Religious identity:
One of the most important strategic decisions facing the institution is its intentional cultivation of its religious identity. On one hand, the issue is fairly straightforward: Whitworth will continue to embrace its covenant with the Presbyterian Church; Whitworth will continue to require full-time faculty and staff to express their belief in Jesus Christ as their personal savior and affirm the authority of scripture. These requirements have been consistently applied for the last two decades. Likewise, the institution will continue to invite non-Christian students as well as Christian students to be a part of its student body. The faith requirements of our faculty place Whitworth firmly in the category of Christian colleges. Currently, of the 67 colleges and universities across the country that affiliate with the Presbyterian Church, only six are members of the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities. The vast majority of Presbyterian colleges have adopted broader hiring policies in an effort to strengthen the academic quality of their faculties. Whitworth, even though it desires to be known increasingly for its academic quality, will not forego this dimension of its commitment to its Christian identity. In many respects, this next plan will attempt to strengthen that identity.

Whitworth is poised to be a national leader among Christian and church-related colleges in terms of developing the capacity of its faculty and staff to integrate faith and learning. Central to that project is the belief that each faculty and staff member must be committed to exploring the ways in which his or her theological assumptions intersect with the teaching of one's discipline, help inform one's approach to scholarship, and shape one's personal worldview. Indeed, one of the distinctives of Whitworth College is that all its faculty and staff have a vested interest in the religious identity of the institution; as such, there is a broad ownership of an identity that is equally shared among all who work here, and all are committed to articulation and exploration of that identity. But it is important to note that academic excellence and Christian commitment have generally not been seen as compatible in the world of higher education. Whitworth is choosing a bold but difficult path.

Whitworth embraces the challenge of exploring what it means to be more fully a Presbyterian College. The college will continue to embrace an identity that is associated with being evangelical and Reformed in character. As a consequence, this plan endorses an effort to articulate more clearly what President Robinson likes to refer to as the grand paradox of a Whitworth education—the paradox of being intellectually open while remaining committed to the truth of the Christian message. This challenge is made more difficult because of the nature of our community. While faculty and staff have a common bond in their Christian belief, they come from a broad range of denominational and non-denominational traditions. Serious disagreements exist within these traditions about issues ranging from homosexuality and abortion to war and the environment. Similarly, our students come from a variety of Christian and non-Christian faith traditions; and some are agnostic or atheist.

The college's religious identity and ecumenical spirit are the basis for its student recruitment policy. While the foundation of institutional identity is preserved through mission-based hiring, students are enrolled from an even wider array of backgrounds, including perspectives from outside the realm of Christian faith. As an educational institution, we live in the world and do not wish to establish a fortress mentality that excludes any who wish to learn in this environment and can benefit from the academic strengths we offer. In addition, we do not want and would not thrive with complete unanimity of perspective. And so we value the presence both of students who share our core Christian convictions and of those whose ideas help offset an easy presumption of certainty. To enrich our unfinished understanding and to reflect the quality of community that God created, we will work to encourage rich and respectful campus conversation in which a variety of voices, from beyond our community as well as within it, are heard and thoughtfully considered.

Growth management:
One of the important challenges facing management over these next five years and beyond are the issues associated with the growth of the student body, particularly full-time matriculated undergraduate day students. We still consider this population to be the core constituency of the institution. Over the past 10 years, Whitworth has grown the size of its freshman class from the mid-to high-three hundreds (an average of 387 new freshmen between '93 and '95) to the mid-to high-four hundreds (471 for fall '04). Overall, Whitworth grew its full-time undergraduate student body from 1,344 to 1,789 between 1994 and 2004.

In general, the Whitworth administration has intentionally grown the student body over the last decade; the marginal revenue from this growth has proved to be very important for the purpose of improving compensation, addressing selective areas of deferred maintenance, and improving selected areas of academic and student-life programming. Whitworth has accommodated the increase in students primarily by filling existing housing and classrooms, renovating facilities such as Alder Hall, purchasing and renovating Hawthorne Hall, purchasing neighborhood houses, and building a new residence hall (Boppell Hall), a dining facility and a student union building, and, most recently, constructing Weyerhaeuser Hall.

Nevertheless, the overall square footage per person has failed to keep pace with industry standards. With the exception of the Student Life Office, virtually no other administrative space has been added. Virtually no additional administrative space is available. McEachran Hall houses 58 administrative staff, providing an average workspace per employee of approximately 40 square feet. The current industry standard for such space is 100 to 120 square feet per employee.

Residential housing is full, and that includes the substandard Beyond Hall and the six units of The Village. In a recent survey of students who ended up selecting other colleges or universities, Whitworth generally rated lower in residence hall quality than its competitors. Of its 1,787 full-time traditional undergraduates, Whitworth currently lodges in campus-owned housing 1,125 (mix of residence halls and adjacent housing) representing 62.5% of the student body. Whitworth's goal has been 65%, although many institutions to whose standards we aspire house between 80 and 90% of their students. This plan maintains the goal of at least 65%.

Three scenarios:

1. Zero to one percent growth of matriculated day students. This option has the advantage of allowing the college to catch up more rapidly with the capital needs; however, it does not, in the judgment of the administration, permit the college to avoid building the capital projects identified in this plan. The primary disadvantage is that, in the opinion of the administration, the loss of marginal revenue provided by modest growth in enrollment would make several objectives much less attainable. Specifically, the goals regarding compensation would have to adjusted downward. (See Scenario A, attached.)
2. Aggressive growth at the rate of four percent per year. This option has the advantage of signaling to our constituencies that we are very positive about our future. An aggressive growth policy would potentially bring more revenue and permit the administration to direct resources toward a variety of deferred projects. An aggressive growth strategy has the disadvantage of requiring the administration to maximize its capacity to borrow money. Whitworth would immediately need more facilities to house and feed students. Our athletics facilities would almost immediately be inadequate. All of that would, in fact, make aggressive growth almost impossible, because students would soon realize that Whitworth did not have the infrastructure to serve them. (See Scenario C, attached.)
3. Moderate growth of two percent for matriculated day students. This is the option recommended by the planning commission. This option seems reasonable in terms of Whitworth's ability to grow at a pace consistent with the demographic trends of the region (see appendix). This option seems to strike a balance between providing additional operational revenues and allowing the college time to build new facilities. (See Scenario B, attached.)

Option three, while preferred, is still a challenging option. With demographics being what they are and with the state of Washington largely unable to fund adequately increased enrollment at state institutions, Whitworth will find it difficult to contain the growth at 2% per year. Changing yield ratios make it a very difficult variable to control.

College/university:
Much discussion has occurred regarding the advantages and disadvantages of changing the name of the institution from Whitworth College to Whitworth University. The fact that no formal definition or criteria exist within the higher-education community regarding the words "college" and "university" has not made this discussion easy. The fact that the culture surrounding the title "college" or "university" is not the same in all parts of the country has not eased these deliberations, either. The fact that within the Pacific Northwest, community colleges are periodically dropping the word "community" as well as the fact that institutions such as Northwest College, in Kirkland, and Heritage College, in Yakima have adopted the name "university" has further muddied the waters.

For these reasons and others, President Robinson will make a recommendation independent of this plan to the board of trustees at its April 2005 meeting.