Beloit is forthright in its aspirations to become a more equitable place to live and learn and to stand up against racism. Becoming Better is the college’s initiative which centers that work around measurable goals:

• to hire and retain more faculty, staff, and trustees of color
• to recruit, retain, and support domestic Black students
• to ensure all students, faculty, and staff engage with issues of race, sex, power, privilege, anti-racism, and anti-Blackness
• to expand safe, inclusive spaces for our Black students
• and to resist injustice through sound processes that address biased, racist, and discriminatory acts and that include accountability measures and restorative justice practices.

The Beloit Plan year-round curriculum put Beloit College on the national map when it launched in 1964. The boldly original program, in effect throughout the ’70s, reimagined the undergraduate experience and calendar, requiring off-campus field terms and valuing student agency and experiences on- and off-campus.

The Beloit Plan ignited the college’s strong experiential spirit, leading to current programs like Career Channels, which help students explore their interests through beyond-the-classroom experiences. Career Channels give students a chance to test their interests in a variety of fields, in the classroom and out, providing access to a professional community, including our 16,000+ alumni, to see what actually working in them would be like.

The list of Channels includes

• Arts
• Business & Entrepreneurship
• Curating & Communicating
• Health & Healing
• Justice & Rights
• Sports, Fitness & Recreation
• Sustainability
• Worldbuilding

Each Channel’s mentors and alumni advisors plan events and help students find jobs during the summer and school year, leading to opportunities beyond graduation.

Beloit’s entrepreneurship center, CELEB, is another example of the learn-by-doing mindset, offering students unparalleled opportunities, such as the chance to manage a student art gallery, create something new in its maker lab, and develop skills and insights to start their own businesses.

Impact Beloit is the college’s newest venture, centralizing and enhancing its experiential programs, community-based learning, and career readiness capabilities to benefit students. Through Impact Beloit, the college is building out a more robust and direct pathway from Career Channels to alumni and jobs while building stronger connections to the Beloit community. Impact Beloit will be housed in a newly renovated Robert H. Morse Library, made possible by a $9 million grant from the state of Wisconsin, coupled with a $1 million college investment.

When the pandemic struck in 2020, Beloit’s leadership took action quickly. Building on strategic planning completed the previous summer, the college launched a five-part promise to students called the Beloit Action Plan.

When the college announced the plan a mere six weeks after sending students home in March 2020, it was the first in the country to have navigated the new normal of COVID-19. The actions aligned with Beloit’s overall approach: From modular course formats to the launching of an amped-up mentoring program, they placed students at the center.

At the same time, 19 student leaders came together to revise the students’ Statement of Culture, which included behavioral expectations during the pandemic and promoted the policy of “self-care is community care.” It was a resounding success. While campus had some cases of Covid, a large-scale outbreak was avoided.

Beloit educates students to become citizens of the world and integrates international education into academics and campus life.

The campus community is both globally aware and geographically diverse. In fall 2022, 20 percent of Beloit’s first-year students were international.

Over the last seven years, 34 percent of graduates had studied abroad at some point in their college career. Through Beloit, study abroad is intentional, immersive, and accessible financially, whether it is a semester or year-long independent experience or a shorter-term, faculty-led Global Experience Seminar held in summer.

Beloit’s long tradition of valuing international education dates to the 1920s when college leaders were early to put forth a vision and commit resources to becoming a global community.

Beloit College leads our sector in connecting a liberal arts education with faculty-led mentoring and career preparation throughout the entire student experience, inside and outside the classroom.

• Faculty and staff collaborate closely with one another and our students.
• Through programs like Career Channels, which help students align their passions with their purpose in such fields as Business and Entrepreneurship, Health and Healing, Justice and Rights, Sports, Fitness and Recreation, Sustainability, the Arts or Worldbuilding.
• Career Works helps students navigate their pathways, from connecting with a Career Channel to pursuing an internship or a post-graduate job.
• Career Works also helps students develop and tell the story of what they can do and why, so that employers and graduate programs take notice.

