The future that Mary Baldwin College has envisioned for itself is becoming, more and more, a current reality. Our vision aspires to national recognition for our historic strength of personalized liberal education. In our 10-year strategic plan, Composing Our Future: Mary Baldwin College 2014, we lay out five strategic initiatives — make personal transformation our priority, sharpen our focus on academic excellence, unite and enrich our community, renew our environment, and fund our future — that are broad and fundamental, encompassing students, academic excellence, community, facilities, and funding.

In 2006-07, the college is in the third year of implementing Composing Our Future, and significant progress is being made in accomplishing the five initiatives. Fall 2006 marks the roll-out of the Mary Baldwin College Advantage, a set of 10 key experiences first outlined in the plan that have been woven into the Residential College for Women. These are designed to ensure that an MBC education leads to personal transformation, nurtures academic excellence, and engages students both locally and within the global community.

MBC has made progress in renewing our environment as well. A comprehensive campus master plan has been developed. In addition, a portion of a $6.5 million gift from alumna Bertie Deming Smith '46 has provided funding for facilities upgrades and improvements in how the campus looks.

The process began in 2003-04, when President Pamela Fox led the entire Mary Baldwin College community in a comprehensive and inclusive conversation about who we are as an institution and what our future should hold. Within 10 months the college created the 10-year strategic plan, backed by broad consensus. In 2004–05, we moved from composition to performance, adding depth to our strategic initiatives through further planning and pilot testing. In 2005–06, we began implementation in earnest, making demonstrable progress on the route we mapped.

We invite your dialogue about the strategic plan (contact us at compose@mbc.edu) and our progress in implementing it.