Strategic Plan
Goal 1: Live Our Mission and Values
This first goal sets the tone for all that we do at Clarke: to live our mission and values as a BVM Catholic Institution. While the core values of freedom, education, charity, and justice have long been a part of the Clarke experience, we aim to bring them to life in new ways to support our students and employees of today and tomorrow.
Objectives
- Reinvigorate Clarke’s mission, educational legacy, and BVM Catholic heritage in its programs and services
- Establish durable organizational structures and leadership capacity to articulate and model our mission and core values
- Enhance a culture of inclusion, belonging, and wellness for all at Clarke
Goal 2: Empower Student Success
Clarke has a proud tradition of supporting students’ minds, bodies, and spirits. Our student body is diverse, and as a generation is digitally native and more aware of their needs for social belonging and mental health support. To empower student success, we will embrace holistic initiatives that meet and respect students where they are with knowledge, skills, expectations, and aspirations.
Objectives
- Increase and enrich student engagement in academics, co-curricular activities, and residential communities
- Engage students through holistic advising, academic support, and career preparation
- Adapt and modernize facilities and technology platforms to meet student needs
Goal 3: Sustain Institutional Vitality
To be vital as an institution we must be improving constantly, maintaining financial stability, and progressing with the times to prepare our students for the world they enter upon graduation. That means our academic and co-curricular programming as well as our facilities are modern and create value for students, employees, alumni, community members, and visitors. Ask anyone at Clarke and they will tell you it is the people that make our campus special. In that regard, our vitality is enhanced through deliberate initiatives that allow everyone to thrive.
Objectives
- Refine current and create new multi-disciplinary academic offerings that create value, opportunity, and growth for our students, faculty, staff, and alumni
- Increase and sustain student enrollment
- Recruit, retain, and invest in employees
- Engrain processes and feedback loops for continuous improvement
- Continue responsible and effective stewardship of resources including philanthropic support for scholarships, faculty and staff awards, professorships, chairs, and capital needs
Goal 4: Cultivate a Lasting Legacy
To speak about Clarke’s future is to connect with its past. Mary Frances Clarke instructed the sisters to “incite” the students to think for themselves and by extension, become leaders. This legacy drives our future so that all those touched by Clarke carry forward a culture of leadership and compassion into their communities.
Objectives
- Impact the greater Dubuque community through engagement and leadership
- Foster increased alumni engagement and affinity with Clarke (“Clarke is for life”)
- Empower the Clarke community – trustees, faculty, staff, students, and alumni – to be culture carriers of our values and heritage
Strategic Plan Implementation Committee Members
Andy Bellings, Callie Clark, Julie Cirks, Catherine Dunn, Jacqueline Jaeger, Steven Kirschbaum, Gayle Langel, Fletcher Lamkin, Susanne Leibold, Courtney Leonard, Curt Long, Amanda Matson, Beth McGrath, Joanne Mueller, Deann Petitgout, Jody Pfohl, Cathy Schulze, Paulette Skiba, Christina Slack, Jody Wolfe, and Yvonne Zimmerman
Strategic Planning Facilitator
Kate Zanger