Lincoln College Strategic Plan, 2017–22

We shall advance education, study, and research by:

• • Competing locally, nationally and internationally for the best students
  • Maintaining a student body of about 600, equally divided between undergraduates and graduates
  • Committing itself to providing the best possible education for our students through the undergraduate tutorial system and the role of graduate advisors
  • Enhancing our programmes to widen participation and to increase access
  • Monitoring and developing our welfare provision for students
  • Ensuring that we recruit and seek to retain the best teachers and researchers as Fellows

We shall advance education, study and research by:

• • Developing our access and outreach work in Lincolnshire, Somerset and the North East
  • Monitoring equality and diversity in admissions and in extending our outreach strategy
  • Encouraging excellence among our students by reviewing our policies and practices relating to academic discipline and rewarding outstanding performance
  • Raising funds for graduate students, especially in the Humanities and Social Sciences
  • Reviewing our provision of graduate accommodation

The College depends upon a combination of fees, residential and other domestic income and drawdown from its endowment to finance its operations. Given that fees in particular are unlikely to rise significantly over the five-year period, the College will prioritise controlling its expenditure and growing its endowment. We shall ensure the College is run in the most efficient and effective way by:

• Rewarding our staff in line with the University’s cost of living adjustments and the recommendations of the Living Wage Foundation
• Reviewing the management, processing, and security of our data
• Agreeing and implementing a five-year plan for the College’s budget

We shall seek to increase the College’s endowment by:

• Managing our investment assets, and implementing our securities investment strategy with the intention, by 2022, of growing the College’s endowment by 25%; this should allow the current pattern of spending on established commitments to be maintained
• Seeking further improvements: in the service and working conditions of administrative and domestic staff; in operating efficiencies; and in generating income from external sources
• Maintaining our commitment to the 3% drawdown so that the lasting growth of the endowment can continue in real terms
• Using the Road to 2027 Campaign to increase engagement with old members and to pave the way for a new campaign that will take the College from 2022 to its 600th anniversary in 2027

We shall use the drawdown from the College’s endowment to:

• Support our students, our Fellows and staff, our buildings and their contents
• From our own resources to finance all College fellowships, to support all our students according to their needs, to maintain our buildings and to catalogue, conserve and display our historic collections
• Make sure that our Fellows and staff are appropriately remunerated

We shall ensure that:

• All long-standing issues with maintenance and appearance have been resolved

In particular, we shall:

• Complete work on the Mitre and on the High Street part of the NatWest building
• Complete work on the restoration of the Chapel, the Beckington Room, and the Hall and undertake necessary renovation of the Rector’s lodgings
• Initiate a five-year rolling plan for the maintenance of all our buildings

We shall play as full a part as possible in the University’s life and work by:

• Encouraging and supporting Fellows who take on positions in the University
• Engaging closely in the running of the Conference of Colleges
• Developing strategic alliances with other colleges, especially the Turl Street colleges

We shall enhance our engagement with local, national and international audiences by:

• Developing the Library and Archive through the Lincoln Unlocked programme
• The online cataloguing of the Senior Library and of the Archive
• Making as much as possible of our historic collections available online
• Initiating historical projects in relation to the College’s 600th anniversary
• Participating in local cultural initiatives, such as the Oxford Literary Festival and the Oxford Lieder Festival, through the use of the College’s performance spaces

We shall renew the way in which College presents itself to the world by:

• Redesigning and bringing consistency to all our internal and external documents and signage
• Redesigning our website
• Enhancing our engagement with our alumni, both nationally and internationally, through a well-organised and diverse programme of events and publications and maintain an extensive programme of communications through print, email and social media

We shall seek to achieve all these aims by:

• Prudent management of the College’s finances
• Growing our endowment
• Drawing on the advice and experience of our old members through participation in events, fundraising and advisory committees