Cedarville Developing 10-Year Plan

by Hannah Day

Many members of the Cedarville University community are hard at work creating a plan to guide the development of the school over the next 10 years.

This plan will address the way Cedarville can provide for a growing population of students and optimize the use of space to both prepare students for future careers and give them a positive experience while at Cedarville. The 10-year plan will include different types of goals, such as updating buildings or building new structures, as the university has seen record-breaking enrollment numbers in the last several incoming classes.

“Thankfully, we serve at Cedarville during a time where we can dream about the future and plan for future success,” Dr. Thomas White, Cedarville University’s president, said in an e-mail interview. “I have no doubt the plan will include some exciting possibilities for our campus community.”

Cedarville will create the plan in various stages throughout the 2017-2018 school year. Over the summer, White hired on a consultant, The Collaborative, to help gather information to develop this 10-year plan.

The Collaborative works with current and former students, as well as faculty and staff members, to try to develop a plan based on their various ideas. The surveying and data gathering portion of the plan will be done throughout the fall semester. These ideas will be evaluated and then placed into a rough plan.

A current focus area of the plan includes providing more organization for moving around campus. There is also a focus being put on making entrances to the school more visible and adding more welcome services for visitors.  The older buildings around campus, such as Williams and Milner, will likely be updated. However, at this time, the final plans are still to be determined.

When the plan nears completion, the final stage will include presenting the plan to the Cabinet to vote on the most important issues to be included in the proposal. The approved plan will then be presented to the Trustees who will vote on which parts to implement.

In the meantime, The Collaborative continues to work with different groups to come up with options for the new campus blueprint.

One of the places where ideas for the 10-year plan are generated is the feedback committee of the Student Government Association.

The feedback committee is comprised of several students from different years and majors across campus.  This group of meets on a weekly basis in the SGA office to discuss ideas that affect Cedarville students. These issues include campus policies, various student events on campus, and student safety.

The feedback committee is a new addition to SGA this year. It was created to be a place to evaluate what does and does not go well on campus, come up with various improvements, and bring their ideas to Dr. Jon Wood, the vice president of student life and Christian ministries.

The committee actively seeks out ideas and concerns from students from all other areas of the school rather than solely discussing observations the students on the committee have seen. Sometimes little can be done to change a situation, but if it is an improvement that they can make, they do well at bringing the necessary changes to the campus.

Students who have concerns or ideas can bring them to a member of the committee for the chance to have it discussed at a meeting.  There is also a feedback committee e-mail where ideas can be submitted at sgafeedback-user@cedarville.edu. 

Because the feedback committee is already committed to finding issues on campus by communicating with students, partnering with The Collaborative to work on the 10-year plan seemed to be a natural choice. This partnership with the administration allows students to be a part of the changes that will affect them and future generations of students.

The members of this committee have said they love the part they get to play in the partnership between the administration and students. One such member is Mojade Adejokun, SGA vice president and head of the feedback committee.

“I’m looking forward to … reminding the student body that SGA is the student’s voice to the administration, and that the administration is here for us,” Adejokun said. “That they listen, they care, and that they want to make Cedarville the best for us.”

Hannah Day is a freshman forensic science major from Pennsylvania and campus reporter for Cedars. She enjoys theatre, music, and correcting people.