In the spring of 2009 I had extensive discussions with faculty, students and staff about the distinctive aspects of the Wesleyan experience, and then I spent the summer developing a framework for strengthening these aspects. In the fall of 2009 we posted Wesleyan 2020: Preliminary Reflections on Planning. Since September, responses and suggestions have been coming to us regularly from faculty, staff, students, and alumni — mainly through a number of fora and other meetings devoted to discussion of the plan. On the basis of these discussions, we have a revised document Wesleyan 2020: A Framework for Planning which is posted below. As a “framework for planning” it is not so much a checklist as a flexible paradigm to guide our decision making. It will doubtless engender more responses in the future, and we are prepared to revise it as a “living document.” I hope that the trustees, who have been deliberating on the goals and strategies in this plan for some time, will agree that this revised document broadly reflects the ideas of those who care about the future of our university and that it will help us make the right decisions going forward.
To all of you who responded to Wesleyan 2020 formally or informally, directly or indirectly, I express my thanks. To all who care about Wesleyan, I look forward to your help in building Wesleyan’s future.
[tags]Wesleyan 2020: Preliminary Reflections on Planning, Wesleyan 2020: A Framework for Planning[/tags]