OUR GOALS

Goal 1: Provide a premier, learner-focused Christian education

Goal 2: Promote and develop spiritual growth and transformation across our community

Goal 3: Recruit, support, retain and graduate students with the tools for a purposeful life

Goal 4: Build a culture of diversity, equity and belonging where people thrive as imagebearers of God

Goal 5: Expand our engagement, influence and impact by forging deep connections with communities, organizations a nd alumni

Goal 6: Empower and sustain a culture of effectiveness, efficiency, collaboration and financial strength across our community

The Lipscomb Impact 360 goals, including 23 strategies and 109 tactics within them, are a blueprint for the university’s actions over the next three to five years, said McQueen. “These six goals will not only help us allocate funds and resources, but will also provide transparency throughout the process, showing our priorities and how we plan to move forward.”

The development of the Impact 360 framework is not the end of the process; it is actually just the beginning. Throughout the 2022-2023 school year, the Lipscomb team is working toward embedding vision, mission and values into its culture and the strategic goals into its daily operations.

Among the first Impact 360 actions this school year are:

• Beginning discussions of redefining the general education curriculum, now called the Lipscomb Core;

• Establishment of the Center for Vocational Discovery, a four-year transformative experience designed to help all students discover their life’s purpose;

• Collaboration of the Registrar, Financial Aid, Information Technology and Business Office to create Bison One Stop, a single student services location for in-person customer support;

• Development of a Lipscomb Academy strategic plan, using the same yearlong process that took place throughout the university campus;

• Working to enhance the reach and value of alumni programming and services through different stages of alumni’s lives;

• Implementing a common framework, tied to the strategic goals, to manage employee performance; and

• Positioning ourselves in an extremely competitive educational marketplace to offer robust scholarship packages that include immediate financial assistance.

In November, the board of trustees reviewed an initial funding model for the entire Lipscomb Impact 360 plan. The next step is to set priorities for funding which will help focus efforts over the next few months.

With the Impact 360 plan now in place, what will the Lipscomb University of the future look like?

“If we plan, and then we work our plan and we align our actions to these goals, then by 2030 student retention and graduation rates will have dramatically improved our U.S. News and World Report ranking,” envisioned McQueen. “We hope to enroll 1,000 more students to then serve 7,000 throughout the university and the academy.

“From a financial standpoint, our goal is to greatly enhance the number of endowed scholarships we offer to students, allowing us to lower our discount rate, and ensure long-term financial success for the institution.

“We will have grown in research capacity and presence, particularly research that engages our students, because at its heart, our research should be about improving our communities and engaging our students in that improvement, helping them to become questioners about the future.

“We will not be a ‘best kept secret’ but instead be known as a leading Christcentered university, and we’ll be known as that because of our spiritual life and student engagement. We want other universities, parents and alums to say, ‘That’s the place that you want to send your children, because it’s thriving.’”

Lipscomb has set a course this year that engages the entire community in the right work at the right time. Every person has a role in uplifting our mission, reaching our vision and defining our culture. That is how Lipscomb will have the greatest impact, today and in the future.

See the complete Impact 360 strategic plan at lipscomb.edu/mission.

New Center for Vocational Discovery established for undergraduates

As an outgrowth of the mission and goals of the Impact 360 strategic plan, this past fall Lipscomb officially launched the Center for Vocational Discovery (CVD), a university-wide, four-year transformative experience designed to help all students discover their life’s purpose.

Beginning with this fall’s freshman class, students embarked on a four-year journey that continues through to graduation. Each year will have a specific focus and will be integrated into a students’ experience through academics, student life and spiritual formation programs.

The first year centers on identity, giftedness and the outcomes of the Clifton Strengths assessment. Students had the opportunity to attend a spiritual gifts workshop, Career Center exploration workshops and the newly established Freshman Chapel. Throughout the 10-week chapel, freshmen built relationships and learned about the 34 strengths outlined in the strengths assessment.

The CVD also integrated vocation-focused programming into the required Lipscomb Experience and Bible courses and selected its first student cohort of Strengths Champions.

In the spring semester, the CVD is holding workshops on resilience, gifts, strengths and genograms and a listening retreat to help students discern the voice of God in their lives.

Along with year-specific programming, students will create a series of reflections through assignments that will be collected in an electronic portfolio when they graduate.