“Throughout the creation of this plan, members of the Lafayette community affirmed their conviction that the College is poised to build academic programs of unsurpassed quality,” Weiss says. “Toward that end we have set forth a series of bold and ambitious steps designed to make Lafayette College a truly great undergraduate institution.”

The plan identifies five key objectives: to build a truly outstanding faculty dedicated to the Lafayette model of education; create a curriculum and learning environment for the new century that are innovative, progressive, challenging, and distinctive; establish an integrated center for the life sciences equal in quality to the finest at any small college in the nation; make programs in the creative arts an essential feature of the College and ensure that they are known for their outstanding quality, presence, and relevance to both the campus and larger community; and attract and support a diverse campus community.

In addition, the plan identifies supporting initiatives to strengthen campus resources that ensure the high quality of academic programs and campus life on a daily basis. These include upgrading the campus infrastructure, augmenting financial resources for the present and the future, and strengthening the sense of community at Lafayette.

The plan also calls for furthering the ties between the College and the City of Easton.

The board’s approval is the culmination of an inclusive, comprehensive 18-month planning process, led by Weiss, that involved all of the College’s constituencies. Weiss formally launched the plan’s development when he created a Strategic Planning Steering Committee made up of trustees, faculty, and administrators in August 2006. Weiss chaired the committee, which identified the core values that would guide the planning; led a College-wide process of discussion, review, and assessment; and facilitated the involvement of all areas of the Lafayettecommunity in the discussion.

Working groups chaired by members of the Steering Committee examined in detail nine selected planning topics: the faculty, the curriculum, global issues, the arts, the life sciences, information services, diversity and student access, the student experience, and the City of Easton. More than 140 faculty, staff members, trustees, students, alumni, and members of the community participated in the working groups. Recommendations emerging from the working groups were reviewed with faculty committees, the Board of Trustees, and alumni groups nationwide.

After reviewing the working-group reports and recommendations, the Steering Committee identified the plan’s five key objectives and nine supporting initiatives, which are intended to build on the considerable progress that Lafayette has made over the past decade in strengthening the quality of the academic core.

“At no other point in its history has Lafayette been in a better position to capitalize on its strengths,” Weiss says. “With our new strategic plan we look to the future with energy and ambition. I am grateful to all who participated in this process. By working together to fulfill our aspirations, we will secure the position of leadership we seek for Lafayette and provide an even more distinctive and dynamic learning environment for our students, now and in the years ahead.”

The Plan for Lafayette
2007

Lafayette is uniquely well positioned to take bold steps to enhance its standing among America's leading small colleges. Discussions throughout the planning process have reinforced our confidence in the abiding value of the College's educational mission, which focuses on preparing bright and talented undergraduates to succeed in an increasingly technological, diverse, and interconnected world.

These deliberations have also identified significant new opportunities for us to build upon Lafayette's most distinctive features. We have the potential, for example, to benefit more fully from the synergy between the College's programs in the arts and sciences and its offerings in engineering. We can enhance the academic success of each student by increasing the degree of personal attention and mentoring that he or she receives from faculty, and we can ensure that these outstanding teachers and scholars receive more tangible support for their efforts. We can provide more opportunities for interdisciplinary and independent work and broaden the global dimension of our educational offerings. We can also make our campus community more openly welcoming and diverse.

The following specific benchmarks – which we expect to achieve within the timeframe of this plan – attest to the depth of our commitment to ensure that Lafayette is recognized as a premier small college that is academically distinguished and international in reach and presence.

