Nearly 50 students were invited to eat breakfast with the president on March 22, in order to critique Trinity Western University’s new strategic initiative, “Design the Decade: Envision the Century.”
“Our belief is that what we do for the next 10 years will really set the course for the next century,” said president Dr. Jonathan Raymond to a room full of students, including a number of representatives from the TWU Student Association and Mars’ Hill, as well a handful of students from the School of Business and graduate studies. “This exercise is an entry point into a conversation,” he added.
The breakfast meeting followed a number of similar forums held with staff and faculty earlier this semester, after the release of the report in February. Last week, Raymond also met with interest groups in Lethbridge, Alta., Los Angeles and Fresno, Calif., Cambridge and Toronto, Ont. to gather further feedback.
“We want as many people as possible to get their hands on the clay,” he said.
At the meeting, students were encouraged to discuss, in roundtable style, their comments and critiques over the report’s four areas of interest – education, infrastructure, resource stewardship, and growth.
Many were skeptical about the university’s goal to raise $125 million through donations over the next 10 years.
“As much as it’s nice to have a vision, how are you going to get there?” asked business student Lindsay Maier. International Studies student Yolanda Kornelson noted the need to lower tuition due to the school’s decreasing enrolment.
Raymond said the funds he hopes to raise over the next decade would make the school a more affordable place to study and work.
“We should have 20 times the amount of endowment we do,” he said, adding that the school’s current endowment of $7 million is inadequate for the size of the school. With endowment will come an increased enrolment, Raymond said.
TWUSA Senior Representative Wesley Armstrong wondered if the school was going too far to fill spots on campus, however, with the increasing presence of what he said were misinformed international students on campus.
“When they come, they don’t know they can’t smoke, they can’t drink,” Armstrong said, alluding to the university’s community standards. “I don’t think that that’s doing too much for the university in the long run.”
Other students were appreciative of the school’s goal to expand graduate studies on campus, but were concerned over the lack of liberal arts emphasis for undergraduate studies found in the report.
“My primary concern is the lack of a direction towards a liberal arts core, which is a distinctive of our university,” said Mars’ Hill managing editor Jeremy Hutcheson.
Sarah Endacott questioned TWU’s emphasis on adult continuation as well, wondering if growth in satellite campuses – such as the newly opened Bellingham, Wash. campus – will cause the school to “abandon some of the liberal arts.”
Raymond said TWU administration hopes to have a firm strategic plan set by early next fall, after sorting through feedback throughout the summer months.
