Comenius Hall

Strategic Plan 2021-2024

Introduction

I am honored to present Moravian University’s 2021-2024 Strategic Plan. Moravian University is the sixth oldest college in the United States and has been educating the next generation for over 279 years. This plan is built by the Moravian community and demonstrates our continued responsibility. As John Amos Comenius stated, “Education should concern itself with that which concerns society” and that everyone should be educated.

Moravian University, a comprehensive university, is part of the New American Colleges and Universities consortium, which seeks to integrate liberal education, professional programs, and civic engagement. Moravian commits to providing undergraduate students with an excellent academic experience through this plan, which combines the best in career advising, leadership and teamwork preparation, global opportunities, workforce-ready badging, and real-world career experiences.

Through partnership and investment, Moravian University will continue to focus on the growth of its graduate and continuing education student populations. We also commit to continued leadership in the healthcare and rehabilitation sciences arenas by expanding our health care programming. We will begin a new chapter by becoming leaders in behavioral and mental health programming. By the end of this plan, with our partner St. Luke’s University Health Network, we will be the educational leaders for community health care and well-being. Moravian University will be between 2000-2200 undergraduates and 1000-1500 graduate students by the end of this plan. It will reflect the diverse community of which it serves in both the student body and the faculty and staff and creates a culture of equity and inclusion for all. Moravian will build the systems and facilities and invest the resources it needs to deliver on this promise to our students.

Sincerely,

Dr. Bryon L. Grigsby ’90, P’21
President, Moravian University

Values and Vision

Moravian University's liberal arts education prepares each individual for a reflective life, fulfilling careers, and transformative leadership in a world of change.

  Aligning For Growth United in Learning Together Towards Equity Building a New Legacy
Students & Stakeholders University Level Academic Programming Universal Skills & Career Success Equity as a Core Value Designing Our Future
Financial Resources Invest in Enrollment Next Level Advising Increasing Access Invest in People
Internal Processes Compelling Marketing & Storytelling High Impact Practices Transparency & Accountability Leveraging Technology & Integrating Data
Organizational Capacity Partnerships for New Possibilities Connecting the Curriculum Community of Support Adaptive & Vibrant Spaces

Our Mission

Moravian University’s liberal arts education prepares each individual for a reflective life, fulfilling careers, and transformative leadership in a world of change.

Our Vision

A Moravian education is one of action and doing. It is hands on, where students learn through experiential means in order to be producers of new knowledge. Moravian students work together practicing leadership, teamwork, community support, and reflection in order to significantly contribute to a more equitable and just future society.

Seal

United in Learning

Learning that is active and built through collaboration across campus is core to what we do and who we are. Connecting students to opportunities both in and out of the classroom, and providing personalized student guidance, sets our experience apart.

Professor and student

KEY INITIATIVES

Universal Skills & Career Success:

  • ELEVATE is for full-time day undergraduate students will provide extended support to ensure they achieve post-graduation success.
  • Students can earn digital badges as part of ELEVATE that will allow them to develop and articulate career competencies and professional growth.
  • The Moravian Career Promise will deliver a true market differentiator for the Undergraduate Enrollment team and provide extensive post-graduation support for those students that earn all the badges offered as part of ELEVATE.

Next Level Advising:

  • Beginning in fall 2021 each student is assigned a Faculty Advisor, Career Development Strategist and Student Success advisor.
  • Every student has at least one opportunity to make purposeful/structured connections with faculty, staff, peers, alumni and professionals.

High Impact Practices:

  • Develop a campus-wide, customizable, public-facing portfolio initiative, grounded in the practices and needs specific to the discipline or student population.
  • Provide sufficient and various opportunities for faculty development to learn about HIPs.

Connecting the Curriculum:

  • Beginning with the Fall 2022 incoming class, implement a program that will address student learning and growth outcomes framed around development of leadership and teamwork skills.
  • Expand the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion content of the curriculum.
  • Get students involved in URSCA earlier and create a formal scaffolded research framework.

