Strategic Goals

Strategies​

Strategy 1: ​ Increase capacity for outward facing, “journalistic” storytelling, ​ and “publicist” activities.

Strategy 2:​ Strengthen internal-to-campus communications vertically, to/from departments and centers/institutes and to units beyond HFA charged with messaging.

Strategy 3: Amplify institutional impact through integrated communications​

Strategy 4: Bolster faculty awards and recognition

Strategy 5: Foster global engagement and globally-engaged scholarship

Actions & Initiatives​

• Expand the size of the HFA communications team.
• Advocate for steady presence, in MarCom and University Relations offices, of staff members attuned to and charged with promoting activities across HFA departments.​
• ​Create a graduate fellowship in social media with goal of pushing HFA achievements outward.​
• Create social media channels focused on existing, new, and emerging research in the College. ​​
• Charge key HFA committees with helping to identify faculty, student, and staff excellence for external storytelling.​
• HFA director of communication revives regular meetings between center and program directors, as well as department chairs, and HFA communications staff to improve communication and coordination.
• Charge Department Personnel Committees with noting scholarship, teaching, or engagement that should be brought to the attention of UMass Magazine and other vehicles such as UMass Weekly.​
• Establish an HFA communications strategy that aligns internal and external information in ways that raise visibility and recognition of expertise​
• Improve and amplify internal communications, external storytelling and marketing materials, and media relations capacity ​
• Establish a coordinated approach to providing internal communications across departments, Centers/Institutes, and HFA units​
• Bolster messaging to scholarly communities and disciplinary associations (e.g. announcing awards and new hires)​
• Develop College level Awards Committee, in partnership with the Provost's Office Director for Faculty Recognition and Awards, to facilitate nominations for external rewards.​
• Charge the Department Personnel Committee with identifying faculty (via tools including annual faculty reporting and Academic Analytics) to be nominated for prestigious external awards.​
• Charge the department graduate program directors and undergraduate program directors with identifying promising students and committing to nominate them for prizes and awards.​
• Establish an award within HFA for globally-engaged research and creative practice for faculty​.
• Establish an award within HFA for globally-engaged collaborations/partnerships for faculty​.
• Establish an award within HFA for globally-engaged research and creative practice for students​.

Metrics​

• Increase annual number of stories featuring HFA faculty, staff, and students placed in external publications with national/international reach (e.g., The Conversation, Aeon/Psyche).​
• Increase circulation of HFA stories in College and Campus social media feeds.​
• Increase number of HFA stories featured in UMass Magazine and other places.

Strategies​

Strategy 1: Strengthen administrative and financial supports for embedding research in systems of instruction and mentoring

Strategy 2: Strengthen interdisciplinary collaboration​

Strategy 3: Nurture ability to pursue innovation

Actions & Initiatives​

• Launch new trans-disciplinary initiative, “Teaching and Research Without Borders," and incentivize faculty to participate.​
• Identify and create opportunities to facilitate undergraduate and graduate students assisting with faculty research and publications and train faculty to work with teaching assistants effectively.​
• Encourage faculty to develop more class-based research (CURE) and applied/outreach experiences.
• Expand and assess financial support for faculty research and explore the development of faculty fellowships, research seed grants to help faculty develop research projects that leverage larger external grants and aid in publications.​
• Eliminate barriers to interdisciplinary teaching (e.g. resolving questions about faculty teaching credit, cross-listing, student credit toward degrees, and other administrative hurdles) and increase efficiency for experimental, team-taught course approval​
• Train and encourage faculty to use Watermark and Impact CANVAS to find interdisciplinary research partners ​
• Collaborate with UMass units to create new Humanities Research, Teaching, and Creative Laboratories to initiate discussion and identify synergies with existing interdisciplinary UMA entities with a focus on applied research and the publicly facing humanities.​
• Engage Academic Analytics tools to identify strong prospects for cluster hiring.​
• ​Continue to explore potential for the Development of a Humanities Center​.
• Address bureaucratic structures that hamper agility in grantsmanship systems.
• ​Explore the possibility of new BA/BS and MA/MS programs in emerging writing technologies like AI, museum studies, historic preservation, and interdisciplinary design linking humanities with technology and public needs​.
• Create a set of HFA Dean’s Professorships (e.g. Early Career Professor of Excellence; Associate Professor of Excellence; Outstanding Professor of Teaching Excellence) with reduced teaching loads to support most innovative faculty's research/teaching in emerging trends.​
• Develop a one-year, half time faculty fellowship with the purpose to do a feasibility study to overcome barriers to funding, articulate programming, and specify the purpose for UMass, the local community, and the state of MA to engage in emerging trends.

