Our goal for the academic planning process is to engage the Wesleyan community in a thoughtful consideration of the challenges we will face in the 21st Century, on a timetable that will inform decisions on priorities for the coming comprehensive campaign. President Bennet inaugurated the planning process in the Fall of 1995, asking faculty, staff, students, and alumni to write two-page papers containing ideas and proposals. In January a planning group commissioned a set of longer essays that have built on the ideas advanced in the short papers and at the Retreat. Twenty-six faculty and administrators have written essays thus far, and a few more are nearing completion. The essays are at their best in articulating the spirit of the liberal arts and in defining Wesleyan's distinctiveness among our elite competitors.
Every essay shows pride in our achievements and commitment to future excellence.
The essays are more cautious and circumspect, however, in forecasting the impact of changes in technology, demography, and the global economy on selective liberal arts colleges. Our mission for the Fall semester, therefore, will be to focus campus debate on the strategic implications of the essays for the next quarter-century. We have scheduled five open meetings of faculty, students, and staff to discuss critical issues raised by the essays. We call these open meetings the Wesleyan Forum. President Bennet will be Convener at all of the meetings, and he will be the Discussant as well at the initial meeting, September 17, which will raise the major questions we must address.