• To position Lafayette among the top-tier liberal-arts colleges on such key academic measures as student/faculty ratio, financial-aid allocations, endowment per student, and funding for library resources and information technology
• To match or exceed the success of those institutions in the number of prestigious post-graduate scholarships and fellowships awarded, the percentage of Lafayette students enrolling in graduate and professional schools, the support for career planning and placement, and the rate at which the College's graduates are accepted by the most selective programs
• To invest so substantially in the size and quality of Lafayette's faculty that every student could benefit from both unsurpassed academic, professional, and personal mentoring and an opportunity to be guided by professors committed to working individually with students
• To offer a curriculum that is distinguished for its range, depth, and rigor and that is characterized by balance in quality and opportunities among all four divisions of the College. Specific curricular initiatives to be undertaken include the creation of a Life Sciences Center and increased focus on Lafayette's programs in the creative arts.
• To ensure that no student who has the ability and motivation to flourish academically at Lafayette is denied access on the basis of limited personal financial resources
• To enable every Lafayette student to benefit from an environment that reflects diversity of thought, background, perspective, and experience
• To serve as a prominent and effective catalyst for Easton's economic revival and cultural renaissance
• To create a campus that is renowned for its beauty, its functionality, and the quality of its facilities
• To increase the market value of Lafayette's endowment and similarly invested funds to at least $1 billion

At no other point in its history has Lafayette been in a better position to capitalize on its strengths. During the past dozen years an aggressive schedule of construction and renovation has created a campus that conveys Lafayette's commitment to educational excellence to even the most casual College Hill visitor. It is in fact difficult to imagine how any other college could have matched the investment Lafayette has made in facilities during this period.

A number of academic departments have acquired impressive new homes: the Williams Visual Arts Building (2001), Hugel Science Center (2001), Oechsle Hall (2002), Acopian Engineering Center (2003), and Ramer History House (2006). David Bishop Skillman Library, which was rededicated in 2005, has grown both in size and in the scope of its mission, which now reflects the growing prominence of information technology in campus academic life.

P T Farinon House and Conway House (1999), Keefe Hall (1999), South College – Jesser Hall (2001), and Fisher Hall East and West, Kamine Hall, and Rubin Hall (Sullivan Lane Residential Village, 2006) are transforming the residential experiences of Lafayette's undergraduates. Kirby House (2001), Easton Hall (2002), and McKeen Hall (2006) are among the facilities renovated as part of the College's commitment to upgrade all of its older residence halls.

Students who take part in recreational and varsity athletic programs benefit from the Kirby Sports Center (2000). Fisher Field at Fisher Stadium (2006-07), anchored at its west end by the Bourger Varsity Football House, is among the finest complexes of its type in the nation. Recent upgrades at Metzgar Fields have included improved facilities for baseball, soccer, field hockey and lacrosse, and softball, and the long-overdue renovation of the McCracken Varsity House. Returning alumni have found a beautiful and welcoming campus home in the Pfenning Alumni Center (2002).

Although these new and renovated facilities provide the most visible evidence that Lafayette has taken significant steps to address the needs of 21st-century undergraduates, the College has made other substantial investments, as well. Several new majors and minors have been approved, many of them, including policy studies, Africana studies, and architectural studies, with strong interdisciplinary orientations. Faculty have been added in such critical areas as Asian Studies and conservation biology.

The College's reputation for educational excellence has also been heightened by the growing national visibility of our faculty. In the past two years alone, Lafayette professors and their work have been featured prominently in, among others, the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Boston Globe, and USA Today, as well as on National Public Radio and NBC's "Today" show. Over the past decade Lafayette faculty have received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Institute for Advanced Study (two awards), National Endowment for the Humanities (six), American Council of Learned Societies, the Fulbright program (four), American Council on Education, Korea Society, Social Science Research Council, and the Alexander von Humboldt/Max Planck Institute, among others.

Lafayette has also been developing a more prominent research culture, as is evidenced by, among other factors, the growing numbers of faculty who secure prestigious grants and fellowships. During the 1999-2000 academic year, eight institutional and individual research grants were awarded to Lafayette and members of its faculty; by 2006-07 the number had increased to 21. During that period external research funding received by the College increased from $367,085 to $1,405,764. Lafayette's increasing competitiveness in this regard is reflected in the fact that while many institutions secure between one and four grants from the National Science Foundation over the course of three years, Lafayette faculty have averaged six NSF awards per year over the past four years, an especially impressive record for a small liberal-arts college. Our success in securing external support is particularly noteworthy because competition for grant support has increased noticeably in the past few years.

