and actively engaging with, the DePauw/Greencastle

Community. • Develop robust alumni engagement opportunities that strengthen a meaningful and lifelong relationship between current students, alumni, and the University. • Build the foundation for continued philanthropic investments to increase our endowment and build on our legacy. • Clearly articulate institutional priorities and align all procedural, organizational, and operational functions to maximize productivity towards these priorities. • Align the University’s resources with strategic priorities; identify what to stop doing, and reallocate resources where necessary to effectively steward our endowment.