III. CAMPUS COMMUNITY

As a residentially-based liberal arts institution, Wesleyan must take strategic advantage of its campus. The physical environment and activities outside of the classroom should support the intellectual, social and physical growth for our students, faculty and staff. To accomplish this, we must have a diverse campus culture, a community rich in out-of-classroom opportunities, and a residential life program that fosters community.

A. Enhance Admission Competitiveness and Outreach

During the last strategic plan, Wesleyan raised its reputation and selectivity to the highest competitive level. Our research shows that prospective students perceive us as being among the best institutions of higher education in the nation. This is an accurate perception. The challenge for undergraduate admission, however, is to continue to attract high-quality and broadly diverse applicants, to replace those students who are less well prepared and for whom Wesleyan is no longer an admission option. A related challenge is to compete successfully for students who have admission offers from the Ivies and other similarly prestigious institutions.

Far and away the most powerful strategy we can have to enroll the best students from the broadest background is to offer the best and most competitive financial aid packages. Guaranteeing need-blind admission expands the pool and attracts the very best students who want to be a part of our diverse educational environment. Need-based aid in a need-blind environment is expensive, and it is tough for Wesleyan to compete with institutions that have larger endowments and more flexible and favorable financial aid. While we compare favorably with our peers and competitors on the family contribution expected of students and on overall costs, we are not as competitive in the loan levels we expect families and students to assume. To stay in the game, Wesleyan needs to continue to raise funds for scholarships and to increase endowment for financial aid.

To address these issues, we envision several options, listed in order of priority:

• More differential packaging – reduce loan levels and increase grants for our most economically disadvantaged students.
• Loan level reduction – reduce the loan level cap from 11.5% of Cost of Attendance to 10.5% for class entering fall 2010.
• Loan forgiveness – replace loans with grants upon graduation for students entering careers in social or public service, non-profit, or education sectors.

The first two options would lower loans first for those students with the greatest need and the least family resources, and then lower loans across the board. Our principal goal is to keep Wesleyan affordable and to offer the most competitive awards we can afford at the point of admission. Our neediest students, those eligible for Pell Grants, currently include 45 percent of our black students and 38 percent of our Latino students. By addressing the needs of the lowest income students, we are also advancing another top priority – enhancing diversity.

The third option would aid economically disadvantaged students at the point of graduation. It would help them contribute to society in ways they could not do otherwise and would strengthen Wesleyan's mission to educate students for the good of the world.

These financial aid initiatives must be enhanced through marketing efforts to increase Wesleyan's visibility nationally and to increase the number of prospective applicants. There is much we can do but we also face serious challenges. Most of these initiatives take time and financial resources. Our admission staff is smaller than that of our peers and insufficient to expand significantly our personal contacts and off-campus visits. We should add more resources for admission outreach activities that can help yield students from all backgrounds who can contribute the most to this community.

B. Engage Diversity as an Educational Asset

Through its admission process, Wesleyan seeks to create an environment in which students derive the educational benefits of a diverse student body. Wesleyan invites students from a variety of backgrounds and experiences – racial and ethnic, cultural and religious, urban and rural, wealthy and poor, from public and private schools, from different cultures within the United States and abroad, with different interests ranging from athletics to the arts, from the sciences to volunteer activities. Our commitments to need-blind admission and to meeting each student's full demonstrated need provide crucial support for the creation of a diverse learning community.

Yet we also believe that just bringing these students to campus is not enough. We are proactive in creating a community where diversity is a lived experience. Individuals from diverse cultures and with a diversity of interests and opinions living parallel lives in one place do not create a multicultural community. Constant attention is required to assure more than the uneasy coexistence of subcultures, whether based on athletic or academic interests, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnic backgrounds, political ideologies, or other lines. We seek to form a community where all of us, no matter what our differences, are united in a common purpose – to learn from each other and to use what we have learned to make the world a better place.

The Wesleyan Student Assembly and the Student Life Committee have urged us to make our diversity meaningful in all aspects of university life. They stress the need to: increase multicultural competence for faculty, students and staff; facilitate communication among all members of the community regarding multicultural issues; support campus programming related to multicultural issues; and enhance recruitment and retention of students, faculty and staff of color. We need to take full advantage of our diversity, so that students graduate with the ability to deal with others from different backgrounds, both locally and globally.

To that end, we have begun several new programs. The Office of Affirmative Action initiated a Sustained Dialogue Program that brings together students, faculty, and staff on an ongoing basis to engage in conversations about difficult but essential subjects that affect the campus community. That office in conjunction with the Center for Faculty Career Development has also begun a well-attended series on Race in the Classroom to help faculty gain a better understanding of how new approaches to learning can meet the needs of our diverse student population. We have also increased our outreach to our diverse alumni so they can help us recruit and mentor a diverse student body, and help them find opportunities when they graduate.

