New Regional Commons website fosters collaboration across IU campuses

Indiana University’s new Regional Commons website brings together information for and about IU’s regional campuses and provides opportunities for faculty, staff and students to connect to projects, propose new collaborations and find resources to support teaching and learning.

The Regional Commons chronicles collaborative activities of the regional campuses under the auspices of the Blueprint for Student Attainment, a detailed strategic plan that charts a path to greater success for regional campus students while addressing the importance of the campuses to the state and the regions they serve.

Developed through the Office for University Academic Affairs, the website provides tools for monitoring progress toward the Blueprint’s cross-campus goals and enables local community members and state officials to learn about best practices developed from joint efforts of the campuses.  Specific features of the Regional Commons include:

• Links to regional campus websites and detailed information about the development and implementation of the Blueprint for Student Attainment.
• Regionals in the News links to news and feature stories about regional campuses and with profiles of faculty, staff and student excellence.
• Links for connecting to ongoing Blueprint for Student Attainment projects and for proposing new multi-campus research and teaching collaborations.
• Metrics and data that chart degree completion and other measures of success, access and affordability for students.
• Information about best practices for meeting the needs of students and serving communities, including reports, conferences and other materials.

Along with creating the Regional Commons, IU has put in place new cross-campus structures to facilitate collaboration; these include:

• The Regional Campus Cabinet, composed of regional campus chancellors and Executive Vice President John Applegate.
• The Regional Faculty Caucus, made up of the presidents of campus faculty organizations.
• The Center for Regional Campus Excellence, comprising regional campus executive vice chancellors for academic affairs
• The Council for Regional Engagement and Economic Development (CREED), comprised of chancellor-appointed representatives from each IU campus.