Strategic Plan

By bringing the academic rigor, depth, and scope of the humanities and social sciences to education and research at Georgia Tech, the Ivan Allen College has emerged as an integral part of Georgia Tech's destiny as a center of learning and innovation. In a century of new challenges for society and technology, with new challenges appearing more rapidly, and with the university developing a lifelong relationship with students, the distinctions between traditional areas of study will be blurred.- Some universities will be reluctant to innovate as these trends reshape their environment. But Georgia Tech provides an excellent context for extending the liberal arts into new areas of practice and theory, and the Ivan Allen College provides Georgia Tech with the faculty and students who will help the Institute realize its vision of becoming a world-class technological university.

IAC Strategic Plan 2004-2009

Goal 1: Provide premier education in the liberal arts and professions

• Establish IAC as a nationally recognized model of cross-disciplinary and experiential liberal arts education for the 21st century.
• Enhance graduate and professional education in targeted areas that build on IAC and GT strengths
• Ensure excellence in learning through continually enhancing faculty quality and depth of expertise to promote excellent intellectual infrastructure.

Objectives for Goal 1

• Integrate international, national or local internships, co-ops, volunteerism, activism, as well as research experiences into IAC curriculum
• Lead the Institute in the development of study abroad programs, including the development and assurance of quality for the International Degree Designation
• Bring together professional education and the liberal arts
• Emphasize application of the arts in the creation of new knowledge and lead in integrating science and technology in the liberal arts
• Increase size of tenure-track faculty by 20% in next five years

Goal 2: Lead the GT community in fostering human and intellectual diversity

• Provide greater understanding of a globally interdependent world
• Recruit and retain students, faculty and staff with diverse backgrounds and identities, with regard to gender, race, ethnicity, culture and intellectual commitment
• Support a learning environment that promotes and respects diverse perspectives

Objectives for Goal 2

• Continue to exceed GT goal of 50% in international education
• Insure that IAC continues to be the college with the greatest percentage of women and reaches parity with the general population for racial diversity among faculty and students
• Provide an increased focus on diversity of gender, race, culture and class in both curricular content and co-curricular experiences

Goal 3: Continue to build enhanced research identity and profile for IAC

• Increase substantially the depth and quality of research faculty
• Sustain momentum of increased externally funded grants and contracts
• Pursue aggressively large collaborative grant opportunities
• Facilitate research for faculty actively engaged in scholarly work in humanities and social science

Objectives for Goal 3

• Seek 75% faculty participation in external projects (including external funding, collaboration with parties outside GT)
• Double external research funding
• Seek 50% undergraduate student participation in research
• Create IAC research neighborhoods
• Place in top 10 internationally in at least 3 research areas
• Secure resources to insure faculty and graduate student resources competitive with peers to ensure high quality PhD programs in existing and additional targeted areas
• Use benchmark analysis to aggressively market IAC brand in the academic market place

Goal 4: Local, national, and global outreach and service

• Promote cultural, intellectual and professional outreach
• Enhance connectivity of IAC with local, national and international communities through college programs and events
• Boldly increase visibility and understanding of the new liberal arts at Georgia Tech

Objectives for Goal 4

• Bring GT expertise to local community
• Continue leadership within GT in local outreach involving poetry, economic development, and local schools
• Bring national and international expertise to GT and the region
• Enhance national and international programs such as Nunn forum, CPBIS
• Professionalize communications
• Support and reward outreach efforts

Goal 5: Reliable, transparent and user-friendly digital technology

• Develop first class educational and research facilities that advance the use of digital technology
• Enhance collaborative research on learning and innovation within digital environments
• Insure transparency and efficiency in technology applications and processes

Objectives for Goal 5

• Provide state of the art, well supported, well functioning technology in classrooms
• Provide each faculty with computer equipment updates once every three years installed within two weeks of arrival
• Provide seamless integration of technology in classroom, research environment and administrative support
• Collaborate with the library in the development of electronic resources for social science and humanities research

Goal 6: Develop a supportive and collaborative administrative infrastructure

• Encourage staff development opportunities
• Encourage best practices in administrative service
• Improve communication among Schools, between Schools and College and with the Institute

Objectives for Goal 6

• Increase staff resources to support smart and appropriate growth in programs
• Provide opportunities for growth and development by working with the Institute and the USG to increase flexibility in appointments and advancements.
• Increase staff coordination and communication
  • o Insure regular meetings
  • Provide periodic workshops
  • Share expectations and IAC vision with all

Goal 7: Develop physical locations for IAC consistent with mission

• Create a liberal arts community on campus
• Insure that each unit occupies space that is safe, physically appropriate and up to date for its pedagogical and research needs
• Insure that IAC participates in on-going planning for future educational space on campus

Objectives for Goal 7

• Provide sufficient space for growth appropriate to the increased role of the liberal arts in the Georgia Tech experience
• Provide proximate, environmentally sound space that attracts new students and faculty and facilitates collaboration
• Incorporate café or coffee cart space that will support community development