Chapter 7: Transformative Leadership: A Strategic Plan for Student Success

This paper has two broad themes: (1) to explore the role of strategic planning as a tool for long term success and (2) to center the division of student success as a critical player in preservation and retention, thus persistence.

Lincoln University’s strategic plan emphasizes reimagining the legacy: Learn. Liberate. Lead. This plan reinvests in our historical successes, including a liberal arts education rooted in Black leadership and social justice. By restructuring to hold space for academic and interpersonal educational opportunities for students, faculty, staff, and administrators alike, Lincoln created a new lens on student success. Current literature suggests that a liberal arts education provides an opportunity for curricular and co-curricular learning, a proven educational tool for practicing and mastering scholarship with hands-on experiences. The student success movement, centered in a liberal arts education, provides a space for these unique forms of learning and produces excellent retention and graduation rates, equity, and social mobility among students across the nation.

The purpose of this paper is to specifically explore Lincoln University’s strategic planning and implementation process and the retooling of the division of student affairs to include class deans and a co-curricular unit as tools for effective and efficient change. Furthermore, the role and responsibilities of the strategic planning council in managing the implementation process is transformative.

This conversation can come at no better time when spaces for Black creative thinkers continue to be desperately needed. In a time of collective care and social change, it is essential to provide future scholars space to learn, liberate, and lead.