On October 23, President Kelly held the first ever Strategic Plan Town Hall Listening Session along with the Vice President for Strategic Initiatives, Bob Colvin, who led the session. The goal was to bring together members of the CNU community and share ideas and thoughts revolving around two open-ended questions: How is our university doing? And what are your hopes for CNU in the future? All of the feedback and discussions help further develop CNU’s Strategic Compass which will be a solidified plan to determine the vision, guidelines, and strategic goals for the school. While the process for a successful Strategic Compass will not happen overnight, the town hall was the first step toward fostering a sense of growth and pride at Christopher Newport.
The Town Hall was packed with both students and faculty who came either to share their proposals and thoughts on the future of CNU or to just listen and reflect on the information shared. It was presented in a question-and-answer format and Kelly first gave remarks on why this Town Hall was happening and what it truly meant. Discussing the unprecedented events of the past years such as COVID-19 and even the recent attacks in Israel, Kelly said that it can be difficult to anticipate what happens next. However, he said, “The world is going to change, we’re going to change, and the environment which we operate in is going to change, but you want to have something to change off of. So that’s why we’re going through this effort.”
Attendees had the chance to sign up before the event to speak. Once the sign-up sheet was completed, people from the audience could line up and share their thoughts as well. There were also index cards should you want to leave an anonymous comment in the comment box provided at the end.
The discussion itself was extremely successful and both faculty and students stood up to address concerns or ideas they had that could be implemented. Many of the concerns were focused on diversity and making sure that CNU can become more diverse while also being inclusive to the students who are already on campus. The notion which was continuously repeated was that CNU would have a harder time becoming diverse and well-known if it is not globalized in the future. Kelly has emphasized that CNU does not need to remain the “best-kept secret.”
Another focus was on the improvement of recruitment of students in the near future to bring the student population back to 5000. In addition, make sure to have better marketing for each university department to attract students and society as a whole. A professor from the Department of Physics, Computer Science, and Engineering noted how many people outside of CNU have no idea that engineering is even offered and that it is a successful program.
Many people were not afraid to share their opinion which led to an insightful conversation.
RA Logan Gill spoke about how the FDA hours are no longer 24/7 and how, as an RA in a freshman dorm, she is nervous as to what could happen if a freshman resident loses his or her phone and/or ID and is afraid to walk over to CNU PD for help. She proposed a meeting place somewhere on main campus where students could easily walk to at night with no fear of getting access to a building or finding a missing item.
Student Kaley Vincent also discussed how CNU often feels like a bubble and that there is often a disconnect between the CNU community and the Newport News community since many students don’t venture off campus often and are sometimes told that parts of Newport News are even dangerous. She would love to see more community engagement overall, not just in PLP students, in the future.
One last interesting proposal was a professor who suggested that CNU actually change its name from Christopher Newport since it has racial ties to colonization and can be seen as harmful to society.
Kelly responded to each question and comment thoughtfully and promised that he and his team will discuss them further. Kelly and Colvin hope to have a document produced by the Fall of 2024 that is in depth with a Strategic Compass plan.
