Strategic Plan for College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Mission
In the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, we empower learners in
their pursuits, professions, and purpose. The college enriches society
through excellent teaching, active scholarship, advancement of equity,
and public service.
Vision
Through our commitment to liberal education, CLAS strives to be an inclusive and equitable community of inquiry where students, staff and faculty collaborate to pursue and create knowledge, to enact global citizenship, and to engage and support our many communities.
Values Statement
We value and work to foster a community in which inclusion, equity,
access, and respect for difference sustain, and are sustained by, a
liberal education that is accessible to and beneficial for all.
We value the uniqueness and the diversity of human experiences and
standpoints and support a student-ready approach to the continuous
improvement of CLAS structures and processes.
We value structures and processes that provide faculty and staff
opportunities to develop as professionals and leaders, that support a
reasonable balance of time and energy across all areas of our lives,
and that provide opportunities to connect and build relationships. We
value the life of the mind, in all its forms, and recognize that the
creation of knowledge and the dissemination of knowledge are closely
connected activities for teacher-scholars.
We value a curriculum with an emphasis on pathways, experiences,
collaborations, and connections that occur within and across courses,
disciplines, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities, and career
plans. We believe that student engagement should be a top priority in
all disciplines and at all levels, so that students understand the
value of education as a lifelong process instead of viewing each
course or degree solely as a means to an end.
We value reciprocal relationships with alumni and other community
partners. Alumni are valuable allies as we strive to create
experiential learning opportunities for our students and to enhance
student understanding of the career-related skills and competencies
gained through their university curriculum. We seek dialogue with
current and potential community partners, and we will develop
partnerships around their needs and goals.
Planning Process
During the Winter 2021 semester, CLAS began a strategic visioning
process in parallel to GVSU’s Reach Higher Together planning process.
The goal of the CLAS visioning process was to develop a shared vision
for the future of public liberal arts and sciences education at Grand
Valley and to imagine possibilities for how that vision could be
realized over time. The visioning process included 90-120 minute
facilitated workshops for all units in CLAS, for all CLAS governance
committees, and for various other groups of stakeholders (e.g., PSS,
APs, unit heads, students). The workshops drew on Appreciative Inquiry
and utilized a SOAR analysis. From January through March 2021, 498
CLAS faculty, staff, and students participated in 33 virtual SOAR
workshops. The workshops were highly participatory, with a majority of
time spent in small group discussion and brainstorming, along with
some large group report-out and discussion. A listener/notetaker was
assigned to each session, and participants also recorded the ideas
generated using Jamboard.
Concurrent with the visioning sessions, a small group of thirteen faculty and staff formed the Winter Strategy and Innovation Group. The College Office put together a group of faculty with diverse experiences and perspectives and Dean Drake invited them to join the Winter SIG; criteria for membership included bringing external relationships, a track record of creativity and innovation, quantitative skills, experience as effective committee members and leaders, dedication to students, disciplinary diversity, a vision for online/hybrid pedagogy, knowledge of GVSU, and experience with diversity, equity, and inclusion. Over the course of the semester, they read and discussed an archive of documents that tapped into the national conversation about possible futures for the liberal arts and sciences in the changing landscape of higher education, attended the visioning sessions as listeners and notetakers, and met to assess the Jamboard data that the visioning conversations had generated.
In May 2021, a group of four faculty members analyzed the qualitative data that was generated during the winter visioning sessions. The data analysis group focused on discerning the patterns of feedback regarding CLAS strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and possible strategic initiatives.
The CLAS community identified several strengths of the College, including the faculty’s shared commitment to high-quality, student-centered teaching; the understanding that scholarship and service are valuable activities that enhance our pedagogical practice; and the multidisciplinary expertise that resides in CLAS. Faculty and staff saw opportunities for the College to increase support for students, staff, and faculty, to realize more meaningful multidisciplinary collaboration, to develop a more innovative and collaborative curriculum, and to engage more deeply with the communities and CLAS alumni in Grand Rapids, West Michigan, the state, and the world. They aspired to be even more student-centered in teaching and in resource allocation. They were committed to building a relationship-rich ecosystem for learning and working, and they sought to collaborate more creatively and effectively across traditional academic boundaries. They valued diversity, equity and inclusion and wanted to continue building the knowledge and capacity to center DEI in our decision-making and daily work.
