|
Strategic plans come
and go as administrations change, but this plan will
give an idea of what Kopp and the school's
Board of Governors see as its primary goals for the
next three to seven years.
Kopp provided
four main areas in which Marshall is seeking advice
on developing its long-term plan:
-
Intellectual
capital, emphasizing educational innovations.
-
Community and
service, focusing on providing students with
knowledge and commitment to be socially
responsible citizens in a diverse world.
-
Economic
development, with the goal of training students
to think critically and be ready to solve
problems that are only now developing.
-
Discovery and
innovation.
People can comment on
the Marshall Web site at www.marshall.edu/strategic.
But this is not an Internet bulletin board where
people will flame one another. Comments are limited
to 255 typed characters. That may be about 40 words
to describe what goals Marshall should pursue.
While some goals may
be far-fetched and some may be obvious, there are
some that Marshall cannot avoid addressing.
The entire faculty pay
system needs to be re-evaluated and restructured.
Marshall cannot recruit the best professors
available at the pay it now offers. On top of that,
professors complain that for recruitment purposes,
some new, young faculty are paid more than older,
more experienced, more accomplished faculty.
Programs need the
most up-to-date equipment available. Hospitals brag
about the machines they have for treating patients.
Marshall rarely brags about what it has on campus
that similar schools don't.
Marshall needs to
attract more out-of-state students. To do that, it
must offer excellence at reasonable prices.
Perhaps the Marshall
administrations of years past, and legislators, too,
have grown complacent in that many of Marshall's
students come from West Virginia and border areas.
It hasn't had to compete that hard for students.
Administrators and legislators have talked a good
talk of making Marshall competitive, but they have
fallen behind as other schools have grown faster and
smarter.
Without academic
excellence, nothing else matters. How many patents
the faculty earn, how many top-name performers the
Artist Series bring to town, how many parking spaces
are within a block of campus, how many games the
basketball team wins are all insignificant when
compared to Marshall's need to provide students with
the best faculty, the best equipment and the best
resources in the best facilities possible.
That's it, in 91
typed characters. |
