Marketing·

• develop ways of increasing our name recognition (such as sending information about students' accomplishments to their hometown newspapers, publicizing off-campus the information that appears in the Newsletter)
• sell ourselves more effectively, including communicating the excellence of our academic program
• advertise liberal arts as effective preparation for professions and for graduate school
• jazz up the course descriptions in the curriculum guide

What are our current students'/faculty's/admissions staff's perceptions of what academic program Earlham students need to succeed in finding a job or getting into graduate school?

What do we know about the marketability of the terms: liberal arts, Quaker, small?

How would our various constituencies respond if, in our marketing materials, we minimized the use of terms: liberal arts, Quaker, small?

Do we have evidence about the effectiveness of our website in attracting attention and promoting a positive image?

Can we get data on who visits the site? Do faculty have anecdotal feedback about the success of the web?

Facilities

• Fine Arts Facilities
• improved residential and student-life related facilities
• maintenance/renovation of older classroom buildings

Self-perception: as a community, we need to focus on our distinctive strengths and promote those, not measure ourselves in relation to other academic models

• We need to develop those "family stories" that will shape our sense of historical roots, give meaning to our current practices, and inspire us towards the future
• create ways of strengthening understanding contributions of Quakerism to the ethos of Earlham and to our academic program among: enrolled students, faculty and staff

What differences of opinion might exist among various groups of people at Earlham with regard to our strengths, weaknesses, and future directions?

We need to gather data from more groups such as:

• Office of Multicultural Affairs student/faculty lunch group
• Faculty here for less than a certain number of years

What are current perceptions about whether research/scholarly work by faculty in encouraged, discouraged, required, ignored?

What level of understanding do our current students, faculty, and staff have about Quaker aspects of life at Earlham? How do they get this knowledge?

Quaker

• change how we market the Quaker part of our identity so that it has a more positive effect
• create ways of strengthening understanding contributions of Quakerism to the ethos of Earlham and to our academic program among: enrolled students, faculty and staff

What do we know about the marketability of the term Quaker and how would our various constituencies respond if, in our marketing materials, we minimized the use of term Quaker?

What level of understanding do our current students, faculty, and staff have about Quaker aspects of life at Earlham? How do they get this knowledge?

Academic Program

• in shaping our academic program, how can we build on our strengths, e.g. should Gen Ed requirements be based on interdisciplinary concepts rather than be discipline-based?

Looking at the cluster of courses students take in their careers, is there evidence that they're taking courses outside of their discipline based majors?

Are they being multi- or inter- disciplinary in their choice of courses? Is interdisciplinary studies really a strength of the college? In what way?

What are our current students'/faculty's/admissions staff's perceptions of what academic program Earlham students need to succeed in finding a job or getting into graduate school?

What data can we gather about the potential importance of adding new areas to the curriculum, such as film/video/communication program, etc.?

Let's look at data on faculty size and based on composition of people presently in the pipeline, make projections into the future on faculty size.

What are current perceptions about whether research/scholarly work by faculty in encouraged, discouraged, required, ignored?

Recruitment and Retention·

• improve institutional research on recruitment and retention
• plan additional recruitment efforts based on data
• educate faculty: provide accurate data and eliminate misconceptions

More refinement in the data about which students are leaving (admissions rating, financial aid burden, ethnic groups)

What is our current financial aid policy with regard to gapping? Clarify what happens with a given students package over the four years - does the gap increase as tuition rises?

More precise data on enrollments of different ethnic groups, not just "minorities" as a composite grouping (African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, international students, etc.)

What is the current admissions strategy with regard to diversity recruiting? Is it linked to athletics only? Do we need to have specific training for diversity recruiting?

What data do we have on the success of our minority recruiting?

What evidence do we have on which recruitment efforts are working, which are not working, and which may need more time to take effect? On what basis can we claim that some need more time to take effect? Can we tell which point in the admissions process timeline we're having the least success?

Do we have evidence on whether or now academic advising and training academic advisors has an impact on retention?

Publicizing Our Academic Excellence

• how can we publicize our current practices that recognize academic excellence, like the honor's colloquium, off-campus participation, student research, etc?
• should we institute new practices that recognize excellence, like have a "Dean's List"
• what signs of faculty excellence should we promote, like putting degrees on business cards and on the website, publicizing our research, publications or grants, etc.?

Diversity

• What would it take to become the type of place that would attract people from different groups?
• What do we mean when we say "we value diversity"?
• Does everyone have a shared understanding and acceptance of this?
• How does our curriculum reflect valuing diversity?

More precise data on enrollments of different ethnic groups, not just "minorities" as a composite grouping (African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, international students, etc.)

We need to look at faculty diversity backwards over an extended time period and make forward projections based on the current faculty pipeline.