Executive Summary

From 2002-04, Guilford College engaged in a comprehensive, highly participatory strategic planning process designed to formulate an institutional plan for 2005-2010. This was a data-driven endeavor, one that intentionally links the plan to the college's core values of community, diversity, equality, excellence, integrity, justice and stewardship. The college community reconfirmed these core values during the planning process. The result is a dynamic plan that the college will review annually and change as needed to meet shifting circumstances and emerging opportunities.

Mission of the College

The planning process produced a restatement of the mission of Guilford College. It is as follows: "To provide a transformative, practical, and excellent liberal arts education that produces critical thinkers in an inclusive, diverse environment, guided by Quaker testimonies of community, equality, integrity, peace, and simplicity and emphasizing the creative problem solving skills, experience, enthusiasm, and international perspectives necessary to promote positive change in the world."

Practical Liberal Arts Education

The motto on the Guilford College seal is: "molior sapientiam et virtutem": "I strive for wisdom and virtue." Wisdom corresponds to the theoretical, the contemplative; virtue to the practical, and the active. Not only does this motto express the Quaker commitment, but its roots also extend deep into the 15th Century, in the formulation of the liberal arts curriculum by Renaissance humanists: they pursued these twin goals for themselves and their students. Our goal has been no less than to redefine the role of a liberal arts institution in the 21^st Century. What drives the plan is the desire to remain relevant in the emerging knowledge economy. We strongly believe that each of our continuing goals speaks to the needs of new economic realities and the value of a practical liberal arts education.

To begin, Guilford College recommits itself to excellence in undergraduate education and to teaching as our core business. We seek to instill a love of learning and a capacity for creative and critical thinking in every student. Our first continuing goal is to excel at education that transforms our students and our world. Education in the 21^st Century requires the integration of knowledge and use of multiple types of learning, which in turn requires a strong foundation across the curriculum. With this in mind, Guilford will concentrate on preparing students to engage in principled problem solving as a means to contribute not only to the practical education of students but as a way to contribute creative solutions to existing and emerging problems in our community, our state, our nation and our world. This speaks to our Quaker heritage that aims, according to John Woolman, to "harmonize practice with principle." To this end, and concurrent with reaccredidation and the ongoing assessment of various curricular programs, the college will revise and strengthen the first two years of the curriculum in line with our goals of preparing students for excellence in reading, writing, quantitative reasoning, and creative and critical thinking.

• "The Guilford Challenge" asks the entire Guilford community to approach education holistically and to include, among its goals, a range of extra-curricular and co-curricular experiences and internships for students. These experiences will be documented and recorded with electronic portfolios. "The Guilford Challenge" involves faculty and staff in creating opportunities for students to pursue an education that transforms them through experiences, both inside and outside the classroom, and opens them to new visions and dreams for themselves and the world in which they live. This initiative will apply to students entering in 2008.
• By 2007, Guilford will create a center for principled problem solving. "Principled" means that decisions will be driven by the college's core values and Quaker testimonies. In this context, the word, "principled," is synonymous with values. "Problem solving" involves students in courses and teams using their talents and life experience with faculty guidance to address authentic, often real world, problems. The center will pilot one or more projects that relate directly to the accomplishment of this plan, e.g.,
  1. "The Guilford Challenge" -- A group of staff, faculty, students, and community members will study models for this program and how best to implement it on the Guilford campus.
  2. "Transforming Guilford: Living our Values" -- a group of staff, faculty, students, community members, and alumni will study how to move Guilford College toward its goal of becoming an anti-racist, anti-oppression institution that prepares students for civic and business enterprise beyond the college.

Expanding our Academic Community

As a second continuing goal, Guilford College intends to expand its academic community. The college will further increase enrollment and leverage partnerships with other colleges and universities. Because we intend to remain a primarily undergraduate institution, we will only develop graduate programs in collaboration with others. The 21^st Century knowledge economy requires that those who do not have college degrees earn them; and those with baccalaureate degrees must continue on the path of learning. This college embraces both objectives and welcomes individuals of all ages who have the desire and need for intellectual growth and development.

• Guilford embraces a "Lifetime of Learning" that extends education from age 16 with The Early College at Guilford (ECG) through ages 18-22 in the traditional programs and 23 and beyond through the Center for Continuing Education (CCE) and other programs.
• Guilford intends to slow its growth in enrollment with an objective of a headcount of approximately 3,300 students by the year 2010. The projected student body will include about 1,500 (headcount) from the traditional pool of students, 100 students from ECG and 1,700 (1,400 full time equivalent or FTE) non-traditional students entering through CCE. Over the last four years up to fall 2004, enrollment has essentially doubled from 1,255 to an estimated 2,500. The growth has been due mostly to an expanded CCE population. However, as of the fall of 2004, an unusually large traditional first year class has restored the total traditional student population to its 1987 level. This plan slows down the rate of growth to 32% if we reach the 3,300 mark by fall 2009 in FY 2010 (a fiscal year is numbered by the beginning and ending years or by the ending year alone; a year without the FY modifier is assumed to be a calendar year). Additional growth will come not only from new students but also from improved retention. Faculty and staff growth will be commensurate with the rise in enrollment to maintain the quality of academic programs and administrative services.

