Intellectual Experience

We seek to enhance current students’ intellectual experience and recruit new students by emphasizing the relevance, scholarly merit, and variety in our academic offerings. McKendree will be forward-thinking in its academic programs, as well as in the format we deliver those programs.

Goal 1: Enhance and celebrate scholarship through campus intellectual events.

• Track student involvement in scholarship, academic excellence, and intellectually engaging events (e.g., Academic Excellence Celebration, Brown Bag events, Social Justice and Equity meetings, art and music events) to evaluate and respond to demand.

• Enhance and expand campus events that celebrate scholarship, academic excellence, and intellectual engagement.

• Expand participation in academic excellence events to include faculty, staff, students, and alumni.

Goal 2: Diversify the course-delivery formats available to students and faculty.

• Track student enrollment and demand for courses by format.

• Measure the number of courses offered in formats such as 8-week, online, and synchronous distance.

• Provide professional development specific to the design and instruction of courses with diverse formats.

• Provide student-support services specific to being successful in courses with diverse formats.

 
Goal 3: Use academic programs to recruit and retain students.

• Identify and develop programs (e.g., majors, minors) and cocurricular activities that improve the student experience.

• Use advisory boards to identify new programs and modify existing programs.

• Encourage students to complete internships and other high-impact experiences.

• Identify ways to make the student experience more affordable such as Open Educational Resources.

• Continue efforts to improve holistic advising by building a success team to help retain students and meet various student needs (e.g., transfer, online, and undecided students).

• Increase the number of transfer articulation agreements with community colleges and continue to develop transfer-friendly programs.

• Meet regional workforce needs via collaboration with business or healthcare.