CONWAY, SC (WBTW) – Coastal Carolina University’s board of trustees gave the final approval of a new strategic plan on Friday afternoon. The plan highlights six key strategies for the school to work on over the next five years. Those six key strategies are:
- Academic Excellence and Instructional Quality
- Student Excellence
- An Engaged Staff and Faculty
- Accessibility, Inclusion, Diversity
- The CCU Story
- Financial Stability and Infrastructure.
Darla Domke-Damonte is the chair of the planning committee and says the group of 19 people began working on the plan in September.
“We did focus groups with over 5% of our staff and over 6% of our faculty. We did interviews and we had surveys that were done with our students and with our alumni,” said Domke-Damonte.
Information was not only collected from different groups on campus, but also community partners off-campus.
“One of the most important things that we as a campus, and as higher education in general, need to make sure that we’re doing is developing conversations,” added Domke-Damonte.
One of the key strategies focuses on diversity and inclusion. One objective to help achieve success in that strategy is to hire a Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer for CCU.
Domke-Damonte says that person would lead the effort appropriately to help the students, campus and community members be more inclusive.
Another objective outlined in the plan focuses on high-quality learning outside of the classroom. The objective states: “CCU will require all students to participate in one of the following types of experiential learning (for course credit): undergraduate research, internship, service learning, study abroad or special design projects.”
One CCU student, Kevellin Sanders, is a manager in the Student Life Center and was on Student Leadership Council. He says he’s looking forward to seeing the new plan make changes on campus.
“I am excited because our campus is expanding now,” said Sanders. “With this new strategic plan, it gives us even more insight into the expansion we want to do and why we want to do it.”
Sanders also said diversity is a topic CCU is focusing on and believes a Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer will move the campus forward.
“We do a climate survey every year to see how open and accepting our campus is.So, you know, a Chief Diversity Coordinator would be something good because that’s going to control the amount of diversity we do and don’t see at Coastal,” added Sanders.
CCU is expected to release a link with the full plan in the next few days. You can count on News 13 to keep you updated.
