Strategic Plan

Priorities & Goals

Overview

Dare to Make a Difference, the 2009-2014 strategic plan for Butler University, sets goals of increasing the University's public profile and revenue sources, expanding academic offerings and sustaining high rates of student retention and graduation. In total, the plan includes 38 goals organized under nine priorities.

Priority 1: Encourage academic excellence and innovation.

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  • Goal 1A: Invigorate Butler's recently-created, interdisciplinary core curriculum and leverage its distinctiveness.

  • Goal 1B: Maintain assessment of learning outcomes and review of individual programs to promote increasing quality across all academic offerings.

  • Goal 1C: Employ comprehensive academic program review to ensure a mission-driven, market-smart program mix and to sustain program quality.

  • Goal 1D: Sustain our existing reputation for excellence in natural, pharmaceutical, and health sciences by investing in the necessary academic infrastructures to support these programs.

  • Goal 1E: Meet students' evolving educational needs by developing viable new undergraduate and graduate programs consistent with Butler's mission, history, and strengths.

  • Goal 1F: Establish mechanisms to inspire and support academic innovation and an entrepreneurial spirit.

  • Goal 1G: Deliver high-quality, innovative education to the new generation of digital learners by better understanding tomorrow's students and serving their technology needs.
Priority 2: Develop, strengthen, and expand creative co-curricular programs and campus collaborations to promote student learning, development, retention, and success.

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  • Goal 2A: Link student affairs and student academic support by adopting a developmental approach to co-curricular experiences and academic support programming.

  • Goal 2B: Equip students with the knowledge and skills that inspire them to be civic-minded and enable them to lead.

  • Goal 2C: Capture synergies among academic and co-curricular programs and activities designed to enrich the campus experience for high- achieving students.

  • Goal 2D: Increase and coordinate programming that explores issues of personal health and safety, decision-making, and social responsibility for students, faculty and staff through collaborations across the University community.

  • Goal 2E: Build on the important opportunities for student development in leadership, teamwork, and community consistently provided by the University's athletic programs.

  • Goal 2F: Undertake planning for a Learning Commons to bring together facilities, programs, and services of the Library, Learning Resource Center, and Internship and Career Services.

  • Goal 2G: Attain an average freshman to sophomore retention rate of 90% and a six-year graduation rate of 75%. Student retention and graduation rates are direct indicators of institutional effectiveness.
Priority 3: Pursue creative collaborations to engage students in learning experiences with local impact and national reach.

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  • Goal 3A: In collaboration with our urban partners, pursue nationally significant initiatives by engaging Butler students, faculty, and staff in meaningful experiential learning and research activities.

  • Goal 3B: Position Butler as a service-oriented, intellectual, cultural, social, civic and recreational resource of choice for Indianapolis.

  • Goal 3C: In collaboration with the Butler-Tarkington Neighborhood Association, the Indianapolis Public Schools, and other city institutions, work actively to ensure that the Butler-Tarkington neighborhood remains one of the most valuable, attractive, vibrant, and safe neighborhoods in the City of Indianapolis.

  • Goal 3D: Expand our horizons nationally by developing experiential learning opportunities in other US locations.
Priority 4: Build on Butler's reputation in international education by forging additional opportunities and partnerships.

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  • Goal 4A: Bolster existing global education efforts by establishing the Center for Global Education (CGE) as the intellectual and physical home for academic global initiatives.

  • Goal 4B: Foster creative collaborations that result in a more integrated and dynamic mix of global studies offerings.

  • Goal 4C: Increase the percentage of students studying abroad.
Priority 5: With our mission and commitments firmly in mind, calibrate Butler's optimal student body size and shape, given coming demographic shifts and the dynamic external financial environment.

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  • Goal 5A: Sustain full-time undergraduate student enrollment in the range of 3750 to 4000.

  • Goal 5B: To provide greater access to need-based financial aid for students and work to ensure a reasonable but still competitive balance between Butler academic merit scholarships and Butler need-based grants.

  • Goal 5C: Continue to increase the percentage of American minority students in the full-time undergraduate student body.
Priority 6: Make Butler an employer of choice for a highly qualified, diverse mix of faculty and staff.

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  • Goal 6A: Provide faculty and staff with the support and tools necessary to act on their commitments to excellence and innovation.

  • Goal 6B: Ensure that Butler's working environment reflects and supports cultural diversity.

  • Goal 6C: Increase Butler's profile as an employer of choice by increasing awareness of the strengths of the Butler University community for prospective employees.
Priority 7: Construct and maintain facilities and infrastructure commensurate to the mission and reflective of the commitments and aspirations of the University.

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  • Goal 7A: Maintain residential and co-curricular spaces that are safe, functional, environmentally responsible, and marketable.

  • Goal 7B: Identify, prioritize, and boldly address capital renewal and deferred maintenance needs.

  • Goal 7C: Extend the campus master plan in ways that align with the aspirations outlined in the 2009-2014 strategic plan, the results from the comprehensive academic program review, and the athletic program review.

  • Goal 7D: Formulate a master plan for information technology.
Priority 8: Grow and steward resources that enable us to execute our plans and sustain the University for future generations of students.

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  • Goal 8A: Sustain financial equilibrium.

  • Goal 8B: Generate funding required to advance Butler's aspirations.

  • Goal 8C: Identify and launch viable new revenue-generating academic programs and auxiliary activities.

  • Goal 8D: Continue to increase the effectiveness of the Board of Trustees.

  • Goal 8E: Further engage Butler alumni in the life of the University.
Priority 9: Increase Butler's national profile.

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  • Goal 9A: Increase Butler's academic profile by collecting and publicly disseminating evidence of our educational outcomes.

  • Goal 9B: Continue implementing a Coordinated Marketing Communications plan that reflects Butler's mission and commitments while embarking on public relations and advertising initiatives that lift our national profile.