This message was sent via email to Lafayette College alumni on Feb. 13, 2024.
Dear Alumni,
We have an exciting update to share with you regarding the comprehensive strategic planning process.
As you know, the College started the process almost one year ago by hearing from you through numerous listening sessions and a subsequent survey for everyone across our campus, including Lafayette families and campus neighbors. From there, the President charged the Strategic Planning Steering Committee to review the information collected, along with other data sources.These additional sources included the results of the COACHE survey of the faculty, results from a campus and community survey collected during the presidential search, feedback from Student Government, and information shared through the campus master planning process as well as accreditation reports and campus climate data. Through these various sources, your voices have driven our efforts.
Drawing on this rich material, the team has worked together to revisit the College’s mission and values, and in October, the Strategic Planning Steering Committee shared draft 1.0 of the mission and values statements with the community, along with a survey to provide feedback. Open listening sessions with faculty, staff, students, and our Trustees provided additional valuable feedback. Drawing upon those reviews, the steering committee made several revisions to the statements, culminating in this draft 2.0 of the mission and values statements. This communication also includes an FAQ identifying the most prominent themes from the feedback and how the steering committee attempted to resolve them.
Later this month, the committee will share the final document with the community and present it to the Board of Trustees and to the faculty to begin the approval process. If you would like to share your feedback and thoughts on draft 2.0 of the mission, values, and themes, please do so at this email address: planning@lafayette.edu.
As the above process brings the work on our mission and values to a close, the Campus-Wide Working Groups are fully underway. They began meeting last week and will meet at least bi-weekly throughout the semester. Their charge is to develop goals and actions to recommend to the steering committee around the five planning themes shared in December:
As they work on their respective themes, the working groups will continue the process of gathering feedback from the College community. By May, the steering committee will begin pulling together the working groups’ recommendations into a draft plan, which will be refined over the summer and released to the community for adoption by the Board of Trustees in the fall 2024 semester.
Our thriving alumni community and the incredible stories we have about our shared experiences at Lafayette shape our lifetime connection to our alma mater and to one another. Your thoughtful input has been and will continue to be vital to creating a plan that helps lead this College into its third century.
Our very best,
Michael Weisburger ’82, President of the Alumni Association Board
Fran Della Badia ’91, Vice President
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