What is Elon’s mission?
As Elon’s current mission statement says, “Elon University embraces its founders’ vision of an academic community that transforms mind, body, and spirit and encourages freedom of thought and liberty of conscience.” To fulfill this current mission, Elon established several commitments of which it uses as guidelines on how to act. These commitments include nurturing a rich intellectual community, providing a dynamic and challenging undergraduate curriculum, and integrating learning across disciplines and putting knowledge into real-life practice.
Who are their customers?
While Elon is a non-profit university and therefore technically has no true customers, the closest thing to customers Elon has are the students that attend it. Since it is non-profit, Elon’s greatest source of revenue is student tuition. In the last twenty years the Elon student body has grown 92%, and as a result revenue from tuition is roughly $140 million. Elon’s revenue from tuition is very important to the university because of the small endowment it currently has. Before the rapid expansion it has seen in the last twenty years, it was very small local school with little extra income so the tuition it receives now is vital to continuing its scheduled building.
What do their customer’s value?
Elon students value the education and experiences they will receive and go through while enrolled at Elon. While the tuition is not the most expensive in the country, it is not the cheapest and the students expect a lot to come with the money they give. They value the degree they receive after working hard for four years, the social possibilities provided to them by the school administration, the teachers they learn from in the classroom everyday, and the reputation that Elon continues to increase every year. Other things I personally value is the food provided in the dining halls everyday, the exercise facilities on campus, and the career services Elon has to prepare its students for internships and jobs.
What are their results?
As a result of the university’s incredible commitment to expansion and bettering its academics Elon has exploded onto the college scene. Over the last twenty years when it really began its plan for growth Elon’s budget has gone from $33 million to $211 million, and its faculty has increased 410 to 1321 members. Over the past two years alone Elon has constructed 38 new buildings around its property to support the expansion, and has more buildings currently under construction. Elon the #1 rated Study Abroad program among universities in the U.S. and has also been ranked highly in “Best Run” administrations and is consistently ranked in the top three for “Most Beautiful Campuses.” As a result of the popularity of Elon has continued to increase, incoming freshman classes have constantly had better SAT and ACT scores and better GPAs than classes before them, with no end in sight of this trend.
What is their plan?
Elon creates a new plan for the future every ten years to reflect what it plans to do in that next decade. While the projects and goals Elon has accomplished in the last five years seems amazing, the future looks even brighter for the university. In its 2009-2019 plan Elon plans to continue to increase its student body slowly but surely and while it does not have an official plan on how large it wants the student body to be, speculation is it will end up around 8,000 students. Elon also plans on constructing a new Communications building in the near future, and completing the currently under construction Admissions building by the spring of 2015. Unlike UNC which must build its buildings taller, Elon plans on buying up more surrounding land around the current school and expanding the campus size. The largest plan that has yet to start is the solar panel farm that will be constructed in the Loy Farm area which will allow Elon to receive environmentally friendly electricity to power some of its buildings.
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