Southwestern University - Souwester Yearbook (Georgetown, TX)

Page 14 text:

Bill Jones The Master Plan of Southwestern University, a document developed during the 1981-82 academic year and now in its final stages of completion, is designed to move the University toward national maturity during this decade and beyond. The plan was one of the first items on the agenda of President Roy Shilling after he arrived on campus in July 1981. Included in the master plan are major goals and objectives to be achieved in all areas of the University by the time Southwestern celebrates its 150th anniversary in 1990. Faculty, staff, students and administrators were in- volved in developing the master plan ' s program- matic section under the direction of the University Council, presided over by Shilling. The section on buildings and grounds was developed by the Houston architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill during the spring and summer of 1982. The SU Board of Trustees heard frequent reports on the work of both groups and provided input from time to time, most recently during a series of trustee workshops held in June. The master plan calls for an institution that will have achieved a level of performance in every area of its life equivalent to that generally recognized on the national scene as appropriate for the very best in- stitutions of its kind: institutions committed to main- taining a strong liberal arts tradition, known for the high quality of their academic programs, and measuring themselves by the superior achievements of their graduates. Master plan More specifically, the master plan calls for a University with a minimum en- dowment of $80 to $100 million by 1990. It will have a select student body of at least 1,250 who pursue an attractive but rigorous academic pro- gram responding to the needs of modern society. Library holdings should be more than twice the current number (135,000), and the library itself transformed into a total media center. The already excellent faculty should be fur- ther improved and faculty salaries raised to a level competitive with the nation ' s very best baccalaureate institutions. The average faculty teaching load should be reassessed in such a way as to maximize the possibility of intensifying the teaching process and of encouraging individual research. 10 II