Dear Ithaca College Community:
Work on Draft Themes Is Underway!
The strategic planning steering committee invites you to join us next week at one of three open sessions that have been scheduled for our campus community to brainstorm ideas related to our strategic planning draft themes. These three themes will guide the next phase of the Imagining Ithaca process, and help us turn our broad concepts and aspirations into more concrete, bold, and actionable goals and objectives.
All members of the campus community—students, faculty and staff—are encouraged to participate in these open conversations, which will be held:
- Monday, February 25, 2:00 to 4:00 p.m., Campus Center, Clark Lounge
- Tuesday, February 26, noon to 2:00 p.m., Campus Center, Klingenstein Lounge
- Thursday, February 28, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m., Campus Center, Taughannock Falls Room
While you may come and go as you wish at any point during these two-hour sessions, please know that an overview and instructions will be provided at the beginning of each session to provide context for our conversations.
Session Structure
These three, facilitated open sessions are intended to be lively and free-flowing, encouraging participants to generate ideas that support our three interconnected strategic planning draft themes:
Explore potential and existing interconnections among groups, departments, schools, offices, and with the broader community.
How can the college adapt to an environment of dramatic change, simultaneously preserving and strengthening its identity while transforming to meet new challenges?
Strategic investments in our people, our place, and our planet are necessary to ensure Ithaca College’s success.
These sessions will provide an opportunity to broadly share ideas with one another and give helpful feedback to the strategic planning steering committee to inform the next phases of the process.
Themes Working Groups Formed
Earlier this semester, we solicited nominations for our three theme-based working groups, and the response from our community was inspiring. More than 70 people from across our campus came forward to serve on one of our working groups, and we’d like to give our thanks to those who raised their hand or nominated a colleague. Due to this tremendous response, nominations are no longer being accepted, and an orientation session for our working group members is being held this week. We’ll announce our working group rosters in our next update.
Vision, Mission, and Values
As work on our draft themes gets into full swing, refinements to the draft vision, mission, and values will continue. We want to thank the members of our community who have provided their constructive, honest feedback, and we are pleased to share with you the current draft versions of these important pillars of our process:
- Vision: Inspiring bold thinking to create thriving communities
- Mission: Engage, explore, and empower through theory, practice, and performance
- Values: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Respect, Accessibility, Sustainability, Innovation, The Public Good
The Imagining Ithaca website offers a fuller explanation of what each of these elements aims to signify and how it fits into the plan.
Imagining a Bold Future
We continue to make exciting progress on our journey to Imagining Ithaca: Shaping IC’s Future, Together, and we look forward to ongoing opportunities to engage and collaborate with our community throughout this process. The success of our strategic plan—and the success of our college and our community—is grounded in our ability to create our future together. We hope to see you next week at one of our three open sessions and hear your ideas and thoughts about each of our draft themes.
Thank you for everything you are doing to imagine a bold future for Ithaca College!
Sincerely,
La Jerne Terry Cornish
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs
Jason Freitag
Associate Professor, History
Imagining Ithaca Co-Chairs