Strategic Plan
In 2025, the College of Social and Behavioral updated our 2018-2023 strategic plan. The updated plan for the College highlights our commitment as social researchers and educators to excellence, access, inclusion, diversity, and innovation. We invite you to read our plan and explore how we intend to realize these ambitions over the coming year.
SBS COLLEGE STRATEGIC PLAN - Full Version (2025-2026)
SBS COLLEGE STRATEGIC PLAN - Short Version (2025-2026)
Mission
The College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS) takes on the social, economic, technological, and behavioral challenges of our time. SBS has a legacy of engaging critically in the most pressing issues of the time, from inequality to environmental change, from civil and human rights to democracy writ large. We seek to enhance and further this legacy. Our study of the world helps communities define the common good; we discover and create solutions that serve the common good; and we teach our students to use knowledge in the service of the common good. Running through our teaching, research, and community engagement is the idea that social science knowledge matters. The social sciences are an antidote to deteriorating conditions of democracy due to social distrust, polarization, and weakening institutions.
Our students gain knowledge, skills, and information literacy that positions them for economic and civic growth over their lives. Undergraduate and graduate students alike learn the tools of collaboration, problem-solving, and persuasion that are key to a healthy, functioning democracy that supports sustainable work, technological innovation, health, and education. Social science helps to place each person, culture, and country in relationship to the broader human family and explains the role of institutions and systems in all aspects of life. As social scientists we help students explore the values and beliefs that underlie democracy while developing the competencies that provide cohesion and shared understandings that are necessary for all to live fuller, more harmonious lives. We root our research, teaching, and engagement in an unyielding commitment to reducing inequalities and expanding opportunities to unleash human potential from the local to the global.
Vision
Social science for the common good means building a better Commonwealth, a better country, and a better planet through world-class social science research, education, and engagement based in our many ways of understanding and knowing human and social behavior and how to advance well-being with justice and equity. We do this collaboratively within the College and with our colleagues across the University, melding our diverse experiences, perspectives, and ways of knowing. And we work to ensure that every undergraduate and graduate student can access the full range of our educational and experiential excellence, regardless of their background or need.
Values
Social Progress. The College is committed to critical inquiry, diversity, and justice. Our research and teaching speak directly to society's pressing challenges and their solutions. And we seek to improve the world through rigorous research and engagement with multiple publics.
Student Success. The College guides students in their pursuit of personally meaningful academic, experiential, and professional pathways by providing holistic support in a welcoming, equitable, inclusive, and intellectually invigorating learning environment – from their acceptance at UMass through graduation and beyond. We prepare students to be informed, skilled, innovative leaders and constructive contributors to their workplaces, communities, and society.
Internationalization. The College advances internationalization efforts by focusing on three distinct but complimentary and mutually reinforcing core components: curriculum, faculty, and staff development; equitable access to international experiences for all students; and international partnerships.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The College seeks to build diverse, equitable, and inclusive communities where the voices, experiences, expertise, and cultural values of individual community members – staff, faculty, and students – are embraced and respected. We examine systems and policies for racism and inequality to remove obstacles and strengthen climate and community bonds.
Commitment to Experimentation and Innovation. The College seeks to engage with students, staff, and faculty needs and to experiment with good ideas, bringing to fruition those that prove their worth through holistic, evidence-based decision processes.
The SBS Strategic Planning Team
- Saulo DePaula, Associate Dean of Administration and Finance
- Robin Elkins, Senior Executive Director of Development and Chief Development Officer
- Kathy Forde, Former Associate Dean for Equity and Inclusion, and Chair and Professor of Journalism
- Jane Fountain, Director of the School of Public Policy & Distinguished Professor of Public Policy
- Heather Gould, Assistant Dean and Executive Director of the SBS Pathways Center
- Mary Ann Libardi, Assistant Dean of Faculty Affairs
- Toussaint Losier, Director of Social Thought and Political Economy & Associate Professor of Afro-American Studies
- Jennifer Lundquist, Senior Associate Dean of Research and Faculty Development, and Professor of Sociology
- Lynn Phillips, Senior Associate Dean for Education and Student Development, and Senior Lecturer II of Communication
- R. Karl Rethemeyer, Dean and Professor of Public Policy
- Sam Sarfaty-Jackson, Assistant Dean of Marketing and Strategic Communications
- Tom Szumita, Assistant Dean of Finance and Planning
- Mwangi wa Gĩthĩnji, Former Associate Dean for Equity and Inclusion, and Chair and Professor of Journalism
Archive
SBS COLLEGE STRATEGIC PLAN (SPRING 2022)