Centennial Commitment's 18 goals by 2018
- Promote student success
- Provide extraordinary student life experiences
- Provide innovative and entrepreneurial education
- Provide contemporary and best practices online education
- Enhance post-graduation career preparation
- Promote and achieve diversity
- Build relationships with all partners of the Indiana Higher Education system
- Enhance cultural value and quality of life
- Establish a strategic statewide impact
- Lead statewide P-12 education reform
- Enhance philanthropy to Ball State
- Define and support strategic national peer recognition
- Enhance the role and impact of graduate education
- Enhance the research profile
- Enhance recognition as a national model for Ssustainability
- Provide a high quality work-life environment
- Implement impactful academic, research and outreach programs
- Review and implement best practices in university management
Source: bsu.edu/about/centennial-commitment
Ball State President Paul Ferguson's newly formed leadership team will carry out his vision for the university, which he unveiled Friday during his State of the University Address.
The Strategic Planning Leadership Team comprises 23 members that include department chairs, trustees and professors. Ferguson will chair the team.
The leadership will carry out a three-year campaign leading up to Ball State’s centennial in 2018, titled the "Centennial Commitment", or "18 by ‘18". The team is tasked with planning the implementation and providing updates on the plan's progress.
Ferguson called his approach an “evolution, not a revolution.”
The three major themes of the Centennial Commitment are:
- Student-centered
Ferguson said his approach for his vision focused on allowing Ball State students to take risks in starting new business ventures to complement what they are studying. His goal is to get students to see education as a useful tool by letting them do projects that could form into businesses or careers.
He also proposed the Ball State Centennial Student Endowed Fellowships, which will go toward the 2018 freshman class that came in at the same time as he did.
Ferguson and his wife, Grace, will provide $50,000, which the university will match, to go toward 18 students in the 2018 class.
- Community-engaged
Ferguson also stressed building relationships in the community and building partnerships with real communities and businesses.
Another goal is to assess Indiana to find opportunities for Ball State to establish partnerships for future immersive-like projects and ventures.
- Model of the 21st Century public research institution
To establish Ball State as a premier research institution, Ferguson proposed strategically allocating university funds to be used by faculty to try new practices and innovations. He stressed supporting a risk-taking culture by encouraging faculty to apply for grant money for research projects. The vision also includes increasing project opportunities for students in graduate programs.
With the decrease in state funding historically, the plan would eventually be sustained by increased extramural funding, which would come from private contracts and grants toward research and, eventually, as new potential revenue streams.
Since the Jo Ann Gora administration, the university has been known for its Education Redefined campaign, but the future of Ball State lies in what Ferguson describes as "entrepreneurial learning."
To illustrate the entrepreneurial approach, Ferguson cited projects such as The Broken Plate, a student literary magazine, the “Circus in Winter” and the Freedom Bus project. Each of the projects were student-led and required the classes to engage with members of the community.
Ferguson touted the approach as a refreshing of the former strategic plan and a nod to the original mission of the Ball Brothers and their weaving of business with educational experience and opportunity.
“We just felt we needed to streamline that, refocus it a bit and make it a little more manageable,” he said.
The Ball State president also unveiled initiatives for faculty to get them on board with his plan.
One initiative includes a $3 million pot. Faculty will be able to apply for a piece of it for research of to try new.
He proposed increasing funding by 50 percent for the faculty travel budget.
“How can we be a 21st Century school if we can’t get you out there?” Ferguson said at his address.
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