Student Congress General Meeting
October 21st, 2014
9:00pm- 10:18pm
 President Knapp-Speaking on the College’s Strategic Plan
 One year ago, the college began work on a 10-year strategic plan that strives to
figure out what the college needs to be ten years from now.
 There are changes in demography, and ways that higher education will look in the
next 10 years or so, so the past year has been looking at how the College will look 10
years from now, and how that will be different from what is happening today
 Colleges that stand still get left behind
 Hope is in an enviable position compared to other four-year institutions, and many
others are struggling to remain competitive and find students. This puts colleges like
ours at a disadvantage compared to public universities, but Hope thankfully is not in
that boat. We are thriving, and we now need to harness these strengths to keep
Hope right at the competitive edge that we need to be.
 Hope is near the head of the pack of colleges that are still competitive in many
aspects, and that is made possible by the fact that students continue to decide to get
an education here.
 We have challenges to be more competitive for a fewer number of student that will
be applying due to lower number of students graduating high school. Hope
welcomes this challenge.
 The good news  Hope isn’t broken, there isn’t anything that needs to be fixed. In
our case, it’s more about taking the strengths that we have and turning them into
ways to continue to get students to come here.
 There are 10 areas that required further study for the future of the College.
 Over the summer, those 10 issues were studied in depth by many people in the
college, and we came out of that with a good understanding of where we sit, and
from there we were able to distill goals from which our strategic plan was built.
 The vision statement of the strategic plan  Hope College will grow in international
and national stature be a primer liberal arts college, where degrees are recognized
nationally, and be a leader in Christ centered educations. The college needs to
expand its footprint, and we are aspiring to run with the best of the pack of liberal
arts schools. As a college we have a responsibility to be a leader in our own sector,
and be a leader with our faith mission. Taking about faith gives us an important
distinction from other schools that are downplaying their faith statement. One of the
reasons there still is a strong demand for a Hope education is because of the strong
faith background in a society where faith is not the focus anymore.
 Goals: Under each goal there may be 6 or so objectives that the administration will
activate to accomplish these goals.
 Engage every student in a holistic way, through academic rigor, experiential
learning (through an intimate learning environment, research, internships, and
the arts), and doing it at the highest level of quality (through the caliber of
faculty and teaching).
 Equip student to lead and serve in a global society by orienting all areas of the
college toward global involvement. It is not enough for students to just study
abroad, or have international students on campus. Are we internationalizing our
curriculum to the highest level? We are going to work harder to establish better
relationships between other countries and institutions, as well as with the global
church, and better alumni outreach around the globe.
 Ecumenical Christian community  Hope needs to be a place that truly is
inviting of all people who might share different perspectives that are still unified
under the historic Christian faith. We want to be sure that we are supporting
people in the growing of their faith.
 Community unified by its mission, strengthened by its diversity, and flourished
by every individual who is loved by God. If are unified by our mission, that unity
can allow us to be a place where very diverse people can come and thrive in this
community. We want all individuals to feel comfortable in our environment. We
have to be prepared to understand that diversity strengthens our college, and we
need to embrace that.
 Hope needs to be clear on our story, and make sure that all of those who want to
see it can. We have invested in this by a new Public Affairs division, a new
website, utilizing social media, and all of this is aimed at the future reality that
we need to get more people to cross state lines and international boundaries to
come to our institution.
 We will be the best value in liberal arts education through many different facets,
by being good stewards of resources, and develop more resources to fund this
higher education (this means significantly raising the colleges endowment).
 Immigrants who built this school because they couldn’t afford to send their children
to schools on the East coast founded Hope. We want to continue this by being
affordable for the average family today.
 This is just a framework for the Strategic Plan, and come January, the administration
hopes to have specific objectives for each of the above goals. Measuring progress
will happen along the way, so we can see how we are doing.
 The goal that student leaders can help with immediately is helping the college be
more welcoming to diversity.
 Task Force Updates
 Internal Strengthening: The hoodie will be a heather gray color, and there will be an
event Thursday Nov 6th, details to follow.
 KEEP FUNDRAISING FOR RELAY!!!
 Campus Relations: Donuts were a success!!
 Sustainablility: coffee date with Hope Ashby to happen later this week 
 Board and Committee Updates
 Academic Affairs Board: continued the credit hour discussion.
 Residential Life: STEM program housing, Scott hall cant hold all of the Phelps
Scholars students.
 Co-Curricular Committee: approved a cultural dance organization, and worked on
updating a checklist for approving new student groups on campus. Looking forward,
the committee will work to finish the stipend proposal.
 Student Media Committee: met with, and discussed the
 Green Team: there will be a green cottage competition
 Religious Life: Decided that they will focus on defining the term “spiritual
formation”
 Old Business
 Dining services  can we also bring up the possibility of using credit and debit
cards at the Keltz. They will be coming in next Tuesday.
 Yik Yac  we can save this conversation for a meeting where we have more time,
the next upcoming meetings will be with Dean Frost and Dining Services.
 New Business
 N/A
 Officer Reports
 It’s On Us campaign: It’s going very well, and the next meeting will be tomorrow at
10pm after the general meeting.
 Bring $5 to congress next week for name tags (give to Rochelle)
 Ad Hoc request from the Sailing Team
 Total amount requested: $2329 for three new dry suits, three Gills, and four bibs.
The appropriations committee already approved the ad hoc.
 The discussion has been tabled until next week.