Connecticut College teaches these intellectual and humane skills exceptionally well. But today, the rapid pace of economic, political, demographic, and social change demands more from the College's graduates. No student who is now at the College or who enrolls in the future will spend his or her life cloistered in one job, one company, one physical place, or one culture. New players in the education industry have recognized the demand for highly varied skills and experience. The new role of community colleges, the emergence of for-profit universities, distance learning, and student procurement of single courses from multiple institutions are all ways in which the demand is being met.
Students are, in effect, customizing their own educations.
These emerging alternatives further erode the pool of prospective students for all liberal arts colleges. In response to these complex challenges, the Connecticut College community has created a radically different strategic plan. The plan assumes that students will come and go from campus and that they will operate both inside and outside the two-semester timeframe. The plan gives students unprecedented opportunities to undertake intense, transforming learning experiences anywhere in the world and then integrate the results back into course work. The plan assumes that technology and electronic access to information have already transformed the relationships between professors and students and between teaching and research.