Metrics

• Number of faculty engaging grad and undergrad students in research​
• Number of classes with applied research component
• Number of humanities labs developed​
• Number of cross-listed courses
• Number of team-taught courses​
• Number of faculty engaged in team-taught or cross-listed courses

Strategies​

Strategy 1: Promote, encourage and recognize academically-situated public-facing teaching, scholarship, creativity and performance. ​

​Strategy 2: Bolster leadership role in regional humanities ecosystems ​

Actions & Initiatives​

• ​Incentivize faculty to engage in PEP to encourage “writing for the public” and other forms of outreach to decision makers and communities.  ​

• Create HFA research, creative activity, and community engagement awards. ​

• Deepen relationships with area non-profits (e.g. Mass Humanities, Historic Deerfield, the Massachusetts Center for the Book) to expand local internship programs and coop experiences.​

• Develop college-supported webcasts/podcasts, prioritize HFA communication and work closely with the town and local media to publicize events, lectures, concerts and performances.​

• ​Strengthen partnership with the Charles River Campus and Springfield Center as a venue for symposia and performances that serve off-campus audiences.  ​

• Strengthen partnership with Mass Humanities to create regular funded internships for HFA undergraduate and graduate students​.

• Establishing channels of communication with Humanities Indicators project at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Boston)​.

• Develop a lobbying event at the Massachusetts State House aligned with the Humanities Advocacy work in Washington DC​.

• Partner with K-12 educators, as well as Early and Pre-college programs to establish programs for schools and teachers, locally and throughout the state including the Springfield Center and units like College of Education​.

• Partner with and connect our students to the Towns of Amherst and Hadley and the community as ambassadors of the arts and humanities.​

Metrics​

• Number of HFA participants in PEP​

• Number of nominees for college and university awards/recognition forpublic scholarship and community engagement​

Strategies​

Strategy 1:Improve rates of student retention and timely degree completion  ​

Strategy 2: Nurture appropriate enrollments for undergraduate students​

Strategy 3: Expand access to high-impact and out of classroom educational experiences for undergraduate students​

Actions & Initiatives​

• Improve 1st and 4th year retention rates by strengthening early-alert interventions, enhancing first-year experiences, providing targeted senior completion support, and improving clarity and access to degree pathways.​
• Use a data-informed approach to understand factors that impact student application to the college, as well as student persistence throughout their degree.​
• Support departments in utilizing data to develop plans for improving retention rates, close achievement gaps, and monitor progress to degree completion.​
• Explore ways to expand non-teaching financial support to nurture appropriate time to degree. ​
• Develop and explore interdisciplinary micro-credentials within existing tuition structures to promote completion of clusters/sequences of related courses, harnessing popular courses/curricula to draw students to other aligned offerings.​
• Collaborate with EAB to undertake a longitudinal study of enrollments to learn where there are prospects for growth.​
• Increase the number of HFA students in the Honors College.​
• Expand collaboration with OGA to promote Study Abroad and assist in finding pathways to funding. ​
• Document current offerings for high-impact out of classroom experiences and experiential learning and assess their effectiveness, to better assess, replicate, and market such offerings and make them more visible as part of the HFA brand.
• Undertake review of barriers to participation in such opportunities, from degree requirements/course sequences that prohibit semester-long off-campus opportunities to transportation barriers that impact participation in opportunities otherwise local to campus.​

Metrics​

• Percentage of students completing high-impact, out of classroom experiences annually

• Scores on senior survey about experiential learning and capstone experience 

• Scores on senior survey on solving complex problems and working effectively with others​

• Number of graduating HFA students who studied abroad while at UMA​

• Improved HFA first year retention rate​

• Improved 4- and 6- year graduation rates​

• Number of HFA students admitted to the Honors College​

Strategies​

Strategy 1: Strengthen advising and mentoring systems  ​

Strategy 2: Expand programs that support career readiness ​

Strategy 3: Expand non-teaching financial support to nurture appropriate time to degree ​

Strategy 4:  Assess/evaluate MA/PhD programs to inform planning and marketing ​

​Actions & Initiatives​

• Ensure that each department GPD is communicating regularly with advisors about their students' learning progress. ​
• Expand collaboration between GPDs and the Graduate School as well as theOPD to identify best practices and opportunities for improvement. ​
• Create a mechanism by which to share departmental graduate handbooks with GPDs across HFA.​
• Collaborate to develop learning outcomes between GPDs and Grad Program Committees. ​
• Bolster Research Mentor Training​

• Review MA course offerings and programs to foreground the application of skills in professional settings.​

• Thicken collaboration with OPD to develop consistent offerings relevant to humanities careers.​

• ​Promote to students and faculty, in more robust and systematic ways, the offerings of the Graduate School's Office for Professional Development​

• Develop strategies to provide doctoral students in good standing with a one semester research fellowship if necessary for degree completion.​