These research opportunities provide added educational value directly to our students in myriad ways. For example, the number of EXCEL Scholars working collaboratively with faculty on research projects has grown substantially in recent years, as has Lafayette's investment in the program. Students also benefit from the College's significantly strengthened ties to Easton, which have enhanced volunteer and service-learning opportunities, and from our ongoing commitment to the revitalization of the N. Third Street corridor.

Substantially increased allocations for financial aid have had a demonstrable impact on the quality and diversity of the student body. During the 2006-07 academic year, Lafayette awarded over $26 million in College-funded grants and scholarships, more than double the $11.26 million allocated for that purpose in 1996-97. The College's exceptionally productive partnership with the Posse Foundation has enriched the student body through the enrollment of dozens of talented young leaders from historically underrepresented groups. An additional benefit of these investments has been the substantial improvement in the academic preparation of our incoming students. Lafayette's growing prominence in the highly competitive admissions marketplace is reflected in the impressive increase in the number of applications for admission, from 4,177 for the Class of 2001 to a record-setting 6,364 for the Class of 2011. The academic profile of the entering classes has also improved measurably during this period.

Financial resources have kept pace, as well. From June 30, 1997, to June 30, 2007, the market value of Lafayette's endowment and similarly invested funds increased from $428.7 million to $780.2 million. During that same period, gifts to the Lafayette Annual Fund, which provides operating support for the College's programs, grew from $3.76 million to more than $6.76 million.

As impressive as these examples of progress are, we still fall considerably short of achieving Lafayette's potential. The work accomplished thus far provides us with both the platform and the momentum to enable the College to have an even more profound impact on its students and community. As a small college that takes considerable pride in doing the right things exceptionally well, Lafayette also stands ready to set a national example for educational leadership as it fulfills the vision outlined in this plan. While we are in the enviable position of not needing to repair anything that is broken, we have a substantial opportunity to strengthen our programs and enrich the educational experience of our students.

The guiding vision for this strategic plan is the belief that Lafayette should focus its attention – and its resources – on initiatives that strengthen two essential building blocks: the College's academic core and its human capital. We envision, first and foremost, a Lafayette whose academic mission is more dynamic and vital. We look forward, as well, to a Lafayette that fosters a more powerful sense of itself as a community whose members value and support one another and who are eager to serve as catalysts for productive partnerships with other communities.

Core Values and the Planning Process

Although the purpose of the strategic plan is to focus attention within the broad Lafayette community on the specific steps that will best enable the College to achieve its vision, the document will have little meaning if the priorities and goals it sets forth do not thoughtfully reflect Lafayette's most deeply cherished values. For that reason, one of the first steps undertaken by the Strategic Planning Steering Committee (SPSC), working closely with members of the Board of Trustees, was to identify the core values that have long defined and empowered the College and that would, in turn, guide the planning process.

Those discussions focused on four key components of Lafayette's core identity and purpose:

• To educate highly promising students and promote the intellectual and personal maturation required for global citizenship
• To promote excellence in faculty as teachers and scholars who make meaningful contributions to the lives of their students and to the knowledge and conduct of their disciplines
• To support highly qualified administrators and staff who are essential to the functioning and advancement of the College
• To be a caring and engaged community whose members are mutually interested in the well being and flourishing of all.

During the fall semester of 2006, after the core values had been identified, the SPSC formed working groups to examine, in detail, nine selected topics identified as having special relevance to the planning process: the faculty, the curriculum, global issues, the arts, the life sciences, information services, diversity and student access, the student experience, and the City of Easton. Each working group was chaired by a member of the Committee.

During the winter and spring of 2006-07, more than 140 faculty, staff members, trustees, students, alumni, and members of the community participated in the working groups. Following a lengthy period of review and discussion, each working group prepared a detailed written report that included specific recommendations. Drafts and final reports were circulated; open meetings were held for the campus community; and each working group met with the full SPSC. Emerging recommendations were reviewed with the Faculty Academic Policy Committee, the Curriculum and Educational Policy Committee, the Committee on Student Life, and the Governance Committee, as well as with the Board of Trustees and alumni groups nationwide.

