Goal
LMU will reinforce the value of our student-centered educational experience through personalized connections between students and the faculty and staff who support them.
Rationale and Strategic Approach
A key part of LMU's signature value proposition is the holistic and profoundly interpersonal educational experience our students receive. Founded in our mission to educate the whole person, LMU's special commitment to intimate class settings, academic mentoring, rich student life opportunities, and support for student success is critical to the distinctive value we provide. In the post-pandemic environment, the quality of this personalized experience will become even more central among the reasons students and families select an LMU education. LMU can leverage its foundational commitment to whole-person education by providing learning experiences distinguished by the personalized connections students make with our faculty, staff, and other students. These connections, supported by a university-wide commitment to information sharing and collaborative student engagement programs and practices, will constitute a central reason why students choose and remain at LMU, and will help ensure that our students experience greater academic success and whole-person flourishing. These personalized connections will also foster the intimate formative experiences and lifelong bonds that help equip students to become leaders who make a positive impact in the world.
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Actions
- Set targets for tenure-line and full-time faculty aimed at maintaining favorable student/faculty ratio and small class sizes to preserve strong personalized connections.
- Evaluate current usage of curricular and co-curricular high-impact practices (HIPs) for student success such as global learning, engaged learning experiences, leadership development, internships and student work experiences – and develop a plan that ensures equitable access to these learning experiences.
- Research and potentially develop a four-year HIPs plan and/or an LMU Experiences Transcript to guide and document curricular and co-curricular aspects of a student's development.
- Increase support for undergraduate research and extend global and local research opportunities.
- Leverage recent gains in familiarity with technology-assisted pedagogies and establish a learning growth plan to enhance faculty, staff, and student fluency to maximize technology as a key feature of LMU's personalized connections.
- Revisit and devise an updated approach to summer term and/or new "intersession" course offerings and modalities to enhance flexible learning options for students.
- Extend the value of an LMU education by consolidating and/or further enhancing career and professional development services, alumni engagement, and lifelong learning opportunities.
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Actions
- Create and test a more coordinated, centralized, and communicative student success infrastructure that includes a "web of support" technology foundation to facilitate undergraduate and graduate student transition and onboarding, curricular and co-curricular engagement, and continued and timely progress toward their degree.
- Create structures and practices that ensure institution-wide coordination and information-sharing to support student success and evidence-based decision-making while protecting data privacy and information security.
- Evaluate current student advising and academic services and expand impact by increasing awareness of available support structures among students, faculty, and staff and expanding self-help tools.
- Enhance support structures and self-help tools for student health and well-being.
- Integrate diversity and equity considerations in devising student success structures and services.