Academic Strategic Plan

Academic Strategic Planning

The Path Forward to Academic Excellence

The academic strategic planning process creates a roadmap for where we, as a university and academic community, want to go in the next five years. Our vision remains focused on creating an unsurpassed student experience informed by extraordinary scholarship, research and discovery. This ambitious vision was first articulated in the Trajectory to Excellence, launched in 2016. Now, building on our achievements in the last few years, we are refreshing our academic strategic plan to ensure its responsiveness to cultural, economic, societal and governmental changes that have affected our University and the world.

Every Voice Counts

Any successful academic strategic plan is a living document, inclusive of voices that represent our diverse and vibrant university community. The “refresh” process has already engaged academic leaders from every school and college and a working group of faculty, staff, and administrators. Upcoming campus conversations are scheduled for the start of the fall semester. Everyone is encouraged to be part of the refresh and of reshaping our Academic Strategic Plan.

Guideposts Along the Way

As our campus community works together to shape the strategy to achieve our shared vision, we will be guided by three core pillars, with working groups dedicated to each:

  • Research and Creative Excellence
  • Educational Excellence and Student Success
  • Public Impact

Four other working groups are being formed to shape the process of implementing our shared and cross-cutting values:

  • Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA)
  • Global Engagement
  • Enrollment Strategy
  • Resource Sustainability and Budgeting

Measuring Our Success

A successful refresh of the Academic Strategic Plan is dependent on broad participation and engagement from faculty, administrators, staff and, of course, the students who are most directly impacted by new academic initiatives intended to enhance their academic experience. We will seek ways to ensure that the goals and aspirations we establish as part of our refreshed Academic Strategic Plan are effectively measured (and our successes celebrated!), as we implement our new plan in the coming year.

Our North Star

The new iteration of our Academic Strategic Plan will offer greater clarity in how we can best advance academic excellence at every level of the University, a sense of welcome and belonging for all members of our campus community, and ensure our distinctive excellence, accessibility, and collective success at Syracuse University.

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