C. Facilitate Interaction of Faculty and Students Outside of the Classroom

Enhancing the co-curricular experience of Wesleyan students continues to be a high priority that will require additional resources. One of the first priorities for the new dean of the college will be to recruit a new director of residential life who will support and develop new initiatives to improve residential life, co-curricular activities, and increase interaction between faculty and students. This is a key appointment in the Office of the Dean of the College and an important contact for many students and families.

We must also seek ways to extend students' learning in the residence halls. We plan to develop a programming fund, similar to the Snowdon lecture fund, to provide additional financial support for distinguished visitors and campus events that are jointly planned by faculty and students and that engage a broad cross-section of the campus community. Just as the Snowdon lecture fund assists faculty in engaging student participation in the lectures program, additional funding from the Office of the Dean of the College would help students increase faculty participation in student-planned events. Our goal is to use these partnerships to expand faculty engagement in student residences. The Office of the Dean of the College plans continued collaboration with Academic Affairs on these and other initiatives.

To accomplish this, Wesleyan needs a talented and well prepared staff to oversee residential life. In recent years we have improved the administration of residential life, increased the number of student and professional staff who live with students in the residences, and increased both their compensation and what we expect in return. Our next step will be to provide apartments to area coordinators within their assigned areas to better serve students and to provide better supervision for student staff. We hope that our initiatives will enrich residential life and increase the sense of responsibility among students for the quality of their residential experience.

The Suzanne Lemberg Usdan University Center will also provide a new and attractive venue where students, faculty, and staff can meet to exchange ideas and to socialize. We are confident that by dint of its facilities, location and programming, the Usdan University Center will become a crossroads for campus life. To accomplish this, the center will require program development consistent with and at the same high level as Wesleyan's academic programs. Our center director will develop programs that will migrate to the new building when it opens in the fall of 2007.

D. Build and Remodel Residential Facilities to Support Educational Initiatives

For our students, one of the attractions of Wesleyan is the opportunity to live in housing that ranges from traditional college residence halls to more independent living options in apartments and residential-scale houses. Managing this wide range of housing types and placing students in appropriate housing is more challenging than operating a single type of housing.

The renovation of Clark Hall and construction of a new first-year residence hall and an apartment building for juniors and seniors on Fauver Field represent significant improvements in our student housing and the first steps in a reconfiguration of Wesleyan housing. The new construction will allow us to house all Wesleyan students in university housing.

In summer 2005, we are building our first prototype townhouses that over time will replace housing that is in such state of disrepair that it is not viable to maintain. These new housing options for seniors will retain the amenities of the houses that will be replaced but will be more durable and energy efficient while retaining the small scale appropriate to Wesleyan's surrounding neighborhoods. Gradually, we plan to reduce and consolidate our holdings in residential neighborhoods. Bringing students back to the core campus will improve relations with town residents and will assist in community building among students. In the meantime, we are establishing zones of quiet houses in neighborhoods where students continue to live next to other town residents.

In addition to the above initiatives, we will improve social spaces in many of our older residence halls so as to make them more attractive to current students. We would also like to create a safer and more pleasant outdoor environment and reduce congestion in the larger apartments of the Williams Street low-rise complex.

E. Strengthen and Develop Environmental Stewardship

Environmental responsibility is a community-wide initiative that provides an opportunity for students, faculty and staff to work together towards common goals. We will continue to focus on two aspects of environmental stewardship -- energy conservation and waste management -- which will contribute to a healthier environment, yield economic benefits and result in a cleaner, more attractive campus. On-going energy reduction and management initiatives have already allowed us to reduce the university's CO2 emissions below 1990 levels and save hundreds of thousands of dollars in energy costs. With the leadership of the Physical Plant staff and the student's Environmental Organizing Network (EON) we plan to continue these efforts through thoughtful energy use, updated systems, improved insulation and adoption of new energy sources.

Making waste management and recycling a high priority will also have a positive impact on the campus. The 2001 environmental self-audit helped us address hazardous waste disposal issues and the Facilities Masterplan helped us to develop a new trash and recycling system. The Campus Recycling Committee, comprised of students, faculty and staff, will provide guidance in developing future programs.

In addition, we will look for opportunities to further improve Wesleyan's strong environmental profile. Examples of such initiatives include building the new Fauver Field Residences to Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design (LEED) standards and testing hybrid vehicles as possible replacements for campus service vehicles. Student participation in these efforts will provide educational as well as community service opportunities.