President Geoffrey S. Mearns hosted the first student and faculty open forum Monday to discuss the next University Strategic Plan.
Students and faculty met at the L.A. Pittenger Student Center to discuss the future, prospects, accomplishments and improvements of the university through discussion and activities.
In their seats, students were greeted with a paper that included questions about their experiences at the university, including why they chose to stay, why friends from high school didn't go to Ball State and what Ball State can improve on.
Mearns started the meeting explaining the three-phase plan to strategic planning, which starts with research and the gathering of information during the spring. The second phase will take place in the summer with an analysis of the information, and then final decisions will be given to the Board of Trustees in the fall.
Mearns said the university wants to scan its environment both externally, which will focus on trends and opportunities available outside the university, and internally, which will focus on areas that need improvement, as well as university aspirations.
During the forum, students engaged in a few activities, including answering questions asked by Mearns and taking part in a group activity that involved brainstorming ideas.
“We need the input of everyone who is interested in the future of Ball State. We created various different ways for people to become engaged,” Mearns said. “We also wanted to go out in these open forums and provide an opportunity to have genuine conversations.”
Mearns said these forums aren’t just a great place to receive input, but to have students themselves engage in collaborative conversation. He said he wants this plan to be embraced by everyone at the university and the community, while making sure students feel they had the opportunity to participate.
“We want them to encourage others to participate and share their ideas as well,” Mearns said. “It’s just gratifying to me that there’s that level of interest in sharing points of pride, things that our students love about Ball State, but also hearing their constructive suggestions for how we can make the student experience even better in the future."
There will continue to be other opportunities to participate in the spring, Mearns said. Those opportunities include other open forums, surveys, working groups or using a crowdsourcing tool on the university website once it is open.
Kenneth Cohen, a senior telecommunications major, said he was excited to see that Mearns was hosting an open forum.
“I definitely think that this is the proper way to go about a development plan. If you’re trying to fix problems for students, you always will need student insights or student opinions,” Cohen said. “As these forums continue to go, I definitely believe we’ll see great improvement in how our campus looks and we’ll be proud of it.”
The next open forum, “Administration Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Excellence: What’s Working? What’s Next?” will take place from 3:30-5 p.m. April 2 in Bracken Library, room 104.
Contact Andrew Harp with comments at adharp@bsu.edu or on Twitter at @adharp24.
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