For 200 years, Indiana University has inspired exceptional research and discovery, exciting creativity and achievement, and excellence in teaching and learning. As an intellectual community, we have produced Nobel laureates, Rhodes Scholars, MacArthur Fellows, Olympic Medalists, and winners of Academy Awards, Grammy Awards, Tony Awards, and Pulitzer Prizes.
In anticipation of our 200th birthday, faculty, staff, and students from across campus were invited to help construct the Bicentennial Strategic Plan for Indiana University Bloomington in 2013-2014. Our intention was to leverage historic strengths alongside emerging areas—always leaving room for the thrill of discovery along the way—to create a vibrant, creative, and forward-thinking institution with boundless potential for growth.
In fashioning our plan, none of us could have imagined the extraordinary challenges the COVID-19 pandemic would pose to our lives and campus operations. Despite the all-encompassing nature of this trial, our community’s caring, conscientious, creative, and dogged response has left me awe-struck. In record time, we moved all our classes, our libraries, and most of our student services online. We emptied our residence halls and postponed or cancelled events. We fought for our students’ progress toward their degrees and used our valuable expertise to join the battle against this disease. The sheer amount of activity, adaptability, and positivity shown by the thousands of dedicated professionals who populate our campus assures me that we will come out the other side of this pandemic stronger—and wiser—than ever before.
The individuals who are inspiring us with their efforts now are the same ones who have led, over the past five years, to the glorious completion of the goals outlined in our Bicentennial Strategic Plan. This report, composed prior to the start of the pandemic, is a testament to their efforts and astounding accomplishments. It serves as further assurance of what we, as a community, can achieve together and of the wonderful partnerships we can nurture over time in pursuit of greater goals.
Members of the IU community have been and continue to be part of conversations central to the health and wellbeing of our state, nation, and the world. We have global gateway offices in Bangkok, Beijing, Delhi, Berlin, and Mexico City that connect us with prospective students, alumni who are living and working overseas, and faculty who engage in multiple ways around the world through research, teaching, and creative pursuits.
And, while we are pervasively global, we are also more deeply connected with our local communities than ever, partnering with fellow Hoosiers to help meet the region’s most pressing challenges and needs. Our IU Center for Rural Engagement has launched more than 200 projects in 30 Indiana counties, mobilized nearly 5,000 students to work with Hoosier communities, and engaged with more than 8,000 residents in 43 communities. Our IU Corps service network, which matches our enterprising students with community organizations most in need of help, has counted 1 million student service hours from January 2019 to January 2020.
The astonishing generosity of our donors led to the naming of the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering; the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture, and Design; the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies; the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs; and the Eskenazi Museum of Art, which also reopened to well-deserved fanfare—after two years of renovation—in November of 2019.
Our faculty have worked together creatively to form the J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program, the Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering—which is IU’s first-ever engineering program—and the Integrated Program in the Environment. They’ve come together to create interdisciplinary degrees, such as the Master of Science in Cybersecurity Risk Management and the Curatorship Master of Arts, and they have successfully engaged major issues like addiction and sustainability through our Grand Challenges and Emerging Areas of Research programs.
Five years ago, every one of the working groups involved in the strategic planning effort wrote about our need to focus with renewed intentionality on inclusivity, tolerance, and diversity. We are a more diverse and accessible community than ever before, and we have doubled down on efforts to recruit and retain underrepresented students and faculty. Our campus has achieved steady minority enrollment growth, increasing from 20.1% in 2015 to 24.7% in 2019. Minority students now constitute more than the state of Indiana’s minority population total of 24.2%.
Indiana University stands at the pinnacle of leading public research institutions in the U.S. We are one of just 63 U.S. members of the Association of American Universities. This puts us in elite company alongside other institutions with top research funding and output, doctoral education and post-doctoral appointees, and undergraduate education. Our academic standing helps foster partnerships with Ivy Leagues and HBCUs, precollege STEM programs, international institutions, and graduate-level programs that lead to recruitment of the very best minds.
Our campus plan and the larger Indiana University plan it complements continue to guide our campus commitment to being a humane, creative, international, and vibrantly connected hub for passionate learning, powerful research, and authentic engagement in tackling the challenges of today.
Lauren Robel
Executive Vice President and Provost