Strategic Priority 4: BUILD a campuswide commitment to greatness.
To become one of the great Catholic colleges in America, Benedictine College must keep a focus on the fundamental aspects of the college’s operations and a continued strong relationship with the college’s sponsoring institutions, Mount St. Scholastica Monastery and St. Benedict’s Abbey.
Initiatives
A. Building Academic Excellence
To build its commitment to greatness, the college will continue to monitor its commitment to excellent teaching, effective mentoring, and engaged scholarly activity within the mission. It will immerse students in a culture of high expectations, providing a rigorous and challenging liberal arts-based curriculum, while providing the appropriate support and mentoring to enable them to succeed.
The Transforming Culture in America process focused on consideration of faculty workload, curriculum review, providing additional student support services, and providing effective faculty and staff formation in the Catholic intellectual tradition.
B. Building a Vibrant Campus Life
The college will provide a rich and engaging student life environment, built on its distinctive Family Model. The college will give students an opportunity to develop in their faith and put their academic learning into action. It will support a broadly attractive co-curricular program, allowing students to pursue a variety of interests, including intramural, club, and varsity athletics programs that emphasize winning within the mission.
The Transforming Culture in America process emphasized supporting and expanding targeted recruitment efforts and providing opportunities to have a significant impact in the city of Atchison. There also was significant emphasis on the power of athletics to support character formation and as a vehicle for cultural evangelization.
C. Building the resources and infrastructure necessary to support one of the great Catholic Colleges in America.
To build one of the great Catholic colleges in America, the college must ensure that it has the financial and human resources, as well as the facilities and infrastructure, to support its educational mission. This includes ensuring that all college facilities are configured appropriately to support the needs of students, faculty, and staff — that they are accessible to all members of the community and visitors, and that they contribute to the overall beauty of the campus.
D. Building an endowment capable of replacing tuition dependency.
Benedictine College will seek and establish investments in the longterm health of the college including endowed professorships and chairs to help in the recruitment and retention of excellent faculty; endowed programs and facilities to achieve professionalism and success while alleviating strain on operating budgets; and endowed scholarships to ensure mission-fit students are able to be formed in the college’s transformational mission of community, faith and scholarship.
The Transforming Culture in America process emphasized endowment building and ongoing attention to the technology needs of the campus.