“We need to act boldly to secure the college’s future,” Macalester’s Board of Trustees wrote in their strategic plan. While all colleges have some sort of long-term strategy, the Board approved this wide-ranging strategic plan called Imagine, Macalester which will impact all aspects of Macalester.
The Imagine, Macalester strategic plan is broken into three parts: Campus, Curriculum, and Culture. The plan was approved by the Macalester Board of Trustees on Oct. 7, 2022, with the plan to wrap it up in 2030. Also in 2030, President Suzanne Rivera’s contract will expire after the Board extended her contract on Sept. 5, 2024.
Macalester’s goal to renovate the campus falls under the Comprehensive Campus Plan (CCP) — the “Campus” section of the strategic plan. It is both a “short-term and long-term” project that seeks to “revitalize spaces and create new buildings that support student living-learning and invite community gathering,” according to a slideshow available on the CCP’s website.
While Macalester has invested in physical spaces recently, such as with the 2012 and 2018 additions to the Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center or Markim Hall’s construction in 2009, the CCP envisions more expansive renovations and additions, broken up into sequences A, B and C.
The spring of 2024 saw the investment of “several million dollars in the renovation of the Lampert Building,” Director of the High Winds Fund Deanna Seppanen wrote in an email to The Mac Weekly. The High Winds Fund manages several off-campus properties on behalf of Macalester worth around $28 million.
On the northeast corner of Grand Ave. and Snelling Ave., Lampert Building continues to house the college bookstore, but now includes all of Advancement, the division responsible for fundraising and development. Their previous space in Weyerhaeuser is now occupied by the Office of Student Affairs and Macalester College Student Government (MCSG), after the renovations to the Campus Center.
The next step in the CCP is the construction of a new residence hall. The Cultural House (C-House) will be demolished next summer and relocated to Summit House. A new residence hall and welcome center will be constructed in its place, on the northwest corner of Macalester Street and Grand Avenue.
The plan for the new residence hall is not yet complete, according to Executive Director of Residential Life Kyle Flowers.
“The new residence hall and welcome center design is still being finalized. The [New Residence Hall and Welcome Center steering committee] has talked about the building having somewhere between 225 and 250 beds and it being pod style. We are also having conversations about how many kitchens, lounge spaces, etc. will be in the building and what amenities will be in a kitchen vs. a pod on a floor,” Flowers wrote in an email to The Mac Weekly.
According to Vice President for Admissions and Financial Aid Jeff Allen, the first floor of the new building will be a Welcome Center for Admissions. The building will accommodate prospective students visiting campus.
“In terms of the space, [I’m] very excited about the Welcome Center components: the lobby, the presentation space and then there should be space for the office needs of Admissions employees,” Allen said.
Currently, Admissions and Financial Aid are located next to each other in the basement of Weyerhaeuser. Financial Aid will stay in its current location, while Admissions will move across the street to the new Welcome Center, according to Allen. There are no immediate plans for filling in the Admissions lobby and current offices.
Finishing up sequence A in the CCP are planned renovations to the Weyerhaeuser Memorial Chapel and Briggs House.
The Chapel’s upstairs will be renovated to a “large flexible event space,” while the lower level is imagined as a “community living room, including a separate space with a kitchen that can be reserved,” the CCP slideshow says.
Briggs House, set on the southwest corner of Macalester St. and Summit Ave., serves as an event space and guest house for visiting alumni. The purpose will stay the same throughout the renovation, though spaces will be renovated to “implement accessibility upgrades… [and] enhance kitchen facilities,” the slideshow says. A multipurpose addition is a consideration as well, with the goal of adding flexible event space.
Sequence B will begin once sequence A finishes, though no timeline has been finalized. It includes renovations to many residence halls: Doty, Dupre, Bigelow, 30 Mac, Wallace and Kirk.
