From the Vice President: Focusing Our Story
In today’s highly competitive undergraduate admissions market, it is our challenge to communicate the College’s distinctive advantages in a way that is more powerful and compelling than ever to attract the talented and diverse student body we seek.
This summer, redesigned admissions publications and web presentations are bringing the College’s distinctive features and benefits to life for prospective students and parents and helping answer their vitally important question, “What makes Lafayette worth it?” Among these special strengths are the College’s emphasis on cross-disciplinary study; a university-like breadth of majors; a superb, student-centered faculty; national leadership in undergraduate research and global study opportunities; a historic, beautiful, high-tech campus; and a broad-based NCAA Division I intercollegiate athletics program. Our story begins with the admissions campaign, “Launch your life at Lafayette”:
For the driven student there could be no better platform than Lafayette to find one’s way forward into society and the world. We are a serious academic place that leads the nation in graduation rates, undergraduate research, global experience, and graduate starting and mid-career salaries. We surpass the norms in so many areas because we have a remarkable juxtaposition of university-sized resources devoted entirely to undergraduates. All the experiences you need to create your edge — intellectual cross-training, mentoring from stellar faculty, top internships and research, global study, hands-on problem solving, and connecting with a network of highly successful alumni who are passionate about Lafayette — are built into your four years. It’s a powerful platform from which to launch your life.
We invite prospective students to “make big use of big resources” — Lafayette has the muscle and energy found more often at a university than at a liberal arts college. We urge them to “cross-train your brain” — cross-disciplinary talent and approaches define our students and graduates and give them an edge in the world. We encourage them to “work with stellar professor-mentors” — our superb faculty are not only respected scholars, they are dedicated to teaching and mentoring students.
Finally, we challenge students to “have Cur Non impact.” This is a reference to the Marquis de Lafayette’s family motto, Cur Non, meaning Why Not? — why not have the courage and confidence to take risks, connect ideas, and care deeply about community? We round out our story with the opportunities that “life on the Hill” offers and myriad examples of successful Lafayette graduates who are “doing what they love.”
We are confident that prospective students and their parents — as well as alumni, current parents, and others — will find our telling of the Lafayette story powerful and compelling. Cur non!
Robert J. Massa
Vice President for Communications