Priorities:William Jewell College Strategic Priorities

Priority 3: Outreach & Networking

William Jewell College Students and Faculty have had difficulty starting large-scale projects with longevity and a diverse set of smaller interdisciplinary avenues/projects due to the lack of student and faculty body support. Students face barriers of hard-to-inspire colleagues and professors that have begun accepting the status quo. Students, Faculty, and staff have succumbed to excessive risk aversion. Facilitating the creation of large scale projects that utilize the resources of the local community and the forged relationships between students and faculty will invigorate the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit and results of the College.

More specifically, the curriculum at Jewell is lacking interdisciplinary projects in all majors. Jewell should launch broad projects, with smaller projects intertwined that students can complete over their four year college career. These said projects would give students experience that would have a quantifiable solution to use to market themselves as they enter the job world in the future. This solution would not only benefit the student but also the beneficiaries of the project. For example if a broad project taken on by the college was to reduce poverty in Kansas City, then the small project would have to show a reduction in poverty on some quantitative level. A small project could be a psychology demographic research project of residents in Kansas City living in poverty. Finally, the college and faculty would benefit from a curriculum change such as this. Even as it would be more work, for faculty it would allow the college to be able to have marketing solutions and have a more concrete way of showing successful community outreach.

Task 1: Collecting Initial Data

The first task is to complete research and map the demographics and plausibility of this proposal. As we talk to more faculty and students, we will learn more potential problems. Therefore the first task will be a base survey to collect and sort aggregate data as to the amount of support both from the college and for the surrounding community.

Task 2: Developing Policy

Drafting a white page document that will serve as a formal proposal is the most important process. During this drafting process we will use expert insight into legal and contractual requirements. Eventually this document will be overhauled by student, faculty, and community leader committees before submitting the document to administration of the college.

Task 3: Launching Initiative

Once support has been mapped, the next goal is start the marketing process. This will be done through social media, and campus engagement at first. Then later we will have a launch day where funding will be used to incentivize attendance and a website for the initiative will also be launched on this launch day.