This is the first in a series of updates from President Pamela Gann. She will address a number of topics of importance to CMC specifically, and higher education in general, in upcoming issues of CMC.

Over the past two years, the College has worked to develop a strategic plan to guide CMC’s development for the next decade. The strategic planning process has been collaborative, with more than 130 people working on various strategic planning committees, including trustees, faculty, students, alumni, and parents. The strategic planning process concluded in March, when the Board of Trustees voted unanimously to adopt the Strategic Plan. Below, I briefly highlight the Strategic Plan’s top priorities, and the College’s next steps in its planning efforts.

Basic Premises

As all members of the CMC family know, CMC was founded with a unique and distinctive mission: to educate future leaders in business, the professions, and public affairs. Since that time, CMC has advanced and grown across a number of dimensions, all while remaining faithful to its original mission. Thus, it should not be surprising that this Strategic Plan is based on the following premises:

• That CMC’s mission is its most important strategic asset.

• That CMC has successfully developed into an excellent college, and is effectively accomplishing its mission.

• That over the course of the next decade, the size of the College should remain at approximately 1,000 students in Claremont.

Based on these understandings, the Strategic Plan identifies the following overall goals for CMC:

• To increase our effectiveness at educating students for thoughtful and productive lives and responsible leadership in business, the professions, and public affairs, and supporting faculty and student scholarship that contributes to intellectual vitality and the understanding of public policy issues.

• To increase our leadership and effectiveness within The Claremont Colleges.

The Plan then outlines a number of recommendations, each of which is intended to assist the College in achieving these goals. It is clear that our chief priorities must be the continued recruitment and retention of highly able students and an exceptional faculty of teacher-scholars. For these reasons, the College’s highest priorities over the next decade relate to student recruitment and retention and faculty recruitment and retention.

Our Students

CMC’s ability to recruit and retain an increasingly excellent student body, as measured by a student’s overall potential to become a future leader, is fundamental to the successful accomplishment of its mission. The Strategic Plan commits the College to ensuring that students who come to CMC possess both strong academic skills and leadership qualities.

In order to succeed in this task, the College must maintain a highly competitive financial aid program, which would include:

• Reaffirming CMC’s commitment to need-blind admission. CMC is one of only about 30 institutions nationwide that can admit all students regardless of financial need. Financially securing our need-blind policy through increased endowment support will ensure that the College can continue to admit students solely on the basis of their individual merit.

• Improving merit-aid programs. CMC’s merit-aid programs, led by the McKenna Achievement Award program, have been instrumental to the College’s success in recruiting ,future leaders. The Plan commits to maintaining these programs, and increasing the McKenna Award, if finances are available.

While there are obviously other important factors that contribute to our success in recruiting and retaining excellent students, many of which are discussed in the Plan, maintaining a highly competitive financial program through the strategies identified above should ensure that the College will continue to attract future leaders.