• ​Provide (using a combination of University, Department, College, and donor funding) doctoral students in good standing and within the funding limits established by the College funding support over the summer months when such funds are available.​

• Bolster systems at the departmental level that track and encourage doctoral students applying for external research support.​

• ​Partner with OGA to identify sources of summer funding for international students.​

• ​Review MA course offerings and programs to foreground the application of skills in professional settings.​

• ​Track career outcomes of graduate alumni of each graduate program.​

• ​Complete a study to better understand the place of our master's program in larger academic ecosystems (where UMA MA students move toward top PhD programs, find leadership positions in their field's workforce, etc.).​

• Explore ways to align years of funding with aspirational peer institutions or programs.​

Metrics​

• Percentage of graduate programs with learning outcomes​

• Percentage of students participating in HIPs​

• Percentage of faculty who take Research Mentor Training​​

• Number of students who match their time to degree within their allocated funding years ​

• Percentage of graduate students who meet established department milestones on time​

• Number of applications for external research support​​

Strategies​

Strategy 1: Celebrate creativity and achievement through programs of recognition ​

Strategy 2: Strengthen the culture of wellness and wellbeing across the college​

Strategy 3: Support faculty by offering professional development opportunities​

Actions & Initiatives​

• Explore creating additional research, collaboration, and creative activity, teaching, and service recognitions for faculty, staff and students.​
• Host college-wide events that celebrate faculty, students, and staff and raise awareness of these accomplishments through college and university communication channels, as well as local media.​
• Recognize programs highlighting creative and scholarly work to NEPM to better use standing contract.​
• Expand opportunities for faculty, students, and alumni to exhibit/perform on our campuses (UMass and Charles River) and connect with current students.​
• Create an HFA wellness week to foster collaboration between departments and increase awareness and opportunities to engage around wellness and wellbeing.​
• Identify and integrate wellness topics into ongoing departmental and student programming, including identification and creation of HFA spaces that serve as hubs for community engagement and connection.​
• Foster dialogue through the creation of a new HFA Connections mentoring around identified topics. ​
• Create an HFA "Faculty Academy” to support faculty in mid-career and beyond. ​
• Develop mid-career mentors, peer-learning opportunities, and teaching fellowships to support faculty at mid-career as they plan next career steps and develop new approaches to teaching and research​.
• Develop a New Faculty Academy Faculty onboarding program that offers regular, year long engagement to support faculty in their first 3 years at UMass.​​

Metrics​

• number of recognition events held annually ​

• Increased employee satisfaction data​

Strategies​

Strategy 1: Assess, bolster, and amplify revenue generating programs (e.g., micro-credentials in demand, online, hybrid certificate programs)​.

Strategy 2: Expand philanthropic and other forms of financial support ​

Actions & Initiatives​

• Engage chairs of departments in analyzing reports from Hanover Research to identify desired trainings and certifications that align with HFA strengths to enable the piloting of professional certificate programs with regional and industry partners​.
• Benchmark against peer institutions to identify academic offerings and cost structure (e.g., trainings, certifications, etc.)  in areas in which UMA and HFA are uniquely positioned for potential program development and that support income generation.​
• Conduct a feasibility study to identify and expand existing revenue generating programs and opportunities.​
• Enhance efforts to create endowed professorships.​
• Offer chairs and directors professional training in development, donor stewardship. ​
• Explore and expand creative ways to connect students with alumni.​
• Partner with arts organizations to foster connection with communities, potential donors, professional artists, and corporate sponsors.​

Metrics​​

• Amount of external revenue generated in the College​

• Number of new credentials launched​

• Number of participants in new credentials launched​

Strategies​

Strategy 1: Harness humanities-informed data collection and analysis to support data-driven decision-making ​

Strategy 2: Expand number of faculty in leadership positions and relevant support staff who are trained in and adept with Flagship Analytics analysis​

​Strategy 3: Increase clarity and transparency in college budgeting ​

Actions & Initiatives​

• Establish a data strategy and identify existing gaps and opportunities  to better understand student enrollment and movement trends and integrate robust use of national humanities indicators (e.g. SNAAP, MLA, Humanities Indicators Project, HuMetrics HSS).​

• Improve communication, understanding, and insights around data to foster awareness regarding data collection and utilization across departments.​

• ​Provide focused training on best practices for using Flagship Analytics to inform data driven decision-making.

• ​Develop methods to raise understanding and awareness of budget process and decision-making. ​
• Identify and share metrics used to evaluate applications for internal awards.​
• Identify and share criteria used to award internal grants. ​

Metrics​

• Number of faculty in leadership positions and relevant support staff who are trained in and adept with Flagship Analytics analysis​

• Number of humanities-informed staff in UAIR and ASER ​