Dear Alumni and Friends of Lincoln University,
It is with great pleasure that I greet my fellow alumni as the 14th president of our great institution. Words cannot express how excited I am to have been chosen to lead our alma mater into her next chapter. I am truly honored to have this opportunity. I am humbled by your support and confidence. I plan to do us all proud.
Lincoln University continues to evolve. We have made great progress over the years. Our campus has grown, both in enrollment and capital assets. The student body is twice as large as when I was here, and the additional living spaces have added nicely to the housing stock. Recently added classroom buildings and amenities present opportunities for state-of-the-art learning and the addition of athletics fields and courts greatly expand the living-learning environment of the campus.
These are all great advances to our legacy, but in many ways they mask several huge challenges. While first-year retention has improved greatly over the past couple of years, our four- and six-year graduation rates remain flat. As our reputation depends heavily upon our success at retaining and graduating students, these issues require immediate attention. Then, too, we have many new and beautifully renovated spaces on our campus, but several of our historic sites are crumbling around us. We need a plan designed to help us make smart investments in repurposing our older facilities, a plan designed to help us honor our past while addressing contemporary needs. Finally, our dependency on tuition has grown over the decades. This is not a sustainable model for the University and as such it is urgent that we identify new sources of revenue and greatly improve the number and amount of private gifts.
We have entered into a strategic planning process designed to address these concerns and to situate the University to thrive. Primary will be identifying investments needed toward impacting student success namely discussing curricular innovations that may better help us to prepare our graduates for the unprecedented market disruption so characteristic of this 21st century global knowledge-based economy. Among these will be support for faculty development, innovative pedagogies, and academic support, all of which have a positive impact on student success. Parallel with the strategic planning discussion is the development of a new master plan. This process has three major goals: (1) identifying the capital investments needed to maximize living-learning options; (2) proposing options for renovating and repurposing historical buildings; and (3) developing a strategic plan for allocating funds for deferred maintenance. Finally, the process is focused on resources including planning strategic allocation of revenue, creating diverse funding models, and identifying new sources of income. Central to this discussion is maximizing fundraising, increasing grant writing, and identifying efficiencies toward better cost effective operations.
My goal is to engage in a very collaborative planning process. We are seeking advice from various University stakeholders, including students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends. We have been reaching people in large and small gatherings, at formal and informal events, and across multiple platforms. This has helped us to gather input and feedback from a broad constituency of people. I am delighted that so many of you have offered your ideas, time, and energy toward this process. We still have a ways to go but are on track to launch our new strategic direction in January 2018.
So again, I appreciate the support and confidence shown to me by my fellow alumni. I will continue to work tirelessly for our institution. Many of you are beside me as we forge this new chapter in our illustrious history. I thank you now, in& advance for all the good work we will do together.
Brenda A. Allen, Ph.D.
President
This story originally appeared in the Fall 2017 Lion.