After thoroughly reviewing the working-group reports and recommendations, the SPSC identified five broad, overarching areas – the faculty, the curriculum, the life sciences, the creative arts, and diversity and access – and developed specific strategic initiatives for each. The Committee then identified a sixth area – essential campus and community resources – that will be critical to our success in achieving the goals of the plan and ensuring the long-term vitality of the College.

Vision and Objectives

The five key objectives and nine supporting initiatives summarized below are intended to build on the considerable progress that Lafayette has made over the past decade in strengthening the quality of the College's academic core. In realizing the goals of this plan, the College expects to deepen and extend its curriculum within and across each of the four academic divisions; to achieve greater pluralism and diversity within its community of students, staff, and faculty; to create new and improved opportunities for individual mentoring and instruction; to have a greater impact locally, nationally, and internationally in areas of faculty scholarship, student achievement, and alumni leadership; and to develop resources and facilities comparable to those found at the best small colleges in the nation. In addition, Lafayette seeks to offer a rich and stimulating environment for personal and intellectual growth beyond the classroom, one characterized by outstanding cultural programming, a high level of community engagement, and opportunities for meaningful involvement in extracurricular activities, including clubs, athletics, and student service organizations.

The educational experience of Lafayette students, like those at other outstanding small colleges, depends fundamentally on the quality of the faculty and on the faculty's effectiveness in maximizing each student's intellectual development. The College takes justifiable pride in the accomplishments of its faculty as master teachers, talented guides and mentors, scholars of national distinction, and leaders within their disciplines. Indeed, no single factor is more important to the academic quality of the College – and to the success of this plan – than a strong and well-supported faculty.

It is imperative for Lafayette to build on its current strengths by continuing to recruit and retain the very best faculty – individuals who are outstanding teachers and productive scholars and who demonstrate a special commitment to the education of undergraduates – and by providing them with an environment and resources that enable them to achieve their highest potential.

• The overall size of the faculty in relation to student enrollments provides a crucial measure of how much attention each Lafayette undergraduate can expect to receive from his or her professors. By reducing the ratio of students to faculty from the current 11:1 to below 10:1, a level that more closely matches the market's expectations for premier small colleges in the U.S., Lafayette will both strengthen its academic core in substantial and demonstrable ways and increase its attractiveness to prospective students seeking the small-college experience. Specifically, we plan to increase the overall size of the faculty by 35 positions (approximately 20%) without increasing the size of the student body. The new positions will be dedicated to accomplishing the following specific goals: (1) to strengthen teaching power in departments and programs that have experienced strong growth in enrollments and increases in class size; (2) to enable greater depth and breadth of curricular offerings consistent with department and program missions; and (3) to fulfill strategic initiatives outlined in this plan.
• The College will further demonstrate its commitment to make the Lafayette model of education more successful by taking steps to permit faculty to provide more highly individualized learning and research opportunities for their students and to allow them to devote more time to their own research. We will also adjust the system of compensation and other rewards to be consistent with these goals and to provide greater incentives for demonstrating and maintaining excellence. These steps, focusing on workload restructuring and merit pay to bring the College in line with the standards at the best undergraduate institutions, will improve Lafayette's competitiveness in recruiting, retaining, and rewarding a talented and dedicated faculty.
• The creation of a Center for Teaching and Learning on campus will further strengthen Lafayette's commitment to the core value of supporting the development of faculty as innovative and effective teachers and scholars. This center, which will be situated within the Office of the Dean of the College, will provide faculty with the resources to explore pedagogical best practices and nationwide trends in the uses of technology in curricular design. The new center will also enhance the ability of faculty to make meaningful contributions to the lives of their students and to the knowledge and conduct of their disciplines.
• Investments in new faculty will also play a crucial role in achieving many of the academic goals outlined in the following four objectives of this plan.