“Renovations provide us an opportunity to make much needed upgrades and changes to older buildings. Two of my biggest hopes with the renovations include us having conversations about accessibility (not only to be ADA compliant but thinking about our campus infrastructure to be rooted in universal design) and bathroom infrastructure. I’d like all of our renovated buildings to have lockable showers and bathrooms with doors that cover gaps within the cracks and go closer to the floor than traditional bathroom stalls do. This would allow our infrastructure to match the philosophy of our gender-inclusive housing model,” Flowers wrote.
Installing air conditioning in Doty, Dupre, Bigelow, 30 Mac, Wallace and Kirk is an additional part of the renovations, on top of adding card access to rooms, similar to the upgrade in George Draper Dayton Hall (GDD) over the summer.
For Wallace, the lofted rooms in the basement “pose a challenge for safety that needs to be rethought,” the slideshow says.
In Kirk, the entire interior will be renovated.
“A complete reconfiguration would address the concerns of accessibility while allowing new amenities to be introduced into the space.”
A solar array installation in the parking lot west of Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center is also included in sequence B. The solar panels, elevated above parking, will primarily add a renewable energy source on campus. They will also provide more electric vehicle charging locations on campus and provide shade or shelter from the elements for cars and pedestrians.
Finally in sequence B is a new academic building replacing the current Humanities building. New teaching spaces for social and physical spaces will be built with natural light throughout the building.
“This project offers the ability to enable future renovations of Olin-Rice by moving some functions currently in Olin-Rice to this new academic building,” the slideshow says.
Those aforementioned renovations to the Olin-Rice Science Center are a part of sequence C of the CCP.
The CCP cites the fact that Olin-Rice has some of the fastest-expanding academic departments as a reason to renovate both Olin-Rice and the Humanities building. Some departments, though they are not currently identified, will relocate from Olin-Rice to Humanities in the future to offload some of the burden presently on Olin-Rice. After these renovations, the intention is still to have indoor connections between Humanities, Olin-Rice and the Fine Arts Center.
In alignment with the overall goal of increasing sustainability, Macalester plans to expand the Ordway Field Station and replace the existing gas-based central heat plant with a “fossil fuel-free source,” according to the slideshow. Plans for these geothermal wells are not solidified, but Macalester seems prepared to significantly reduce its carbon footprint.
Sequence C also calls for townhouses to replace the current Language and Specialty Interest Houses. With this construction, more beds will be available for students who want them. The C-House’s permanent location could be among those townhouses, Vice President for Student Affairs Kathryn Kay Coquemont said in a meeting on Sept. 26 regarding the C-House moving to Summit House, but that it is ultimately up to what students want. If students want the C-House to stay in Summit House, it can, otherwise it will move to the new townhouses.
While Coquemont recognizes that it is difficult to demolish the language houses, she believes it will be good in the long term.
“The intention of all the things we’re doing with the comprehensive campus plan around residential life is to be able to make sure that our students from all historically marginalized identities don’t feel like they’re confined to one place that feels like home or like that can feel like it’s a place that they’re welcome and can relax,” Coquemont said.
The last portion of sequence C and the entire CCP is a potential development on the northeast corner of Snelling and Grand. The slideshow calls for the demolition of all structures on site (Macalester owns all properties from Lampert and the parking lot to Summit Ave, except for the Dunn Brothers building), but Seppanen said that plans are not set in stone.
“The CCP is expected to evolve especially in sequences B and C as we continue to redefine our priorities and listen to the needs of our students,” Seppanen said.
Seppanen emphasized that because of the multimillion dollar renovation to Lampert, “redeveloping that area is clearly not a near-term priority or a current project.”
Everything laid out above is expected to be finished by the end of 2030, but especially for sequences B and C, there is no clear timeline.
“The comprehensive campus plan allows us to imagine what’s best for students overall, and to be able to remain flexible as we move forward with those plans,” Coquemont said.
Flowers agrees that the plan is working towards what is best for the college.
“While there are various phases of the Comprehensive Campus Plan, each stage provides us with an opportunity to critically think about what we can do to make the campus experience better,” Flowers wrote.
The last two parts of the Imagine, Macalester strategic plan, Curriculum and Culture, encompass how the college functions, rather than its physical spaces.
