Dear Colleagues,
During the past year, our colleagues across the campus have been hard at work to
implement the initiatives in Uplift Valpo: Our Beacon for the Journey Forward. As we
complete year two of the five-year plan, below is a brief recap of just some of the many
accomplishments our faculty and staff achieved.
LEARN THEME
Learning Experience — Valpo creates an unparalleled learning experience for students
that is nationally recognized for its excellent teaching, experiential learning, and
demonstrated career outcomes.
Valpo Connect
- This year we had our first sustainability cohort, which welcomed 26 students,
and they participated in a weekly colloquium led by Professor of Geography
Bharath Ganesh-Babu, engaging in tasks such as tree-planting and invasive
species removal. A new second theme in Social Justice was developed and
will launch in Fall 2024. - Additional activities in interdisciplinary work that also fall within the general
Valpo Connect framework include the burgeoning Game Center and
conceptualizing the Biotechnology, MedTech, and Energy Center (BioME).
Moving forward, look for the opening of the Game Center in the VUCA,
identifying lab spaces as part of BioME, and growing our Connect Scholar
programs.
Re-imagine General Education
- The most significant accomplishment has been the work to re-imagine our
first-year program for students who are not part of Christ College — the
Honors College. Through the work of the Learn 2a team, the new Valparaiso
University Experience (VUE) was designed through faculty collaboration and
approved through faculty governance. In the week after graduation, over 40
faculty participated in the first VUE workshop to begin the formal
implementation of this new program. - Additional work was done on revision of our general education learning
outcomes. In the coming academic year, be on the lookout for opportunities to
contribute to these updated draft outcomes and begin to envision how we can
evolve the curriculum to ensure our students achieve these outcomes.
Strengthen the Arts and Humanities
- Individual departments worked on ways to better communicate the value and
power of the arts and humanities at Valpo. Additionally, a celebration of the
arts and humanities was initiated in alignment with the SOURCE event during
Spring 2024. Into the future, this group looks to grow that effort and work to lift
up the high-caliber work and outcomes that students achieve in these areas.
SERVE THEME
Service is at the Center of What We Do — We prepare students for lives of service —
lives shaped by a sense of calling, equipped for thoughtful reflection, engaged in the
larger world and responsive to its deepest challenges. As Beacons, we live out our
service-mindedness in our daily commitment to inclusion, justice, diversity, and equity
on our campus and in the community.
Welcoming and Belonging
- Our institutional work to create a more welcoming environment where
students, faculty, and staff feel a sense of belonging has continued on
multiple fronts. The primary work has focused on identifying gaps in retention
and graduation of different University populations. With gaps now identified,
work is being done to close those gaps through developing specific tactics. - Ultimately, our work continues as we adapt the University to best serve our
current and future students to unlock their maximum potential. Through every
aspect of University operations and curricula we must consistently ask how
we become a more student-centered institution within our processes and
procedures.
LEAD THEME
Beacons Lead by Example — Our graduates are sought after for their knowledge,
character, integrity, and wisdom. That translates into thoughtful, compassionate, and
ethical leaders ready to take on the challenges of a complex global world.
Building to Our Future
- At their April 2024 meeting, the Board of Directors approved a resolution to
move forward with fundraising on a new building for the College of Nursing
and Health Professions. Throughout the year, the University worked with an
outside consultant on a potential design of a building that includes space on
the first floor for an outside medical services provider. Fundraising is just
beginning, but as we await that funding coming in, a final design will be
developed to ensure a facility that meets current and future needs.
THRIVE THEME
Strive to Lead Meaningful Lives as Individuals and Work Toward a Better World —
Living out lives of faith and service, grounded in our Lutheran traditions, we thrive in our
calling to serve in society. We strive to lead meaningful lives as individuals and work
toward a better world. Valpo will flourish in its operations and finances and will become
a driving economic force in the northwest Indiana region.
Caring for Faculty and Staff
- In this past year, this group has continued to advocate strongly for the
University to make progress on the compensation gaps that exist across the
institution. Additionally, they identified and made recommendations on other
ways the University could improve its overall benefits package for University
employees. Please see their report here.
Operational Sustainability
- Work continued this year across the institution to close the structural deficit.
Progress was made and additional cost savings and efficiencies have been identified that will be implemented for the FY25 budget, moving us yet closer
to a balanced budget. Continued efforts to identify savings, efficiencies, and
new revenue will continue to allow for operating margin and proper
investment in the people and infrastructure of the University. - Moving forward we need to continue to identify ways to do less with less. This
will mean looking into our own areas and working to identify things that are
not giving the same return on investment of time, effort, and/or money in
creating the best outcomes for our current and future students.
Operationalization
- This past year, work was done to identify what the University needs to do to
move a new idea to become a part of the operations of the instruction. The
critical piece to ensure the thriving of a new idea is to identify the correct
location with the University structure, cultivate the right leadership, and have
the appropriate funds to support its ongoing work.
NEXT YEAR
In year three of implementation, we anticipate that some of the initiatives that we have
been working on will be integrated into the daily operations of the University. Currently
there is only one new initiative that will be added in the coming year around data-driven,
mission-informed decision making. A small implementation team has already been
formed looking to build off of and improve the data and metric work started this past
year under the Operational Sustainability initiative
None of this work would be possible without the dedication of numerous faculty and
staff across the institution who took on these additional roles for the past year or two. As
an institution, we are better because of the time and effort they have given to this
implementation. So be sure to express your gratitude to them the next time you run into
them around campus.
Sincerely,
Kevin Goebbert
Executive Director of Strategic Planning
