Our Strategic Priorities
To achieve our goals, we are guided by three overarching, campuswide strategic priorities. These priorities guide us throughout our decision-making processes and provide focus for our actions:
Strengthen our commitment to recruiting and retaining diverse and exceptional global talent by advancing a community of success, wellness, and inclusivity.
Create a synergistic and agile organization capable of supporting interdisciplinary and inter-unit collaboration to successfully meet challenges and pursue opportunities.
Maximize responsible stewardship of existing resources and develop the additional resources needed to fully achieve our vision and goals.
Go UMass.
Educate
Innovate
Engage
Connect
Steward
Our Vision
Advancing the boundaries of creating and using knowledge, leading the way toward a just and sustainable future for all.
Our Mission
As the flagship public land-grant university of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, we expand educational access, fuel innovation and creativity, and share and use our knowledge for the betterment of the world. With certitude, we embrace our responsibility to advance the inclusive and equitable well-being of all people and the health of our planet.
Now we chart a new era for the university. The world demands breakthrough solutions to mounting environmental, social, economic, and technological challenges. We respond by galvanizing our inclusive excellence to advance the boundaries of knowledge as we redefine and expand our commitment to the common good.
Our Values
We believe every member of our university community can contribute to our ongoing success by striving for the highest level of excellence.
We advance a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community by fostering the health and well-being of all our members, where everyone feels connected and valued—and thrives.
We engage with the broader community throughout the state, across the nation, and around the world for collective and meaningful impact.
We forge solutions to global challenges by developing, transferring, and translating knowledge.
We believe the free, open, and respectful exchange of ideas and information is fundamental to our excellence, and we cherish intellectual freedom for every member of our community.
We live our values as a global leader in advancing the health and well-being of people and the planet by intentionally integrating sustainability into our mission and campus culture.
We strive to ensure university resources are used responsibly, our decision-making processes are open and consistent, and our work is intentional and ethical.
Educate for the Common Good
Ensure an excellent, accessible, and inclusive education for all students.
Rationale: Through optimal support and resources, effective pedagogies, and well-informed curricula, all our students can successfully formulate and achieve their goals and graduate prepared to pursue fulfilling lives as they contribute to the common good and a sustainable future.
Providing all students with a transformative university education requires continually reviewing and revising policies, practices, and programming, with a focus on ensuring excellence, equity, accessibility, and inclusion.
Our continued success in responding to the evolving needs of an ever-changing student body—driven by demographic shifts and 21st-century demands—necessitates adopting, adapting, creating, and continuously improving agile structures and approaches.
Delivering excellent, accessible, and inclusive education to all our students requires increasing our ability to address challenges and pursue opportunities by further developing horizontal systems of people, practices, and technologies operating across units.
Innovate for the Common Good
Advance research and creative activity in emerging areas and expand knowledge transfer and translation.
Rationale: Develop solutions to the most critical challenges of our time by building on foundational fields of research and creative activity; increasing interdisciplinary work to advance exploration into emerging areas and new frontiers; and expanding the application of knowledge transfer and translation of knowledge.
Our existing strengths in the research and creative arts enterprise—including renowned departments and programs, a strong record of external funding, and partnerships with key national and global entities—are the foundation for our future growth and impact.
Concurrently, it is imperative we cross traditional disciplinary boundaries, bringing together diverse groups of faculty, staff, students, and communities to pioneer innovative solutions and successfully expand our application, translation, and transfer of knowledge to address global challenges.
Our commitment to expanding research and creative arts activity requires building and maintaining sufficient supportive infrastructure; providing more equitable access to resources for these activities; and attracting, rewarding, and retaining faculty, staff, and students.
Engage for the Common Good
Increase our global impact and influence through expanded engagement.
Rationale: Demonstrate our commitment to a sustainable and just future for all by expanding our engagement initiatives for the betterment of the commonwealth, the nation, and the world.
As a land-grant university and Carnegie Community Engaged Institution, we embrace our responsibility to serve the commonwealth and beyond with impactful engagement. Through research and creative activities, teaching, service, the arts, economic development, and athletics, we share our excellence across every facet of the university, engaging and partnering with communities, government, businesses, industries, and all our varied constituencies.
We are united in our commitment to engage for the common good. Over the next decade, as the world demands breakthrough solutions to environmental, social, economic, and technological challenges, we will expand our engagement activity and increase our role as a positive force for change and the source of the best and most diverse talent.
Connect for the Common Good
Foster success through an inclusive, healthy, accessible, and sustainable community.
Rationale: Fostering an inclusive, healthy, accessible, and sustainable community is foundational to our success and allows the university to meet the needs of the broader society we serve.
A university environment encouraging people of varying backgrounds, with different ideas and perspectives, promotes innovation, fosters critical thinking, strengthens adaptability in all members of our campus community, and allows the university to better meet the needs of the broader society we serve in creating a just, healthy, and sustainable planet.
As a signatory to the Okanagan Charter, we advance a holistic vision of integrating physical, mental, spiritual, and social well-being by focusing on four pillars: health and wellness for students, faculty and staff; ecological sustainability; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and the effects of the built environment we create.
A university community in which all members can feel connected requires programming, policies, and practices that foster inclusivity, well-being, accessibility, and sustainability.
Steward for the Common Good
Ensure our enduring success as a globally recognized comprehensive research university.
Rationale: Ensuring continued success as a globally recognized comprehensive research university requires maximizing responsible, transparent, agile, and efficient use of existing resources while concurrently expanding revenue-generating initiatives aligned with our strategic vision, mission, and goals.
The daily work of fulfilling our mission requires the financial resources to compete nationally among our leading peer institutions by attracting, developing, and retaining the best available talent on a welcoming and vibrant campus. To continue our current viability while also leading the way in fostering a sustainable and just future for all, we must maximize efficient use of existing resources and add new resources.
We are well positioned to capitalize on our strengths and take advantage of current opportunities for higher education, such as developing new programs to address emerging fields, offering remote employment opportunities, furthering our excellence in sustainability, and serving increased interest among nontraditional learners.
Our Metrics of Success
Tracking progress as we pursue our strategic goals requires meaningful, measurable metrics—both specific to our work as a leading national public research university and in support of our aspirational ten-year plan.
During the 2024 fall semester, the Deputy Chancellor for Institutional Effectiveness will facilitate an inclusive university community process to develop specific metrics for each goal, ensuring our ability to accurately assess our ongoing effectiveness, our progress, and, ultimately, our success.
