Strategic Plan
Mission
We seek to enrich the Baylor experience through life-changing programs and services resulting in an integrated education known for leadership, service, Christian faith, and the total development of students.
Vision
We will be a transformative presence in all our students’ lives, equipping them to make a positive impact on society.
Strategic Goals
Guided by this mission, the University’s strategic vision, the wisdom of our professional discipline, and most of all, our common Christian faith, Student Life cultivates an environment that nurtures calling, wholeness, community, and citizenship. To this end, in the Division of Student Life:
- We help students discover calling
- We develop the whole student
- We build community
- We cultivate global citizenship
Strategies
Objectives are prioritized division-wide initiatives that will help Student Life achieve its goals. As we seek to cultivate global citizenship, build community on campus, help students understand calling and develop the whole student, the division will focus on the following objectives for the next several years:
- Enhance spiritual formation
- Enrich the on-campus experience
- Expand student leader development and civic mindedness
- Elevate efficiency and effectiveness of operational environments
- Enlarge cultural and global perspectives
Pro Futuris Goal: Strengthen holistic student learning and formation within a supportive campus community
1. Enhance spiritual formation - examine and strengthen the spiritually formative experiences of our students.
- - Initiate a major study that identifies spiritual characteristics of students as they enter Baylor, determines what impacts them spiritually while they are undergraduates, and investigates how they perceive their spiritual experience 8-10 years later
- Establish new model for sports ministry
- Enrich worship and reflection experiences and spaces
- Enhance the vibrancy of chartered religious student organizations
2. Enrich the on-campus experience - expand access to and opportunities for students to live, learn, and engage in on
- -campus experiences that deepen their knowledge of self, others, and God's world.
- Implement thematic annual programming that underscores living in authentic Christian community
- Strengthen on-campus night and weekend programming
- Focus on the facility needs in residence halls and complete the residence hall refurbishment plan
- Expand the number of students who live on campus
- Increase access to student event, meeting, social, and support services spaces
- Increase access to student recreation, intramural, fitness, and club sport activities
3. Expand student leader development and civic mindedness - implement a more coherent set of university-wide experiences that uniquely equip students to inspire and influence others and be catalysts toward a better future.
- - Work with academic colleagues to implement the university-wide student leadership education and development initiatives
- Create new ways of connecting student engagement in the community with classes
- Expand opportunities for students to gain leadership capacity through on-campus involvement and work experiences
- Equip student organizations with intentional advising, programming resources, and opportunities for professional development outside of Baylor
- Study and establish new model to strengthen civic and missional engagement
4. Elevate efficiency and effectiveness of operational environments - examine and improve services and structures that promote student learning, formation, and support.
- - Conduct review of current organizational structures and staffing and implement prioritized recommendations
- Review the implementation of Pepper Hamilton recommendations and adjust as needed to help students feel safe and be safe
- Maintain focus on organizational assessment and program evaluation and subsequent implementation of prioritized findings
- Research and implement innovative solutions to respond to the evolving needs of students
- Expand income generating and fundraising efforts
5. Enlarge cultural and global perspectives - create and implement strategies to increase cultural competence and inclusion.
- - Conduct education and training on cultural competence, humility, respect, and Christian hospitality for students, student leaders and organizations, student organization advisors, and division staff
- Enhance existing collaborative initiatives for dialogue and interactive learning (i.e., This Matters, Public Deliberation Initiative, Inter-Group Dialogue, Better Together, Cross Cultural Ministries, etc.)
- Strengthen processes for broadening underrepresented student participation in leadership positions
- Work with academic partners on strategies for cultural education such as McNair Scholars, Student Exchange Programs (Xavier), Project Male, Freedom School Project (SoE), Inter-Group Dialogue for faculty initiative, etc.
- Work closely with academic colleagues to advance QEP on Global Baylor
- Seek points of connection with the Baylor Latin America Initiative