More growth is not an end in itself. As the college continues to grow, it will become not just larger, but better. Unless Guilford College receives many major gifts in the very near future, the foremost way to achieve our high academic and financial goals (e.g., improve our faculty salaries relative to our peers and competitors, reduce our short and long-term debt, and repair our aging facilities) is to use the revenue generated from a larger enrollment. If the growth envisioned in this plan occurs along with other initiatives (e.g., principled problem solving, "The Guilford Challenge," reconfirmation of our Quaker heritage, capital campaign), Guilford College will be able to achieve:

• improved admission selectivity and yield;
• increase in faculty of 45-50 FTE starting in fall 2005 with 200-250 more courses and sections to deepen the existing curriculum;
• 16/1 student/faculty ratio and average class size of 20;
• increases in staffing for the The Learning Commons, career services, and other academic support programs;
• better programming and staffing in admission, athletics, campus life, and other student services;
• new or renovated facilities including Founders Hall, a fitness center, multi-purpose and office facilities, and residential spaces; and
• higher student satisfaction from not only the foregoing achievements but also growth that focuses on improved retention and not just new students.

Growth also makes us more diverse, expands our geographic representation, and improves our competitive position relative to larger universities while still preserving a small college size and ambience. Growth does not mean either residential or commuter but rather both. Growth does not mean lower standards since we expect to maintain, and even improve, the number of applicants and admission selectivity. The experience of the past four years provides evidence of the college's ability to improve student quality while continuing to grow. Since fall 2000, CCE acceptance rates have declined from 80% to 57% and acceptance rates for traditional age students have declined from 81% to 70%. Most importantly, growth gives more students the opportunity for a Guilford education and prepares even more students to make a difference in the world.

Quaker Identity and Diversity

The 21^st Century knowledge economy demands new ways of working together. Global markets and international problems require the ability to respect, hear, and integrate the input of many perspectives. In a knowledge economy, no one person or group can have all the knowledge necessary for good and just decision making. Quaker traditions and beliefs demonstrate that the community prospers when all perspectives are valued and spirituality emphasized. The traditions of inclusion, participation and consensus are particularly relevant to address emerging global issues and management of 21^st Century organizations. In our third continuing goal, Guilford College recommits itself to Quaker testimonies as a way of preparing our faculty, staff and students to be change agents in the 21^st Century.

• By 2006, the college will adopt policies and procedures that affirm the role of Quaker testimonies in organizational life and decision-making.
• In addition, the college will promote diversity in many forms -- racial, religious, ethnic, geographic, sexual identity, social, and ideas -- and strive to become an anti-racist institution.

With the reinforcement of our Quaker heritage around an education that is "civil and useful," other plan initiatives such as "principled problem solving" and "The Guilford Challenge" become grounded and therefore stronger.

Operational Support

In addition to these strategic goals, Guilford aims to improve in areas considered more tactical and operational but still crucial to the health of the institution, such as building community. Community is not related to size -- examples abound of large and small colleges with excellent and poor senses of community. It is as much related to creating the opportunities and spaces for fun and fellowship that this plan proposes. We also need to pay for the plan and increase our financial resources. Toward those ends, our plan includes the following operational objectives:

• Guilford will achieve a balanced operating budget by FY 2006, including the costs of the strategic plan.
• Guilford will begin a new capital campaign to raise $75 million in 2008-2014 (the $75 million goal is subject to results of a feasibility study being conducted in 2005)
• Guilford will grow its endowment value to $75 million by 2010 despite spending 5% of its market value each year.
• Guilford will upgrade its facilities, infrastructure, and physical plant.

Plan Revenues and Expenses

The plan generates incremental operating revenues that total $13.4 million between FY 2005 and FY 2010. The major sources are the increased enrollment and higher endowment earnings generated by the expected capital campaign. Operating expenses total $14.5 million over the same period with faculty salary improvement being the major priority. This results in a cumulative deficit balance of $1.1 million, beginning in FY 2007, that will be eliminated as part of the on-going budget development process. Additionally, the strategic plan identifies funding for $27 million in capital projects.

The timing of The Strategic Plan for Guilford College 2005-2010 is very significant. This planning process began three months after the July 2002 arrival of Kent John Chabotar as the college's new president. The plan provides the opportunity for Guilford to strengthen itself by addressing both internal challenges and important strategic issues facing the college and higher education in the years just ahead.