Southwestern Magazine | Spring 2022

The Tactical Plan is a cohesive document that outlines Southwestern’s future over the next five years. It has five core themes: diversity, inclusion, belonging, and equity (DIBE); student retention; curricular and co-curricular program development; physical and technological campus infrastructure; and faculty/ staff/student competitive compensation. The plan was designed to look ahead to the University’s future in practical, measurable ways that are designed to have positive impacts on students, staff, faculty, and alumni. As the nation’s institutions of higher education confront the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and shifting demographics, Southwestern, with the help of this plan, is in a position to confront these changes head-on without encountering the existential crises facing other universities. “The Tactical Plan is the most exciting thing to come along at Southwestern in a very long time,” says Paul Secord, vice presi- dent for university relations, who was a member of the Tactical Planning Task Force. “It gives very clear definition and speci- ficity and a clear pathway to the steps we need to take collec- tively and individually as an institution to achieve the greatness that we aspire to.” A plan for the future When the pandemic hit the United States in March 2020 and universities across the nation were forced to shutter their doors, many schools wondered whether they would ever open again. Southwestern, on the other hand, continued planning for the future while working on mitigating the risk posed by COVID-19. “Most institutions like us were licking their wounds and watching over their shoulders to see if they would survive,” says Secord. When President Laura Skandera Trombley began her term in July 2020, one of her first acts was to bring campus commu- nity members together to develop a tactical plan. The plan would advance and streamline other current institutional plans—the Strategic Plan, Campus Master Plan, and Student Residential White Paper—while adding other pivotal initiatives to achieve over the next five years. The Tactical Planning Task Force, co-chaired by Trombley and Strategic Planning Committee Chair and Professor of Communication Studies Bob Bednar ’89, was formed in September 2020. It included 20 members of the Strategic Planning Committee as well as members of the faculty, staff, administration, students, trustees, and alumni. The task force met weekly between September 2020 and April 2021 and received hundreds of proposals and suggestions from the Southwestern community, many of which were incorporated into the final plan. “We were able to get together and talk about some big, big issues that affect us both individually in our units and across campus, the county, the city, and the country, for that matter,” says Tom Delahunt, vice president for strategic recruitment and enrollment. Priorities and goals When the Tactical Plan was officially released in July 2021, it contained 36 items in three categories: funding priorities, staffing priorities, and programmatic and policy priorities. Funding priorities are goals that Southwestern has committed to funding and implementing. These include decreasing student indebtedness; ensuring all students have access to two high- impact experiences; funding student and faculty research on a more inclusive history of Southwestern; financing initiatives in the Campus Master Plan, such as building an outdoor pool and outdoor amphitheater; institutionalizing Mosaic, Southwestern’s intentionally designed approach to co-curricular experiences; creating a more robust student employment program, which includes increasing student wages; updating the University’s tech- nology infrastructure; moving to a three-year residency require- ment; renovating Mood-Bridwell Hall; and increasing wages for hourly staff. For Secord, one of the most vital parts of this category is decreasing student indebtedness. Southwestern’s current rate of average student indebtedness is under $32,000 per student at graduation, which is nearly $2,000 less than the national average. The University aims to lower the average rate even further and increase the amounts of need-based scholarships. Secord also emphasizes the focus on ensuring that all students have access to two high-impact experiences, which include study abroad, internship, faculty-student research, and community- engaged learning opportunities. Currently, 86% of graduating students have participated in one high-impact experience, and 42% have participated in two. The University has made efforts to improve student access to these experiences in the past several years, achieving remarkable strides with the introduction of the funded internship program, which enables students to receive funding through the school for outside internships that would normally be unpaid. Vice President for University Relations Paul Secord believes the tactical plan is key to ensuring students from all income levels can receive a world- class education at Southwestern. 25 SOUTHWESTERN