On Feb. 26, the Board of Trustees met and officially approved the 2011-2016 Strategic

Plan for Guilford College.

The goal of SLRP II is to develop long-term goals that will best foster Guilford’s core

values and strengthen student’s skills to succeed in life post-Guilford.

“In October, the trustees approved SLRP II in principle, so the budget could be set, and

we could be on the road to implementation,” said Associate Vice President for Communications

and Marketing Ty Buckner.

“We try to keep all of our decisions grounded in Quaker principles, while simultaneously

keeping in mind that we want to keep up with the pace of change happening around the world,”

said Chief Executive Officer of the Board Joe Bryan Jr.

Board of Trustee member Carol Bruce also commented on the board’s aim to maintain a

global perspective when making decisions for the college.

“Given the many competing factors and the potential effects of our decisions on the

faculty, staff, and students we can’t make afford to make decisions in the short-run,” said

Bruce. “We want to be fair to all students and do what we believe will enhance each student’s

time here at Guilford.”

In addition to the business agenda for the meeting, Vice President for Student Affairs and

Dean of Students Aaron Fetrow gave a presentation entitled “Fostering Community at Guilford

College.”

“I did the presentation because the trustees asked for it,” Fetrow said. “They said they

wanted to know if we really are that divided.”

However, according to Fetrow, divisions were not the main focus of the presentation.

“I said there what I’ve said before and what I’ll say now,” Fetrow said. “I’m not going

to talk about the athlete/non-athlete divide, because the more we talk about that, the more we

perpetuate it.”

Instead the presentation focused more on what students thought the strengths and

weaknesses of the college were in terms of community. The presentation also looked at the

change in students’ perspectives over their years at Guilford.

“First-years think community is ‘eh,’ while seniors think it’s the best thing about

Guilford,” said Fetrow. “By 22 or 23, you’ve opened up to people very different from you. When

you’re 18 you’re a week away from high school, but at 23, you’re an adult.”

Other topics included the upcoming launch of the college’s new website.

“It’s (the Office of Advancement’s) responsibility to launch the new website,” Buckner

said. “So I shared where we are with the trustees in the preliminary meeting. The website is

scheduled to launch sometime this month after Spring Break.”

Though the main focus of the meeting was business, there was time for reflection.

“The president stopped and asked the trustees to reflect on the work that had been done

(on SLRP II),” said Buckner. “There were a lot of people in that room that worked very hard to

make this plan a reality.”

“It’s hard to do one strategic plan, much less two, in 10 years, especially in a consensus-

driven climate,” said President and Professor of Political Science Kent Chabotar. “We should

congratulate the students, faculty, staff, and trustees. They were like a lobster boat in New

England during a perfect storm, given the economic atmosphere. We should all be proud,

because everybody in that boat worked like hell to make sure we surmounted that wave.”