Lafayette is committed to supporting a curriculum that meets the needs of its students and graduates in a complex, rapidly changing world. Above all, such a curriculum must be dynamic, balancing the acquisition of key skills with the special benefits that derive from a liberal education in the broadest sense and from Lafayette's unique mission and resources.

• General education. Lafayette's foundation curriculum, the distribution-based Common Course of Study, should take best advantage of the College's distinctive curricular features. Options for consideration may include encouraging students to take a general engineering course with substantial hands-on experience; retaining the robust five-course writing requirement, including the First-Year and VAST seminars, but perhaps with new models of distribution; and adopting a second-language and cross-cultural requirement for all students. Specific recommendations will be developed in 2007-08 by the Curriculum and Educational Policy Committee, informed in part by the self-study components of Lafayette's reaccreditation by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET).
• Education for the global environment. Lafayette will expand the geographical and cultural scope of its global offerings through such steps as enhancing the commitment to study abroad, particularly in non-Anglophone countries; creating a Center for Global Studies to emphasize multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to global issues; developing a global studies major; strengthening representation in selected area studies; and expanding the language offerings in those areas.
• Education for the local environment. Lafayette has the potential to become a leader among the top liberal-arts colleges in enabling students to benefit from experiential learning beyond the classroom. An advisory committee is already exploring the organizational structure and institutional resources that would be required in order for the College to achieve this goal. A Center for Community-Based Learning, Research, and Service – ideally to be located along the Third Street corridor at the base of College Hill – would stand as a symbol of welcome and partnership at the gateway to Lafayette's main campus.
• Education for the built environment. With its unusual combination of liberal-arts offerings, an A.B. engineering major, and discipline-specific B.S. engineering programs, Lafayette holds a leadership position among highly selective small colleges in broadening each student's education and fostering engineering and technological literacy. The College can strengthen the integration of the Engineering Division's offerings into the educational experience of non-engineering students and of liberal-arts programming into the experience of engineering majors. New courses can be developed to help all students more fully understand the social, historical, political, moral, and aesthetic implications of engineering practice and accomplishment. Special emphasis will be placed on increasing the profile and standing of the A.B. engineering program as a bridge between the Engineering Division and the liberal arts.
• Education for environmental understanding and action. Building on the existing interdisciplinary environmental science minor, on faculty strengths in all academic divisions of the College, and on the campus community's interest in being more environmentally engaged, Lafayette will increase its commitment to the study of the natural environment, environmental issues, and environmental policies. Specific steps to be considered include adopting a new B.S. environmental sciences and engineering major and a new A.B. major in environmental studies; adding faculty in appropriate areas throughout the divisions of the College to support the program; and adding an introductory course in environmental science and a capstone project course.
• Education beyond the classroom. Lafayette is committed to offering an exceptional student experience, one that fosters the sense of the entire campus as a vibrant place where learning is an all-inclusive, holistic activity that depends not only on serious academic pursuits but also on meaningful out-of-classroom endeavors. Lafayette will take steps to make the connections between the curriculum and the co-curriculum even more seamless. All components of the student experience – including students' social and residential lives and their involvement with extracurricular clubs, community service, and athletics – will be regarded as opportunities for enhanced learning and personal development. The College will also take steps to deepen students' awareness of their responsibilities as members of a larger community.
• Preparation for the future. Lafayette will provide outstanding graduate-school advising, pre-professional mentoring, and career counseling to maximize each student's opportunities for success after graduation.

The life sciences represent one of the great scientific frontiers of the 21st century. Advances in this area will build upon recent revolutionary breakthroughs in, for example, genomics, stem cell research, imaging technologies, geographic information systems, and nanotechnology. These developments have already had far-reaching consequences and directly touch our lives.