Beloit’s shared governance structure involves all segments of the community in decisions affecting their welfare and the wellbeing of the institution.

Two groups’ roles are noteworthy:

• Faculty members, through the Academic Senate’s standing and special committees, exercise major legislative responsibility for assuring the quality of the academic program and the academic vitality and professional competence of those within its own ranks.
• Beloit is committed to student representation in administrative decision-making processes, based on the conviction that the college is better served by genuine and responsible student involvement. Students who serve as academic senators, on major search committees, and other administrative committees are called upon to represent the best interests of their peers and to act on behalf of the college’s welfare.

With 40+ majors and minors to pursue, Beloit students acquire depth and breadth of knowledge, plus the transformative skills and practices that explicitly link their experiences with their futures.

From anthropology to biology to economics and theatre and dance — every major and minor puts students on a path of purpose and lifelong learning.

Along with deep knowledge, Beloit students graduate with the core skills most attractive to employers, what we call integrated learning outcomes. Beloiters learn to be:

• effective communicators
• creative problem solvers
• productive collaborators
• intellectually and professionally agile.

Beloit’s 2022-27 strategic plan builds on the college’s existing strengths of preparing students to survive and thrive in an ever-changing world.

The plan launches new initiatives and enhances recent innovation to make students aware of different career pathways and to weave their experiences in and out of the classroom into meaningful outcomes toward those paths.

This is accomplished in part by activating students’ relationships with faculty, staff, and alumni, but also through structures such as the Advanced Mentoring Program and student life opportunities.

Beloit is realistic about the significant headwinds facing higher education, and liberal arts colleges in particular.

At its core, the college’s strategic plan addresses increasing strategic enrollment and student retention through stronger positioning, admissions and marketing strategies, strategic resource allocation, and fundraising.

Beloit’s Office of Institutional Research, Assessment, and Planning implements an annual student survey that assesses the college’s effectiveness in key areas. Nine questions zero in on student experiences that generate positive results after graduation.

In our most recent survey, 98 percent of students said at least one professor excited them about learning, while 93 percent said professors or staff care about them as a person. Over 80 percent said they had a mentor who encourages them to pursue goals and dreams.

1985, Beloit has published the Beloit Fiction Journal, featuring the best contemporary short fiction by professional writers from across the country. Students enrolled in the fiction journal class serve as the journal’s editors under the direction of English professor and editor Chris Fink.

Last fall, the class read, debated, critiqued, advocated for or argued against more than 1,000 submitted works, while choosing only 15 for publication. In the spring, students design and print the journal, assisting with layout, choosing cover art, and learning about their own creative writing as they assess the work of professional writers.

Beloit is unique in having two teaching museums on campus which give students rich opportunities to integrate knowledge and experience. Students conduct research among the collections, curate exhibits, and assist museum staff with much of the behind-the-scenes museum work.

The Logan Museum of Anthropology, one of only two accredited academic museums in Wisconsin, houses approximately 350,000 ethnographic and archaeological objects from 129 countries and more than 600 cultural groups.

The Wright Museum of Art features five galleries, and a collection of about 6,000 works of art, including significant holdings of American Impressionism, modernist paintings, 19th century plaster casts, German Expressionism, and Japanese modern prints.

The non-profit consortium began with the unconventional guide book written by former New York Times education reporter Loren Pope.

Colleges That Change Lives was early to question the assumption that name-brand schools produce a higher-quality education, instead exploring and profiling a select number of student-centered schools like Beloit where student experiences are transformative.

A first-of-its-kind facility in the country, this former power plant is now the Powerhouse, our award-winning, Silver LEED-certified green student center for recreation and health.

Located right on the Rock River, this 120,000-square-foot facility features a cafe, theater, classrooms, and meeting spaces, along with a running track, eight-lane competition swimming pool, and plenty of other areas to work out and rest up. 

