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President Carol T. Christ is holding small-group
conversations with students, faculty and staff about positioning Smith most successfully
for the future. Here's a summary of one of the discussions.
President Christ opened by thanking the faculty for taking time for this important
conversation and provided background on the process and timeline for the strategic
planning initiative. She cited some notable outcomes of the last planning process,
including the Brown Fine Arts Center, the Olin Fitness, Center, the Campus Center,
the Kahn Institute, Praxis, the Poetry Center and the Picker Engineering Program.
These initiatives have raised Smith’s profile and expanded opportunities for
students. The current planning process will build on and solidify these successes.
To set the stage, President Christ presented a number of issues identified by the
Board of Trustees at a recent strategic planning retreat. They include the following:
the need to articulate the college’s competitive position and its relationship
to other institutions; the thinness of the applicant pool; the role of financial
aid in the college’s mission and priorities; the capacities and habits of mind
we seek to develop in our students, in light of our open curriculum; and the meaning
of our “world college” commitment.
Conversation opened with a question about availability of funding for filling faculty
vacancies. President Christ asked the faculty to reflect on an appropriate size for
the faculty, noting that, in the recent past, the size had ballooned and was being
restored to its traditional size via retirements. She explained that if the members
of the faculty believe a richer student/faculty ratio is the most important issue
for the college to address, such a proposal would have to compete for funding with
areas of need such as recruitment and financial aid. Discussion ensued about the
role of the curricular review in shaping the faculty, and ways in which bridging
funds could be used to mitigate the curricular effects of a reduction based largely
on age profile.
A second major topic was opportunities for individual student-faculty work. With
the faculty retirements, one person wondered whether we remain able to deliver on
the research opportunities we advertise. The STRIDE program was mentioned as a successful
program. One speaker suggested that opportunities such as STRIDE could be compelling
to full-pay students and are a preferable alternative to merit aid. Another suggested
that one-on-one research opportunities might be something we guarantee to students.
While Smith students report lower than expected satisfaction with research opportunities,
Provost Bourque noted that that might reflect an overly conservative view of what
constitutes “research.” It might make sense, for example, to help students
understand that a seminar is, often, a research experience. A faculty member commented
that a STRIDE student liaison to the opera project, if asked whether she did research,
would likely say no – even though she certainly did a lot of research.
As
we plan, President Christ said, we need to develop a vigorous sense of what students
should learn. We should look, for example, at the role of independent work, residential
life, and international programs. We should then look at facilities and deferred
maintenance issues. Ultimately, we must aim for a sharper definition of the college
in our mission statement. Support was voiced for a mission statement that was not “bland” but
rather one that “owned our past and our future."
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