Lafayette students who major in the life sciences will benefit from a new type of science education, one that will enable them to acquire not only expertise in traditional disciplines but also sufficiently broad training to understand and address tomorrow's problems: problems that will lie at the intersections of disciplines and at the boundaries of science. It is therefore imperative that Lafayette move aggressively to create programs in the life sciences that recognize both the increasing degree of connectivity between the natural and applied sciences and the growing interplay, for example, among scientists, engineers, physicians, humanists, and policymakers – trends that we anticipate will continue unabated.

At Lafayette College we can do more than just meet the needs of life scientists. By virtue of the quality and breadth of our faculty across all four divisions of the College and the strength of our existing resources, we are uniquely well positioned to accomplish the true curricular innovation that will make us a leader among undergraduate colleges which offer programs in the life sciences. This initiative will benefit from the construction of a Life Sciences Center to serve as a home for the program and to support its administrative, pedagogical, and research needs. Students enrolled in this program will be exceptionally well prepared to excel as research scientists and teachers, health professionals, engineers, lawyers and business leaders, policy makers, and government officials, and in a wide range of other careers. The program will also enhance the development of our students as global citizens and as leaders in the new century.

• Lafayette's program will feature both new initiatives and offerings that draw upon existing strengths. This integrated, multidisciplinary program will take special advantage of our mix of A.B. and B.S. degree programs, including those in engineering and science. Scientists, engineers, humanists, and policy specialists will work together to support the development of a life sciences program characterized by breadth as well as by depth.
• Fields to be represented in the program include, in addition to the appropriate existing core disciplines, bio-engineering, neuroscience, computational biology, mathematical biology, biophysics, environmental science, and policy studies.
• Because independent scholarship is pivotal to the educational development of undergraduates and to their post-graduate success, Lafayette will provide special opportunities for students in the life sciences to benefit from internships and focused research. Specific steps that will enable the College to achieve this goal include enhancing the summer EXCEL Scholars Program, expanding LEARN (Lafayette Alumni Research Network) opportunities, and creating a Practitioners in the Life Sciences Internship Program.
• A state-of-the-art and environmentally friendly Life Sciences Center will be constructed on campus to house the program and to foster the highest possible level of communication, cooperation, and collaboration in teaching and research among the disciplines that are involved. In addition to helping to promote and strengthen student learning and research in the life sciences, the Center will provide a social context for those activities.

The investments students make in the artistic process in the classroom, the studio, the rehearsal room, the concert hall, the media lab, and in countless other campus locations are fundamental to the College's educational enterprise and to the goals of a liberal education.

Through the Williams Center for the Arts, the Williams Visual Arts Building, the Experimental Printmaking Institute, and the departments and programs they house, the College already makes a powerful and visible statement about its commitment to excellence in the creative arts. The need to build on this commitment is also reflected in the growing student interest in the College's offerings in creative writing and in film and media studies.

Our challenge now is to position the creative arts even more centrally in the life of the College. Achieving this goal will require both substantial programmatic enhancements and additional space.

• Lafayette will strengthen its core instructional programs in art, music, theater, creative writing, and film and media studies; enhance its broader cultural offerings, including the Williams Center performance series, gallery exhibitions, and artistic residencies; and seek a demonstrably higher level of student engagement with all of these programs.
• Lafayette will consider creating a major in theater arts. The addition of a major in this discipline will add focus and depth to Lafayette's academic offerings in theater ideas, practice, and performance, as well as the study of dramatic literature. Because active learning is crucial to the program's success, additional space will be required for studio courses and rehearsal and performance needs. Increased instructional and technical support will also be required.
• Lafayette will consider the development of a unique interdisciplinary program in film and media studies. This program will integrate rigorous critical study with creative production within a liberal arts context. It will build upon and enhance Lafayette's existing strengths, creating opportunities to bring together obvious disciplinary partners such as English and art, or philosophy and sociology, but also nurturing less obvious collaborations between, for example, computer science and theater, or engineering and music. Lafayette's program will also build active relationships with established film and media artists, integrating career opportunities for students within local, regional, national, and international centers of film and media activity.
• Additional space will be allocated to the arts on campus. The substantial expansion of the Williams Center for the Arts, which opened in 1983, will foster increased collaboration and interdisciplinary programming among the performing arts, the fine arts, art and music history, and gallery exhibits. A larger home for the Experimental Printmaking Institute will further enhance its role as a signature program at Lafayette. The development of the N. Third Street corridor as a site for additional arts-related functions, in particular those related to the visual arts, will reinforce the prominent role already played by the Williams Visual Arts Building in underscoring Lafayette's commitment to excellence in the arts and in linking the campus arts community with related communities in Easton and throughout the Lehigh Valley.
• The College will also take steps to make the broader campus culture more welcoming to the creation, display, performance, and appreciation of art.