On May 26-27, 2021, a group of twenty-one faculty and two staff members--the Summer Strategy and Innovation Group (SIG)--met to prepare for their summer work. The College Office invited all members of the Winter Strategy and Innovation Group to continue work into the summer if they so desired. On day one, the data analysis group presented the results of their analyses, and three members of the Winter Strategy and Innovation Group presented key concepts and ideas they encountered during the conversations that took place during the winter semester. The goal was to bring the Summer Strategy and Innovation Group into the research-based conversation from the winter and to lay the foundation for the summer work. Unit heads and the dean’s leadership team also attended to stay abreast of the conversation. On day two, the Summer SIG focused on developing a draft vision statement for the College. The Summer SIG was then divided into three groups, and each group was given the assignment to imagine CLAS 3-5 years from now. What strategies and tactics/initiatives would take the College down the path of realizing the vision suggested by the data and articulated in the draft vision statement? After working for a month, each group presented their thinking at meetings on June 28 and June 29.
Based on the feedback from the summer work, the Dean’s Office wrote a draft vision and commitments document that was presented to the entire CLAS faculty and staff in August 2021. Units were asked to provide feedback on the draft vision plan, and based on that feedback, the vision and commitments were revised and finalized in Winter 2022. In June 2022, a team of CLAS leaders and university partners attended the American Association of Colleges and Universities Institute on High-Impact Practices to work with national experts on finalizing a set of equity-centered strategies and tactics to achieve our vision and enact our commitments--this is the CLAS Voyage.
Collaboration
CLAS set about its visioning work with an eye to university planning efforts, and the Dean ensured that the groups working through the CLAS process were kept abreast of the Reach Higher 2025 drafts and discussions. In addition, CLAS pursued visioning as an iterative process that sought input from faculty and staff within in the college at multiple points during the process. CLAS also collaborated with stakeholders across the institution, including the Director of General Education, the Director of the Center for Undergraduate Scholar Engagement, the Director of Career Services, the Vice Provost for Instructional Development and Innovation, the Vice Provost for Graduate and Lifetime Learning, and the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs (Curriculum).
Building Capacity
In order to build the capacity to launch and sustain the CLAS Voyage, in Fall 2022 the Dean created the CLAS Center for Experiential Learning (CCEL). Beginning in Fall 2025, the Voyage guarantees all CLAS students five experiential learning opportunities: an academic seminar called the Embarking Experience, two high-impact practices embedded in their major, a capstone experience, and regular opportunities for guided reflection. This model fulfills the Reach Higher 2025 promise of an empowered and equitable education and ensures career and life readiness. CCEL provides the administrative infrastructure to create and maintain opportunities for students to participate in experiential learning; facilitates collaboration across and beyond the university, including coordinating the Laker Accelerated Talent Link program; creates and disseminates resources to students and faculty to support experiential learning (including professional development and funding); and leads the assessment of experiential learning in CLAS.
Other capacity-building work includes:
- Reworking a position to hire an Associate Dean for Inclusive Excellence and Curriculum who will lead the College's work to realize its vision for a culture of educational equity.
- Writing grants to support the Voyage, including the successful
$2.2 million Department of Education Sustaining Institutions grant
that will support 5 years of work.
- Building fundraising capacity in partnership with Advancement, including:
- Collaborating to hire an Associate Director of Giving, 50% of whose time will focus on CLAS.
- Developing a unit-based alumni engagement pilot project with 4 units.
- Redesigning the CLAS Alumni Board in collaboration with members, and relaunching as the CLAS Advisory Board.
- Relaunching the CLAS Alumni-in-Residence program, which was on hiatus during the pandemic.
- Centering student success initiatives:
- Expanding the capacity of the Tutoring and Reading Center by advocating for an improved and accessible space and ensuring that 2 leadership positions are base funded.
- Launching a 3-4 year project to redesign high DFW gateway courses through the Gardner Institute.
- Supporting units to redesign their programs so that each major contains 2 unavoidable high-impact experiences.
- Developing policies to support team teaching.
- Sending a team to the yearlong AAC&U ePortfolio Institute.
- Structuring hires to bring in clusters of new faculty who bring
multidisciplinary perspectives that build on existing CLAS strengths
(e.g., Aquatic Restoration and Sustainability in 2022-2023; Society,
Technology, and the Environment in 2023-2024).