Planning Strategically

In August of 2011, the College began a strategic planning process that included a year of research and study and solicited more than 1,200 comments and suggestions from the entire Grinnell community, including many alumni. These suggestions were organized, reviewed, shaped, and developed by the strategic plan’s working groups and steering committee, the board of trustees, and President Raynard S. Kington. The result is an action plan focused on six strategies to help the College become, in Kington’s words, “the most innovative liberal arts college of our time.” Here are those strategies:

Teaching and learning

Re-envision Grinnell’s commitment to a liberal education and its value in the 21st century. Create an innovative and evolving student-centered, liberal arts curriculum that enables students to be successful in an ever-changing world and that informs and enriches the lives of Grinnell graduates.

Enrollment

Attract, enrich, and graduate a diverse and talented student community. Develop financially sustainable admission and financial-aid policies consistent with a mission of academic excellence and educational access.

Postgraduation success

Instill an orientation to the future and intentionally connect the Grinnell educational experience to postgraduate endeavors. Create a curriculum and learning environment that enables and encourages students to pursue and succeed in multiple life paths and careers.

Facilities

Build learning spaces that encourage collaboration, creativity, and inquiry. Design, operate, and support all spaces on the campus to enhance the academic, social, and environmental success of the Grinnell College community.

Alumni engagement

Foster lifelong learning and contributions of alumni in the College’s intellectual life, service, mentorship, and advising. Purposefully include alumni in all strategies when designing the Grinnell alumni community, alumni-to-alumni relations, and College-to-alumni relations.

Resource management

Transform administrative practices to maintain continuous, collaborative, and adaptive planning for the College. Create a fiscally sustainable business model that supports the College’s continuing enhancements and maintains stability through variations in revenue sources and expenditure patterns.

Grinnell’s plan also establishes a $2.5 million innovation fund over the next five years to launch projects that have the potential to transform teaching and learning at Grinnell.