
2030 Strategic Plan Pillars
The Four Pillars
Our 2030 Strategic Plan lays out a vision for the future of our university that builds on its core mission and strengths toward a more strategic, sustainable today and a more vibrant tomorrow. Those 30,000-foot goals have rightly put us on a shared journey. As Coloradans, we can think of it as a hike to the summit.
For the past year, we have been on that trail together. Our goal – the summit – is an enhanced student environment, a more vibrant learning and research landscape for our students, faculty and staff, deeper connections to our community and a growing financial base from which we can align our resources toward our shared priorities in a changing landscape for higher education. The new pillars are:
We explicitly call out this goal, because focusing on enhancing our culture helps everyone move toward their own personal summit and our campus aspirations. Our shared focus on care moves us away from the “more with less mindset” and into a space where faculty and staff workloads are appropriate and sustainable. We will examine how to invest in human-centered strategies that help people, including professional development in management, leadership, resilience, and inclusion and belonging skills. Central to this effort is fostering a culture of care, where every individual feels valued, respected, and empowered to contribute fully. Developing this culture of care for ourselves will create a better culture for our students so they feel that care and stay here to achieve their goals. This will include a focus, as well, on becoming a Hispanic-Serving Institution, among other student-focused initiatives.
Using a growth mindset, we’ll partner to expand in-demand programs, support lower-cost programs and enhance curricular efficiencies to stabilize our budget. We'll seek to enhance research contributions to our community and the world through sponsored projects and other partnerships. We’ll seek endowments for faculty and chairs. We’ll develop a fast-track academic program development framework while better marketing what makes us unique. We’ll redouble our efforts to regain our place as a university of first choice that attracts and graduates more students. We’ll launch C3 Innovation to elevate our existing community partnerships and build bridges to new ones.
A differentiator for our university, our faculty and student success, and a primary bridge to our larger community, our research mission will continue to drive us forward to our shared summit. UCCS is the only research university in southern Colorado. The research and creative works of our faculty and students generate new knowledge and disseminate it to Colorado and the world. We'll continue to foster an environment where our faculty and students are empowered to be drivers of innovation, and continue to engage with our community to build to the next level of research and creativity.
Our efforts toward continuous improvement will support our work to re-envision how we serve our students, faculty, staff, and our community. Our student-facing staff will get the support and training they need to improve processes and practices and provide excellent customer service to the students and families who choose us. Across campus we will reinvent how we serve and support one another. Together, we will confront our financial challenges with accurate data and honesty to address our short- and medium-term budget shortfalls with an eye toward developing a balanced budget for 2025-2026 and into the future.
The Journey
Like all hikes, the journey builds on itself. We’re using the good work of our strategic planning and many other large and small steps that have gotten us this far down the trail:
- Acknowledging and better understanding the changing landscape of higher education in our state and across our nation
- Elevating our growth mindset that includes improved student retention so they achieve their goals
- Adapting our academic offerings to meet student and community needs
- Creating new revenue streams so we have the financial resources to support our shared goals
- Streamlining organizational structures and realigning administrative positions in support of achieving our academic mission and the success of all our students
- Improving both data accuracy and data and budget transparency so we are all working with the same, accurate information as we make decisions together