Today we learned about the financial side of Elon University and what the plans for the future are. For most students like myself, I only really knew Elon from its admissions and academic perspectives and really had no idea what the money situation was like and where the university spend its money. Just a little background on Elon, it was founded in 1889 and since then it has had eight presidents, with todays being Leo Lambert. The university is owned by the board of trustees who have one employee, Leo Lambert. From there Leo manages all the other employees. Since this was a more statistical view of Elon, there were some very interesting numbers that were shared with the class today. In the last 20 years there has been a 92% growth in student body size, SAT scores for admitted students has increased by 79%, the growth of campus has risen by 172%, the budget has increase by a whopping 540% and the employee growth has risen by 222%.
The mission statement for Elon University is “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 vision, Elon University acts upon these commitments: a. We nurture a rich intellectual community characterized by active student engagement with a faculty dedicated to excellent teaching and scholarly accomplishment. b. We provide a dynamic and challenging undergraduate curriculum grounded in the traditional liberal arts and sciences and complemented by distinctive professional and graduate programs. c. We integrate learning across the disciplines and put knowledge into practice, thus preparing students to be global citizens and informed leaders motivated by concern for the common good. d. We foster respect for human differences, passion for a life of learning, personal integrity, and an ethic of work and service”. As one can see this is no one sentence mission statement, but rather a very specific set of standards and expectations that Elon carries out.
The customers of Elon University are the students and the families that send their child to this school. Since it is a college many would assume that only those who go to the school are the customers, but from what we learned today, the community around the school also is indirectly a customer of the school, for the school can bring them business and tourism when students visit the campus.
The customer values many things here at Elon. One of the major values is a high education and to be put in the best position possible when they graduate, because lets face it $40,000 a year is not that cheap. Along with just a great education, the customer wants to make sure that they get to experience what college life is and can for bonds and friendships that will last them a lifetime.
The results of Elon are very positive. The school continues to grow each year and has come from being a “safety school” when it was first founded, to being a school that is very coveted by those who try and apply to the here. This is seen by the fact that for the incoming class of 2014, Elon saw its highest ever number of applicants. It also has grow in size in all aspects of the a college, from size of the campus to number of students.
The plan for Elon was very well explained today, and really shed some light into what the school is trying to do in the future. Elon uses a 10 year plan and that is where they lay out what they want to build or renovate or add on to an existing building. This is also seem through the “Elon Way” which is to always be improving and trying to better some aspect of the University. In this current 10 year plan, Elon wants to make many additions, such as new dorms in Danieley and a fitness center there. Elon also wants to try and turn downtown into a miniature Franklin St. like Chapel Hill has. This would do wonders for the university as it would keep students and visitors on campus more than trying to go other places.
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