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Foundations for Hamilton's Next 200 Years

Strategic Plan Unveiled

Contact: Michael Debraggio
Phone: (315) 859-4680
February 12, 2009

Hamilton College has adopted a new strategic plan that is consistent with its identity, mission and purpose, and attentive to changing demographics and recent economic turmoil. The plan, titled "Foundations for Hamilton's Next 200 Years," identifies four defining values to direct future decision-making.

Acting President and Dean of Faculty Joseph Urgo, who led the 15-month process, called the plan "a statement of strategic intent designed to guide our work at the college for the next five years – through the marking of our Bicentennial in 2012 and beyond." According to Urgo, "The document draws on Hamilton's history and traditions and is mindful of current economic conditions."

The plan takes as its starting point the college's 2002 strategic plan, which affirmed Hamilton's leadership position for teaching students to write and speak well. It acknowledges "the forces that have defined Hamilton over the past 200 years and continue to shape its destiny," and reviews Hamilton's current place in American higher education.

"[O]ur purpose in planning strategically is to identify those areas that have the potential to strengthen the College further," according to the plan. "Hamilton has faced challenges in the past, but never from such a position of relative strength. Over the next several years we will focus on those areas that give us the greatest strategic advantage: the academic program and the community."

Included among the college's top priorities is a long-term goal of being need-blind in admission.

The final document is based on the deliberations of eight subcommittees that reviewed the academic program, faculty and staff recruitment, admission, governance, athletics and residential life, among other topics. Ultimately, four defining values were identified:

  • Education for Self-Direction: "An open curriculum challenges students to acquire a broad liberal arts education. We will help students meet that challenge by making structural and policy improvements to existing advising and course selection procedures. Likewise, we will assess College programs and procedures to ensure that the educational experience is sufficiently rigorous, accessible, and pertinent to our changing student demographic."

  • Self-Governing Community: "Education for self-direction demands an inclusive self-governing community. To the extent possible, constituencies ought to be self-regulating – students regulating students, faculty governing faculty, and staff administering to staff – as well as interlocking, to assure consistent, inclusive, and effective exchange and interaction."
  • Dialogue and Debate: "Self-direction and self-governance require and engender dialogue and debate; opportunities to enhance skills and deepen expertise will be provided to all students and employees, ensuring that the College is an educational institution for all."
  • Engagement with the World: "The purpose of an education centered on self-direction, self-governance, and thoughtful dialogue is to prepare students for effective engagement with the world. Society is served by giving students and faculty alike a place for thinking, imagining, and creating. But on a more practical level – and especially in this economy – we recognize that everything we do on College Hill is influenced by the world around us."

More than two dozen action items were identified in the plan and are now the focus of various committees, task forces and existing departments and programs at the College. Semiannual updates will be reported on the College's strategic planning Web site, where the document is available in PDF form for review and comment.