Lafayette believes that diversity is fundamental to the education of its students because it helps prepare them to pursue lives of significance as leaders in an increasingly interconnected, globalized world. Such leaders understand and practice acceptance, adaptability, pluralism, and inclusiveness. We believe that these attributes can best be learned in an environment that models and encourages them – both inside and outside the classroom.

We recognize, as well, that actively seeking greater diversity of talent and experience among our students, faculty, and staff will enhance Lafayette's position as an academically distinctive institution. We also believe that in embracing diversity Lafayette best fulfills its social mission by furthering access to higher education for all. Achieving this objective will be challenging and will require ongoing effort.

During academic years 2007-09, a Presidential Planning Grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will support first-stage efforts to identify the factors that most directly affect Lafayette's success in recruiting under-represented groups and to plan, implement, and evaluate strategies to enhance diversity within the student body.

• Lafayette will modify its admissions and financial-aid practices and substantially increase its financial resources to support need-blind/full-need admissions and reduce the extent of loans in the financial-aid packages provided to our students. Additional initiatives will be undertaken to enhance diversity within the student body and provide greater access to qualified students regardless of their ability to pay.
• Lafayette will develop and implement more aggressive recruitment strategies to ensure diverse applicant pools for all positions at the College and will provide greater opportunities for the professional development of its staff. Toward this end, the College will implement a faculty recruitment program focused on target-of-opportunity hires that advance academic objectives and increase diversity.
• Lafayette will strengthen its curriculum and comprehensive support services to further its diversity goal and will establish diversity as a central value in the operational and administrative structure of the College.
• Lafayette will enhance its programming and staffing to underscore its commitment to provide a learning environment that strongly encourages and supports diversity of thought, perspective, ideas, belief systems, values, passions, and interests. By achieving this goal, the College will also do its part to model a vital and engaged pluralistic community.

While the preceding five objectives are designed to secure a place for Lafayette among the nation's premier liberal-arts institutions, the College's long-term vitality will also depend directly on the success of efforts to strengthen the key resources that ensure the ongoing high quality of academic programs and campus life on a daily basis. These assets include buildings, print and electronic resources, and other critical components of the campus infrastructure; the funds raised and invested by the College; and Lafayette's core identity as a community.

To upgrade the campus infrastructure

• Facilities. Although the Lafayette Leadership Campaign addressed a number of pressing needs for new and renovated facilities, Lafayette must continue to make substantial investments to ensure that its buildings and public spaces effectively support and advance the College's core educational mission. Specific renovation and construction projects will not be determined until a new Campus Master Plan is completed during the 2007-08 academic year. We anticipate, however, that the list of buildings requiring attention will include Colton Chapel, Kunkel Hall, McKelvy House, Pardee Hall, the former Phi Delta Theta chapter house, and Van Wickle Hall. In addition, we envision the need to enlarge the Williams Center for the Arts and to construct several new facilities to support specific initiatives outlined in this plan, including a Life Sciences building, an admissions welcome center, and an academic building to accommodate the increased size of the faculty.
• Information technology. A robust and sustainable digital environment enables Lafayette to excel in preparing its students to thrive in a diverse, post-industrial world. In order to keep pace with the rapid advances in information technology, the College must make greater investments in its digital environment, including adequate provision, on an ongoing basis, for the design, repair, and replacement of the campus network, and must provide sufficient staff to accomplish that work. Information technology support, both distributed and central, must also be increased for all of the College's academic and administrative divisions.
• Libraries. Lafayette's libraries support the core educational mission by providing an array of information services and resources and a supportive environment for teaching, learning, and research. Lafayette will not be able to achieve the level of academic distinction it seeks unless it makes a significantly greater investment in the College's permanent library holdings, including the special collections in Skillman Library. In order to do so, we need to increase the annual budget for library collections to a level that matches or exceeds the level at our peer institutions. The acquisitions program for rare books and manuscripts should be expanded to build on existing strengths, enhance the distinctiveness of our collections, and accommodate new initiatives to support the curriculum.

