By: Mira Costello
Editor-in-Chief
IU South Bend administrators, in collaboration with the staff, faculty and students of the Campus Directions Committee, have published their 2030 plan for the university.
The theme of the plan is “Building a Brighter Future.” It includes three pillars, each of which encompass additional goals: student success and opportunity, transformative research and creativity, and service to our state and beyond.
In the category of student success and opportunity, the plan includes goals such as increasing enrollment and retention, keeping educational offerings and curricula “cutting edge,” and ensuring equity and inclusion.
Specifically, these goals include metrics such as:
- Increasing retention from year one to year two to 70 percent*
- Increasing four-year graduation rates to 25 percent and six-year graduation rates to 45 percent*
- Increasing internship participation by 10 percent each year for the next five years
- Increasing full-time undergraduate enrollment of HIspanic students to 25 percent
- Increasing African American student enrollment to 10 percent
- Increasing the number of low-income graduates
*In the plan, these goals apply to first-time freshmen enrolled full-time.
The next category, transformative research and creativity, includes goals such as engaging in high-impact research, advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in research and improving research opportunities for students.
According to the plan, this goal includes objectives such as relaunching the Center for Excellence in Research and Scholarship, embracing the Boyer Model of Scholarship (which prioritizes teaching, learning, engagement, discovery and integration), and increasing the number of undergraduate students who do research and creative activities.
Finally, IU South Bend’s 2030 plan focuses on service to Indiana and beyond. This category includes growing our life and health sciences program to impact public health in Indiana and partnering with local businesses.
Objectives in this category include:
- Building a Health Sciences Simulation Center to provide better technology and experiential learning for nursing and health sciences students
- Increasing the number of health science graduates
- Establishing the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
- Creating an Office of Lifespan Learning to offer educational opportunities to community members
If you are interested in reading more about the 2030 plan, you can access it at iusb.edu/chancellor/strategic-planning.
