While many initiatives and projects will be part of this strategic plan, emerging initiatives represent vital work for the College that aligns with our expressed strategic priorities. Through these bold and distinctive initiatives, we have the ability to combine multiple priority areas that make the most of Lafayette’s strengths and ambitions.
Interdisciplinary
Challenge Lab:
Generating Solutions Together
- Create resources, structures, and physical space for faculty and students from across campus to elevate and integrate academic expertise within and across disciplines to explore novel ideas, design possibilities, and develop solutions to societal problems
- Enhance opportunities and academic infrastructure for new academic lines and collaborative models of teaching, scholarship, and creative practice
- Build upon the interdisciplinary work of our academic centers to foreground commitments to inclusivity, design, and inquiry across campus
- Showcase workshops, projects, and student/faculty initiatives regionally and nationally
Democracy and Its Technologies:
Shaping Societies Together
- Foreground the significant strengths of the academic program and libraries across studies of democracy, technologies, and ethics disciplines to create a collaborative initiative or center on campus for the study of Democracy and Its Technologies
- Work with experts on campus and across the globe to build networks and generate projects through creative scholarship and practice that undergird symposia, digital initiatives, and engagement with industry and government in support of democratic practices and discourse
- Infuse critical digital fluency and ethics into the student experience as a mode of inquiry, empowerment, and transformative potential
The Lehigh Valley Immersive:
Experience, Internship, and Practice
- Establish a pipeline with regional partners to connect Lafayette students with experiential learning opportunities including project-based work, community-based scholarship, research, externships, and internships
- Leverage and promote the Lehigh Valley’s status as a national hub of growth and opportunity
- Integrate experiential and pre-professional pathways in cocurricular settings that connect community and economic development in the Lehigh Valley
Center for Student Success
- Create a centralized student resource hub democratizing and increasing access to student services, advising, cocurricular learning, and post-graduation support
- Network across complementary services, encouraging collaboration, coordination, and creativity amongst departments and divisions, including advising and career development
- Foster a seamless new student experience, with advising and orientation opportunities for students from acceptance through the first year, encouraging a sense of belonging and connection
Living and Learning Well:
The Residential Experience
- Develop a residential curricular model that enhances the living/learning environment for all students
- Create physical spaces that contribute to learning, belonging, and well-being, including areas for community gathering, group and collaborative study, and self-care
- Consider dedicated first-year living areas to better target resources in the critical first year
- Ensure that all living areas have an identity that fosters inclusion and a feeling of home and school pride
The Metzgar Campus
- Engage the campus as a “living laboratory” where learning, research, and creative activity connect with the natural world
- Develop spaces dedicated to human wellness and well-being, as well as connection to one another and the natural environment
- Design athletic and recreational spaces for our campus and broader communities