Based upon the enthusiastic recommendation of the College Community, the College of Charleston Board of Trustees adopted a Vision Statement on July 26, 2000, announcing the institution’s goal to become a “nationally preeminent Public Liberal Arts and Sciences University for the 21st Century.”  In order to ensure the attainment of this goal, the Board asked the Long Range Planning Coordinating Committee to establish a strategy to implement the newly adopted Vision Statement, incorporating the input and advice of major constituent groups at the College. This strategy was to include 1) Identification of the key indicators that exemplify a "nationally preeminent Public Liberal Arts and Sciences University for the 21st Century”; 2) Recommended measures or standards for these key indicators; and 3) Initial proposals for actions that will meet these measures and satisfy these indicators.  The attached plan is structured to meet the intermediate time frame of this mandate. The six goals reflect the principal themes of the Vision Statement, and the strategies listed under each goal delineate the main components. The performance indicators provide benchmarks for these recommended activities. The College will regularly report on progress toward reaching its goals. A summary of the actions to be taken to bridge the intermediate- and long-term goals of the institution follows the Strategic Plan. This Fourth Century Vision outlines the aspirations of the College in the years to come.

    The College of Charleston has been and will remain distinctive for its rigorous liberal arts and sciences curriculum, grounded in a broad general education program and enriched by the availability of challenging academic majors and minors, interdisciplinary offerings, and other programs. At the institution’s historic downtown campus, the College of Charleston will stabilize undergraduate enrollments slightly below their current levels in order to maintain the close student-faculty relationship that is typically associated with small Liberal Arts colleges.  Consequently, students will have more opportunity to learn in smaller class environments, as well as through one-on-one mentoring by faculty in their areas of expertise.

    The hallmark of the student-centered education provided by the College of Charleston will be exemplary teaching by a faculty of teacher-scholars who engage the students through exceptional instruction and scholarship. The commitment to a teacher-scholar model reflects a deeply held conviction that both teaching and scholarship are integral and necessary parts of a whole and as such will be nurtured and rewarded. Accordingly, a fundamental precept of this model is that in order to instill a passion for learning and discovery, students at the College will be exposed to a high quality and diverse faculty who have a fundamental commitment to the liberal arts and sciences and to student-centered learning and who are intellectually engaged and engaging.

    The College of Charleston’s distinctive education program will be offered in facilities appropriate for a preeminent university supported by state-of-the-art technology. These will include a new library, a new Science Center, a new building for the School of Business and Economics, a new Student Center, a new Multicultural Center, a new Education Building, a new wing of the School of the Arts, and a new sports arena.

    The liberal arts and sciences education offered at the College is designed to prepare an increasingly diverse and academically gifted student body to be contributing and productive members of society. At the College of Charleston the concern is for the development of the whole person – habits of the mind and habits of the heart that will sustain students throughout their lives. Therefore, students will be fully engaged in an active learning environment that is characterized by traditional knowledge acquisition in concert with learning by doing. Through research opportunities, internships, independent studies, service learning, study abroad, and similar curricular and co-curricular activities, students will be able to apply the critical and analytical skills they acquire in the classroom to their homes, workplaces, and communities.

    In order to support its academic goals, the College is also committed to attracting and retaining the excellent and diverse staff necessary for the implementation of its curricular and co-curricular programs. Through an enriched residence hall experience and programs that integrate the curricular and co-curricular lives of undergraduates, students, faculty, and staff will come together in a residential learning community. As a consequence, the very best students in South Carolina and the nation will matriculate into and graduate from the College of Charleston.

    Consistent with its mission as a Public Liberal Arts and Sciences University, the College seeks to become a community resource in the broadest sense of the term. It takes pride in having good relationships with a diverse range of educational institutions, governments, businesses and industries, community agencies, neighborhoods, and alumni. In addition to its undergraduate programs, it will offer a limited number of graduate and professional programs that are cost effective, meet demonstrable community and state needs, and are best offered by the College. Students, faculty, and staff will engage in community service through public presentations, co-curricular activities, service learning projects, organizational programs, and volunteer work. On and off the campus, habits of both heart and mind will prepare our students for a lifetime as productive citizens and leaders.
 

Approved by the College of Charleston Board of Trustees, 8 April 2003

Long Range Coordinating Committee Homepage
Strategic Plan
Fourth Century Vision