Center for Regional Excellence Sustainable Regional Vitality	Advanced Search | Find People

Formal Definition of Sustainable Regional Vitality

Indiana University Northwest's commitment to the seven counties it serves has led it to identify Sustainable Regional Vitality as a Strategic Area of Excellence. In doing this, Indiana University Northwest recognizes its responsibility to make Sustainable Regional Vitality an essential aspect of the University's academic mission. Faculty will be encouraged, where appropriate, to incorporate issues related to Sustainable Regional Vitality in their research and creative activities, in order to produce high-quality, professionally-recognized research and creative products. Faculty will be encouraged, where appropriate, to find ways to bring regional issues into the classroom in academically sound, challenging, and pedagogically stimulating ways. Faculty will be encouraged, where appropriate, to see Northwest Indiana as a location in which they can use their professional skills in service to our communities. In encouraging faculty to incorporate Sustainable Regional Vitality into their activities, Indiana University retains its commitment to academic freedom.

People create the characteristics of regions in which they live, often in response to larger socio-economic forces. These characteristics exist in combination with each other, creating a system of inter-related institutions, practices, and social relations that, ideally, can be studied and approached as systems rather than as independent pieces of a larger puzzle. Regions that develop in ways that provide sustained vitality will tend to display the following characteristics or dimensions:

•  A diverse region, in which all residents are treated with equity and dignity.
•  An economically thriving region.
•  A region of opportunity for all.
•  A region in balance with its environment.
•  A region that facilitates learning and intellectual growth.
•  A region whose residents are healthy in body, mind, and spirit.
•  A region of open and viable neighborhoods.
•  A region that equitably facilitates access to education, health care, work, commerce, and recreation.
•  A region whose residents and visitors are safe.
•  A region that appreciates the arts and celebrates life.
•  A region of responsible and caring neighbors and institutions.
•  A region of empowered citizens served by an effective and ethical public sector.

No single institution or agency can, by itself, create a vital, dynamic region. Indiana University Northwest, in its faculty, brings strengths to the objective of creating such a region, however, and these strengths center on the faculty's scholarly activities. By bringing some of the intellectual contributions of the University community to bear on the problems of this region, the University can make a contribution. By encouraging cooperation and collaboration between organizations, agencies, and institutions (public and private) in the region, the University can assist in making this place a vital, dynamic, and thriving place for its residents.