• Annual Fund. In 1995-96, the first year of the Lafayette Leadership Campaign, gifts to the Lafayette College Annual Fund totaled $3.37 million. In 2006-07 the figure exceeded $6.76 million (an amount that would have required roughly $135 million in endowment to generate based on the Board of Trustees' current policy for spendable earnings). The substantial support the Annual Fund receives from a broad base of alumni, parents, and friends reflects the degree to which the annual-giving program has matured to keep pace with the College's ongoing need for operating funds. Continued steady growth will be required in order to address anticipated cost increases in the future. Our goal is to increase the level of support provided by the annual-giving program to approximately $10 million per year within the timeframe of this planning document.
• Endowment. A critical measure of a college's strength is the size of its permanent endowment. On June 30, 2007, the market value of Lafayette's endowment and similarly invested funds was $780.2 million. The size of its endowment places Lafayette in the top 2% of America's independent colleges in endowment per student. Lafayette's success in maintaining this competitive edge will depend on the substantial growth of the endowment to address the increased costs associated with sustaining current programs and implementing the important educational initiatives proposed in this plan. Lafayette intends to increase the value of its endowment to more than $1 billion during the period covered by this strategic plan.

• Community partnerships. In partnership with the local community, Lafayette will seek to apply its human, intellectual, and institutional resources to revitalize Easton socially, economically, and in terms of the quality of life enjoyed by its residents and visitors. Specific goals include continuing to invest in the transformation of N. Third Street; making College Hill a more welcoming environment for its residents on campus and off; encouraging students, faculty, and staff to contribute more of their time and attention to Easton; and joining with other local partners to invest in major initiatives that advance the welfare of the City and its residents.
• Community-based learning, research, and service. The proposed Center for Community-Based Learning, Research, and Service, described as part of the curricular initiatives contained in Objective 2, would strengthen Lafayette's presence in downtown Easton and throughout the local community. Collaborations, partnerships, and experiential learning opportunities supported through the Center would contribute directly to Lafayette's core educational and research mission.
• Interaction among students, faculty, and staff. Lafayette's success in educating undergraduates depends in large measure on the invaluable contributions made by members of the broader campus community – most notably faculty and staff. Lafayette needs to foster a campus culture that takes even greater advantage of the potential of everyone to contribute meaningfully as a stakeholder and steward within the broader community. The College also needs to encourage initiatives that facilitate information-sharing, collaboration, and engagement among students, faculty, and staff in daily campus life.
• Alumni. Lafayette's 27,500 living alumni support and advance the College's core educational mission in a number of remarkably important ways. Grateful for the opportunities they received as undergraduates, alumni are eager to "give something back" to benefit current Lafayette students. In addition to providing a substantial measure of financial support to the College each year, alumni devote their energy and expertise to the College in ways that have a demonstrable impact. A significant portion of the assistance that alumni provide as volunteers directly benefits students. Alumni will serve as essential resources for the College in implementing every key initiative contained in this strategic plan.

Throughout the creation of this plan, members of the Lafayette community affirmed again and again their conviction that the College is poised to build academic programs of unsurpassed quality. Toward that end we have set forth a series of bold and ambitious steps designed to make Lafayette College a truly great undergraduate institution. By working together to fulfill our aspirations, we will secure the position of leadership we seek for Lafayette and provide an even more distinctive and dynamic learning environment for our students, now and in the years ahead.