The Curriculum Implementation Committee (CIC) is responsible for reviewing and potentially revising the current curriculum, according to their website.
“Revisiting the design of our curriculum presents a unique opportunity to ensure that our educational practices align with our mission and purpose,” the CIC website says. “Specifically in terms of curriculum, the plan calls for a robust first year experience, an integrated four-year developmental approach to education, updated academic pathways, and amplified opportunities for experiential learning.”
To accomplish these goals, the CIC has and will continue to review the curriculum of peer colleges, such as Bard, Connecticut, and Seton Hall, according to co-chairs of the CIC Professor of American studies Duchess Harris and Professor of geography Daniel Trudeau.
One of the priority initiatives of the CIC is to reevaluate how students in every year can experience a liberal arts education.
“We already require a First Year Course. We are reimagining what it might look like. For instance, ‘Should this be a course where students learn what it means to receive a liberal arts education?’” Harris wrote to The Mac Weekly after consultation with Trudeau and the rest of the CIC. “We are having conversations about collective sophomore and junior experience. We do not have that right now. This could look like a ‘class retreat’ during those two years. Finally, every major requires a capstone. Are there ways to showcase what students have learned not just in their departments, but campus wide?”
Graduation requirements are also under review.
“Students often encounter the college’s general education and distribution requirements as a disconnected collection of boxes to be checked to graduate, rather than intentional educational choices that they make,” a Sept. 2024 report from the CIC says.
Changing those requirements to “assure that every student experiences breadth
meaningfully – that is, with an eye to achieving specific learning goals/outcomes – in the course of their four years at Macalester” is one of the CIC’s aims, a discussion paper from June 2023 says.
Another element of the CIC’s mandate is to reconsider how the academic calendar is structured. Options include offering classes during J-Term or the summer, or offering partial semester one- or two-credit classes.
The Strategic Plan and Analysis Committee (SPA) also suggests considering four-day academic weeks, changing lengths or times of classes throughout the week, including wellness days throughout the semester, or offering three-year BAs, according to the aforementioned discussion paper.
“We can not say if these changes are likely because they require a faculty vote,” Harris wrote. “Once we decide what the curriculum is, it will be easier to discuss when classes are offered, such as during J. Term and the summer.”
While Harris elucidates that the CIC does not believe the current curriculum lacks anything, the committee views the Imagine, Macalester strategic plan as an opportunity to improve the curriculum. The CIC encourages students and the rest of the Macalester community to submit anonymous feedback on a form available on their website, if they wish.
The last aspect of the strategic plan is “Culture.”
“Macalester is both an institution and a community of people,” the approved strategic plan says. “The institution thrives when the people thrive. To achieve this, we must facilitate an environment where we work, live and learn that encourages collaboration, creativity, respect, support, rest and compassion. We recognize these as both values and skills that must be intentionally cultivated and mindfully applied.”
There appears to be no committee present to address this issue, however some of the articulated “Culture” goals in the strategic plan are partially complete, such as to “Diversify Student, Staff, and Faculty Populations.”
One way Macalester has done this is by launching the Flemming Scholars initiative. Along with a partnership with the Posse Foundation, Macalester has lowered barriers of entry for first-gen or low-income students by providing stipends and scholarships.
“Our commitment to support high-need and first-gen students starts long before they arrive, and it needs to extend throughout their years on campus and beyond,” President Suzanne M. Rivera was quoted when Macalester announced the Flemming Scholars initiative. “We’re building on past progress and working toward a transformative vision for our community. The Flemming Scholars initiative is an important step forward.”
Macalester also tracks five different Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) with the goal to accomplish all of them by 2030. Macalester needs to increase alumni outreach, yield on offers of admission, first to second year retention, and the six-year graduation rate in the next six years, while keeping the six-month placement rate constant. The full description of all KPIs is available on the Imagine, Macalester website. A report is also online for the community to keep track of the college’s progress.
So how has Macalester positioned itself to embark on this strategic plan? Check back next week!