The Sanger Center for the Sciences earned platinum LEED-certification shortly after it opened in 2008. This magnificent 116,000 square-foot, four-story building features a soaring atrium and naturally lit labs, classrooms, and auditoriums that attract students to study and gather.

Through several courses, students were involved in planning and researching aspects of this environmentally friendly building that features a vegetated roof, high recycled/reused content, water conservation features, natural landscaping, a rain garden, and more. 

The Col. Robert Morse Library is being renovated thanks to a Neighborhood Investment Fund Program Grant from the State of Wisconsin and will house Impact Beloit and the college’s career readiness and career pathways programs.

When he visited the college in February 2022 to award the grant, Gov. Tony Evers cited the college’s long history of educating citizens of the world.

“If we want to see our state’s families, communities, and economy succeed for years to come, we need to make investments that spur community outreach and economic development. There’s no better place to make that investment than at Beloit College.”

Beloit College is the center of the College-Park Historic District on the city of Beloit’s east side, which includes period residences and Horace White Park, the city’s first town square.

Campus is home to some of the city’s oldest and most noteworthy structures, including the college’s first building, Middle College, the cornerstone of which was laid in 1847. It is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The city of Beloit’s vibrant downtown is two blocks from campus, with spots to grab a burger, sushi, coffee, street tacos, and treats. It’s also home to multiple businesses and community partners that welcome Beloit students as interns and employees, including Irontek, a tech hub and shared workspace across the river from the college.

Part of the former Beloit Corporation foundry, Irontek features huge windows, open spaces, and the vibe of an urban shared workspace, with fast internet, coffee, craft beer, and the chance to rub elbows with other entrepreneurs. Beloit’s Chamber of Commerce is one of the building’s anchor tenants.

Brenna Wynn Greer’94, a historian of race, gender, and culture in the 20th century United States, is an associate professor of history and social science at Wellesley College.

She recounts how a Beloit faculty member awakened her interest in history and pointed her toward her future career. She pays that favor forward in her own classrooms, dedicating time in each course to talk to students about the process of becoming a historian.

Brenna, who holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, researches the relationships between social movements — especially the civil rights movement — the market, and visual culture. She is a rising scholar and speaker whose book, Represented: The Black Imagemakers Who Reimagined African American Citizenship, challenges conventional thinking about advancing civil rights by looking beyond well-known activists to the role of Black entrepreneurs and capitalists.

Only 12 years out of Beloit, Joe Davis’10 has risen to the highest levels of sports broadcasting.

While still in his 20s, in 2017, he was selected to step into the shoes of iconic L.A. Dodgers announcer Vin Scully. He announced the 2022 World Series, and regularly calls college and NFL football games for Fox.

He credits Beloit for his meteoric rise. He arrived on campus knowing he wanted to play football and to become a broadcaster. He tapped people and programs to get the experiences he needed, announcing Beloit’s basketball games as an undergraduate, starting his own community access TV show in the college’s studio, and acquiring breathing and speaking tips from one of his theatre professors.

Looking back, he says he would have been crazy not to have come to Beloit. “So many people were willing to create opportunities and help me create those opportunities — that became the biggest benefit of all.”

Ruth Hamilton’07 has dedicated her legal career to advocating for justice for all people.

She is a senior attorney in the Bronx Defenders’ legal department and former legal director of Still She Rises, which represents mothers in the criminal justice system. The Bronx Defenders is doing groundbreaking work, redefining public defense by radically transforming how low-income people in the Bronx are represented in the justice system.

Ruth’s commitment to social justice started at Beloit, where she began to recognize the nature and power of privilege. She studied political science, worked with low-income job seekers at the Rock County Job Center through the college’s Duffy Community Partnerships program, and interned with the Winnebago County Public Defender’s Office. She further prepared for a career of service by earning her law degree at Harvard Law School.

During the Afghan war, Javid Ahmad’10 grew up in a Pakistan refugee camp. There, he dedicated himself to a future that included helping find solutions for his home country of Afghanistan’s complex challenges.

