Goal I:  Attract and retain highly qualified faculty and academically talented students and support appropriate academic initiatives.

Objectives:

1. Improve academic programs and services.
2. Improve the educational environment to promote optimal student learning.
3. Attract and retain academically talented students from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds.
4. Continue to recruit and retain excellent faculty committed to teaching, scholarship and service.
5. Improve the quality and increase participation in internships, study abroad, student research, service learning and other experiential learning opportunities.
6. Develop and implement an improved and consistent process for the review of all academic programs and services.
7. Systematically assess student learning outcomes in the major and core curriculum and apply results to improve the academic program.
8. Increase civic engagement and leadership among students.
9. Establish a program of faculty mentoring and clear guidelines for faculty review and evaluation.

Indicators of Success: (partial listing)

• Increase freshmen to sophomore retention rate to 90% by 2009
• Increase enrollment of United States minority students to 8%
• Reduce faculty teaching load to 3-3 by 2009
• Increase by 5 each semester the number of students who study abroad during the academic year
• Increase by 2 the number of departments that participate in service learning and by 10 the number of courses
• Increase participation in summer research programs by 5 students per summer