The Guilfordian

Issue date: 10/1/04 Section: News

Media Credit: Taleisha Bowen College president Kent Chabotar chaired the SLRP committee

Beginning in Oct. 2002, students, staff, and faculty were asked to give their opinions about where they saw the college: the problems, the pluses, and the places for improvement.
These opinions have morphed into a finished document, the Strategic Plan for Guilford College 2005-2010: Creative Leadership for the 21st Century. This 105-page Strategic Long Range Plan (SLRP) will guide the college to a specific place over the next five years.
"I first started working with the plan about the time of the May Board of Trustees meeting," said senior A.Q. Abdul-Karim, Community Senate president and SLRP committee member. "It was 68 pages then. A lot has been added, primarily things for clarification and supporting evidence."
The document lists the 27 SLRP committee members who put fort the ideas that eventually became the final document. Committee included the college president, administrators, faculty members, and past and present presidents of Community Senate and the Student Government Association, who were the primary student liaisons involved in the plan's drafting processes.
A summary of the SLRP appeared in the "Guilford Beacon" Sept. 24. A draft of the plan was also released to the Guilford community via e-mail on Sept. 13. Previous drafts of the document were e-mailed Feb. 12, April 1, and Aug. 6 of this year.
One of the major changes to life as a Guilford student is described in the plan summary as "The Guilford Challenge," which will become a requirement for students enrolling at Guilford beginning 2008.
"The Guilford Challenge" calls for students to participate in a wider range of extracurricular and co-curricular activities, including internships and volunteer experiences. These activities will be documented electronically and will likely be part of the information submitted to graduate schools when a Guilford alumnus applies.
According to the executive summary of the plan, "The Guilford Challenge" of principled problem solving will encourage faculty and staff to "[create] opportunities for students to pursue intentionally an education that transforms them through experiences, both inside and outside the classroom, and opens them to new visions and dreams for themselves and the world in which they live."

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