At Beloit, and later at Yale University, he prepared to analyze policy and engage with difficult issues, including terrorism and security, in his home region. He took full advantage of Beloit’s opportunities, with one internship at the Afghanistan embassy in Washington, D.C., and another at NATO while studying abroad in Brussels, Belgium. He was one of Beloit’s first Weissberg Scholars, majoring in international relations with a focus on human rights.

Today, he has fulfilled predictions by faculty that he would become a major player in advocating for Afghanistan. He is the country’s ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and holds a non-resident fellowship with the Atlantic Council, a noted non-partisan American think tank in the field of international affairs.

• Sharing the Beloit vision in a way that excites donors.
• Harnessing both the intellectual capacity of faculty and staff talent.
• Acknowledging, illuminating, and leading the process of dismantling structures at Beloit that perpetuate inequity and privilege a few.

• Using bold tactics to expand fundraising, creating new avenues and opportunities.
• Exploring new ways of operating to improve the college’s financial standing.
• Expanding the college’s influence and reach with the kind of thought leadership that brought national attention in the early 1960s with the Beloit Plan and in 2020 with the Beloit Action Plan.

• Clearly represent the college’s vision to a diverse community.
• Foster transparency, discussion, and collaboration in building consensus.
• Display emotional intelligence through optimism, courage, honesty, and humility.

• A highly visible leader who strengthens relationships on campus and between campus and the city of Beloit.
• One who champions school spirit and pride among students, recent grads, and seasoned alumni, all while attracting and retaining the next generation of students.
• A diplomat who builds understanding and consensus on common goals through debate, discourse, and listening among all constituent groups.

• Championing the value of a liberal arts education and Beloit’s commitment to producing graduates who are prepared for successful futures and meaningful lives.
• Continuing Beloit’s history as one of a select group of Colleges That Change Lives by bolstering the student academic experience, campus life, and student outcomes that lead to internships, jobs, and career opportunities.
• Directing the recruitment of high-quality and diverse students, while also maintaining net tuition revenue.
• Developing strategies to counter the challenge of recruiting among fewer high school graduates.
• Embracing the Beloit Action Plan that explicitly connects a college education to a successful career.
• Expanding Impact Beloit, which brings together the college’s community-based learning (CBL) and career-readiness capabilities to develop the next generation of leaders, innovators, entrepreneurs, thinkers, and activists — and contributing to the wellbeing of the city of Beloit.
• Committing to an aspirational effort to become an anti-racist institution and supporting the work of anti-racism and equity on campus, in the community, and nationwide.
• Honoring the college’s long-standing commitment to global education by ensuring that Beloit students have opportunities to study abroad and continuing to welcome international students.

• Successfully completing the $54 million Be All In campaign.
• Enhancing Beloit’s reputation and recognition by highlighting the college’s innovation, distinction, and unique contributions.
• Being an active and enthusiastic leader in outreach to prospective Beloit students and their families.
• Engaging Beloit’s devoted alumni to meet and exceed fundraising goals while also deepening their connections to their alma mater.
• Maintaining strong relationships with leaders in the city of Beloit and at the national, state, and local levels.
• Working closely with Beloit’s partner institutions in the Associated Colleges of the Midwest, the Midwest [Athletic] Conference and the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, enhancing partnerships and efficiencies that benefit the college.

• Valuing a culture of open communication and transparency that respects the ideas, innovation, and creativity of staff, faculty, students, and administrators toward making thoughtful decisions that achieve measurable outcomes.
• Fostering a strong, open, and collaborative relationship with the trustee board, sharing information and identifying prospective board members.
• Supporting the attraction, professional development, and retention of outstanding faculty, staff, and administrators.
• Investing appropriately in Beloit’s future while also building the endowment for future generations through visionary and responsible financial and operational management.
• Supporting the institutional commitment to becoming more diverse, equitable, and inclusive.