These themes were derived through the analysis of the SWOT Planning Sessions and are in no particular order.
Location/Community
Location – beautiful campus, near urban area, lots of outdoor activities.
Lack of Spokane strategy (Capitalizing on the beautiful Spokane location and amplify that)
Lack of presence in Spokane
Be Spokane’s Public (Spokane County’s) university
Need to build deeper connections with the community to insure responding to what business and education need regarding types of graduates.
Lack of overall engagement with the community; Cheney, Spokane, and Fairchild
Engagement and connection to Alumni – voice missing – cultivate big donors
Lack of student engagement in community leads to lack of future donors
Community is full of alumni
Bridging the gap between Cheney and Spokane
We need to figure out how to move students from Cheney to Spokane and vice versa.
We need to take advantage of these great communities and contribute to them
Community Engagement
Deeper community connections – “community-engaged scholarship” and an office that supports that
Rebuild office of community engagement
Branding/Identity/Marketing
Lack of branding and identity, failure to promote EWU – lack of visibility of Spokane campus – licensing – risk adverse – need better marketing
Need to tell our story!
Perception of less value of a college education
The need to capitalize on Athletic success
Forward thinking, future ready: we need to evolve and envision
Academics/Administration
Lack of cohesive vision and forward thinking, not focused, campus pulled in different directions – how does idea relate to EWU mission (and eventually new strategic plan)
Increase/add graduate programs
More Interdisciplinary programs – graduate and undergraduate – depts./programs collaborating
Faculty/Staff
Faculty student relationship
Faculty/student ratio – right size (maybe not CSTEM)
Faculty/student research – currently good but want more
Faculty primarily teachers or researchers? (Hiring often based on ability to research)
Over worked faculty and staff
Faculty morale/apathy (better support of adjuncts, lack of support for tenure track teaching lines, faculty of color fatigued)
Holding on to the great faculty/staff ratio that makes this a place where, to quote Cheers, “everyone knows your name”
Strategic Enrollment Planning
Recruiting – who is are target audience?
High School – first time/full time
Transfer – community colleges
International – to include Canadian – do we want growth?
Running Start
First generation students (do we actively recruit or do we just happen to get them)
Non-traditional students – particularly in Spokane (some credit no degree) – serve working students
Retention of students – particularly of color
Throughout their EWU experience: recruiting, retention, career planning, graduation, alumni affairs
Increase graduation rates
Standards
Competition
Identifying our competition and compete (online and local)
Need an online education plan – hybrid – service delivery models
Community colleges offering BAS/4 year degrees – threat – competition
Legislative perception of EWU – focus on UW/WSU
Reduced value of higher education (threat)
Students
Students unprepared for college and we don’t have adequate resources to support them.
Serving diverse student needs
Recognizing those needs, adapting for them
ALL KINDS of diversity
We are more residential than we used to be, but we still have commuters. We need to think about parking, transportation, child care, etc for commuters, but we need to continue to enrich residential experiences.
Spokane campus
Have to pay student rec center fee (but have no access to fitness resources)
Student body separation
No childcare available
Students – lack of on campus jobs
Overall safety and security on both campus (both positive and negative)
Overcome the commuter campus – lack of community
Campus Culture
Resistant to change
Balancing student centered with Institution first
Lack of campus processes and/or lack of understanding of campus processes and/or processes take too long (i.e. hiring new faculty or staff)
Communication/silos between departments, units and colleges – lack of transparency
Diversity (we have a diverse campus, still need training, need more faculty, staff)
Resources/Funding
Maintaining the lower cost/high value equation
Funds
Lack of control over tuition
Reduction of State support
Student financial aid issues
Tuition – low cost/high value (except summer school)
