Blueprint 2.0 Summary Notes (by section)
Overview (preceding the Table of Contents). This brief headnote explicitly ties regional campus progress to three particular sections of IU’s Bicentennial Strategic Plan and to a new commitment to collaboration between the regional campuses in order to achieve those and other goals in the years just ahead. The three sections of the Bicentennial Plan that Blueprint 2.0 emphasizes here are: A Commitment to Student Success, A Community of Scholars, and Building a Prosperous and Innovative Indiana.
Introduction (Page 3). The regional campuses share the statewide IU educational mission and identity but also have their own histories, missions, and identities based on their service to the regions where they are located and the people they serve there. Both layers of identity are asserted to be a vital part of Blueprint 2.0 going forward. Blueprint 2.0 is an action plan, meant to be carried out in the next few years. In its final column this introduction asserts some main ways the regional campuses are meant to advance particular goals of the Bicentennial Strategic Plan, but acknowledges that the regional campuses contribute widely to the Priorities announced in the Bicentennial Strategic Plan.
Shared Mission and Vision for the Bicentennial (4). The history of this document is sketched here. Four layers of leadership and collaboration were established to advance these new goals for the regional campuses, including a vice-presidential office and three groups that bring together the regional chancellors, the senior regional academic affairs officers, and the presidents of the regional faculty governing bodies. Through an extensive process of revision, Blueprint 2.0 was created on the foundation of the 2011 Blueprint for Student Attainment. The final version was approved by the Regional Campus Cabinet, consisting of the chancellors of the campuses.
Shared Mission (4). Quoting Thomas Jefferson, this section commits the regional campuses to living up to an expansive understanding of the social roles played by a university, including but surpassing the limits associated with vocational training and career development, cultivating not just the success of individuals in their private and work lives but the health, growth, beauty, and innovation of communities and the wider society. The regional campuses will serve here in part by helping to increase the number of Hoosiers with a university education.
Shared Vision (4-5). This half-page section lists in capsule form many of the central traits of excellent higher education and commits the regional campuses to accomplishing each of these things by 2020. This is a key summary section.
The Collaborative Imperative (5-6). The opening two paragraphs here assert with radical confidence that collaboration between the regional campuses will very substantially improve what these campuses are able to do in service to Indiana.
The first set of Action Items briefly sketches some of the organizational structures needed to carry out this vision of regional collaboration. The second set of Action Items here sets out administrative principles needed to guide new collaborative structures and initiatives. The third set of Action Items asserts that pervasive collaboration will establish the regional campuses of IU as a new and-much-needed model of excellence in higher education.
A very brief list of possible measures of success brings the section to a close.
Shared Strategies for Regional Campus Excellence. A short paragraph of introductory headnote reprises some elements of the opening pages of Blueprint 2.0.
Section 1. Excellent, distinctive education and student experience (6-8). The section opens with a portrait, in many ways familiar to us now, of education as it will be conducted on the regional campuses in the years ahead. Action Items include: 1A. Serious commitment to quality and innovation in teaching. 1B. Commitment to undergraduate education built on the liberal arts, life-long learning, global awareness, and a distinctive, not generic model of education practiced at IU. 1C. In case you missed 1A, 1C too commits us to state-of-the-art excellence in teaching. 1D. Increase the opportunities available to students at any given campus by sharing resources, courses, programs, research, and other university offerings among the regional campuses. The section concludes by noting some ways to use the NSSE survey tool as a measure.
Section 2. Completion and Student Success (8-9). This ection commits the regional campuses to getting much better at helping students succeed in courses and complete their programs. Action Items include: 2A. Pervasive, wrap-around advising. 2B. Conducting substantial research on student success at our campuses. 2C. Make transfer credit, dual-enrollment high school-based credit, credit by assessment, and other related operations work smoothly and to the advantage of students who are properly qualified. 2D. Make our campuses truly lively and welcoming places. The section closes with a familiar list of data types to use in assessing student success.
Section 3. Accessible and Affordable to Prepared Students (9-10). Handy, inexpensive, supportive, welcoming, flexible–traits such as these will allow the regional campuses to help more and more diverse groups of Hoosiers graduate from IU. Action Items include: 3A. Use multiple, flexible means of delivery and seamless programs across the regional campuses to create more student success. 3B. Recruiting a student body of increasing diversity (of many kinds) and create support programs that will lead to their success. 3C. Work very strategically to keep the regional IU programs affordable. The section closes by suggesting that it be assessed through transfer and loan rates among our students.
Section 4. Connecting with Careers (11). The regional campuses must engage with career needs and ambitions of students. Action Items include: 4A. Create specific opportunities for students to explore career skills and paths at various times in their undergraduate programs. 4B. Strengthen career advising, internship, career shadowing, and networking opportunities for students. 4C. Involve students in the life of the region; create mentoring, networking, and Hire IU opportunities for them to participate in. The section ends by suggesting that it can be assessed through alumni surveys.
Section 5. Engagement and Regional Development (11-12). Assist in in the development of our regions is asserted here to be a core mission of the regional campuses. Action Items include: 5A. Work as partners with regional groups and institutions to address critical needs, including better K-12 education and public health; apply for the Carnegie Engaged Campus designation. 5B. Figure out what programs the region actually needs and offer them; make them more attractive with competency-assessed credit options, where appropriate. 5C. Each regional campus should have an outward-facing, collaborative, multidisciplinary regional problem-solving laboratory; engage students in community-based service projects of academic merit. 5D. Formalize regional partnerships in problem-solving and innovation; share leadership roles and work actively in these partnerships. The section concludes by suggesting that it be assessed through the Carnegie application process and by the number of service learning projects.
The strategic plans of the individual regional campuses. These are published as a final section of Blueprint 2.0 and their importance as planning documents is asserted on page 3, above. Blueprint 2.0 closes on page 13 by reiterating the commitment to regional campus collaborations that will, it is hoped, serve as a multiplier of the strengths, resources, and opportunities provided by the regionals, which are, after all, roughly ⅓ of Indiana University. The document is summarized briefly again on page 14.
Equally important to review: Sections of the Bicentennial Strategic Plan for all of IU that may be most closely tied to Blueprint 2.0: A Commitment to Student Success, A Community of Scholars, and Building a Prosperous and Innovative Indiana.
See also: Various campus strategic plans, plans for areas of special emphasis like the international strategic plan, plans for informational technologies, libraries, etc.
