Overview

Lafayette College has a great tradition of having top-notch employees who, regardless of their role, are dedicated to and inspired by the mission of enhancing of the experience of our students – past, present and future – whether directly or indirectly.  Although the College’s  staff is already very experienced, talented and hard-working, we understand that we have the capacity to continually improve.

As a part of our efforts in this regard and at the request of President Weiss, a group of College employees helped organize a Staff Summit which was held on June 29, 2010 (with mini-versions held on June 9th and 15th) with 138 employees participating.  Those days were spent having employees sharing real-life stories about some of the most positive experiences they’ve had, especially those at Lafayette College.

The Summit sessions were focused on:

  1. Each of our individual leadership responsibilities;
  2. The Lafayette community as a family;
  3. Enhancing collaboration on campus; and
  4. Visioning of the ideal future for Lafayette and our part in making that vision a reality.

Continuing the positive momentum from the Summit, the President formed a committee of administrators on campus who meet periodically to plan ways to continually and creatively address these issues and identify various initiatives for the future.  The objectives of the summit and the continuing work are intended to:

  • Create a more formal structure which ensures/encourages open communication across the College
  • Support professional development and foster individual initiative
  • Provide additional opportunities for best practices to be achieved
  • Increase our focus on the positive and the possible

To do that, we are initially focused on:

1)  Fostering greater interaction among administrators and with the faculty and all employees

  • Create more frequent meetings of administrators with more interactive formats and engaging agendas
  • Invite faculty committee chairs to attend selected administrator meetings to discuss topics of mutual interest
  • Invite administrative leaders to selected faculty meetings to discuss issues and topics of interest
  • Host an annual Founders Day event or other events which gather the entire campus community
  • Consider the creation of an all-college council to provide advice to senior administration

2) Providing new opportunities for communication and improving our sense of community

  • Maintain a website for news, information sharing and feedback
  • Consider creating a staff and faculty photo directory

3) Support leadership development

  • Create a year-long annual seminar on higher education leadership for 10-12 participants annually
  • Evaluate the feasibility of creating department level mechanisms for recognizing exceptional staff performance

This site is dedicated to keeping the Lafayette campus community aware of and involved with the progress that has been and will be made toward building upon the strengths that make Lafayette and its staff so unique.  This site is an opportunity for you to see what’s new and more importantly participate in the discussions and actions that will keep Lafayette among the most dedicated and resourceful higher education communities in the nation.  Please take advantage of this site by visiting regularly for updates, but most importantly, contributing to the cause by sharing what you are doing to make Lafayette College a better place and by sharing your success stories in the “positive story bank.”  It will take individual and group efforts from everyone on campus for us to build from our strengths and bring the vision of our future to fruition.