METRICS

Universal Skills & Career Success:

  • 33% of students begin working in ELEVATE in Year 1.
  • 33% of students will enroll and actively participate in the career readiness badging program.

Next Level Advising:

  • 85-90% of students will complete intentional career exploration by the end of first year.
  • Programs will be benchmarked and created to build a structure that supports every student who wants a purposeful connection. Gather and assess these programs by the end of the first year of the plan.

High Impact Practices:

  • Develop the rubrics for the e-portfolio and link to each program in a fashion that makes sense for that program. Identify, develop and train "portfolio consultants" for programs that do not wish or cannot identify a way to incorporate the portfolio into their programs.
  • Identify a multi-year plan, to include the target metric for 4 years, for faculty workshops and other development opportunities for faculty training in HIPs, broadly defined.

Connecting the Curriculum:

  • Create a Leadership and Teamwork program as part of ELEVATE
  • Establish a regular (i.e., every semester) 1-2 day faculty institute in which faculty receive training in DEI issues.
  • Hire and retain more faculty with diverse backgrounds.
  • Create a First Year Research Experience (FYRE) or Pre-research academy.
  • Change (reconsider) the restrictions on Independent Study and/or create a new type of course.

SPONSOR

  • Nicole Loyd

RESOURCES

  • Fundraising
  • Increased Revenues
  • Reallocation of Existing Resources

Together Towards Equity

We continually seek to be a transformative institution bringing voice to our shared values. In these times, this means deep reflection on who we and how we serve students from all backgrounds. Ultimately, we want to support the success of every student and be a place where our graduates and the whole community can take action together toward equity.

Students outside of Comenius

KEY INITIATIVES

Equity as a Core Value:

  • Create and disseminate community Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) values for Moravian University.
  • Infuse anti-racist and decolonizing pedagogical practices throughout the graduate and undergraduate curriculum.

Increasing Access:

  • Intentionally increase scholarships for diverse/disabled students.
  • Review and improve marketing for candidate positions.
  • Increase BOT diversity.
  • Create a cohesive 'Family' Program connecting prospective - current - alumni students.

Transparency and Accountability:

  • Perform regular Climate Surveys.
  • Provide ongoing review of college policies with specific eye for equity/inclusion.

Culture of Wellness:

  • Create cultural competency training for faculty, staff and students.
  • Establish BIPOC and other marginalized population Support Networks for all students.

METRICS

Equity as a Core Value:

  • Year one = development of values statement. Core Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Values defined and featured on web page, orientation. (student and employee) materials, recruitment processes, etc. 70% of faculty and staff, and 50% of students, when questioned, can identify the core values.
  • Charge faculty group to provide oversight for the initiative and a process for collecting/assessing course materials.

Increasing Access:

  • Determine baseline scholarships available and allocation processes in place, needs assessment conducted, protocols to account for Primarily White Institutions (PWI) and ableist barriers, identify an approximate scholarship budget.
  • Support Talent Acquisition Specialist(s) for multicultural recruiting to prioritize and increase "boots on the ground" opportunities for Black, Indigenous, (and) People of Color (BIPOC) students, recruiting strategy for "low yield" schools that have high populations of diverse students, marketing that accurately reflects our PWI demographic.
  • Establish a list of 4 publications that reach a diverse potential candidate pool.

Transparency and Accountability:

  • Revise/revisit climate survey from a few years ago to build out and adjust with guidance from an external consultant.
  • Create a plan for a system of audits for the various campus policies.

Culture of Wellness:

  • Review Diversity Action Plan and Inclusive Community Consulting report to determine area priorities, align with contemporary social developments and recent campus concerns, develop a list of training options and providers, establish requisites and tie to personnel evaluations.
  • Develop a website of existing resources, needs assessment for additional resources, develop budget.

SPONSOR

  • TBA

RESOURCES

  • Fundraising
  • Increased Revenues
  • Reallocation of Existing Resources

Building a New Legacy

For centuries, Moravian University has addressed the ongoing and changing needs of our society, and our mission comes to life anew every day through the amazing efforts of every member of our community. Investing in our community is critical to our continued success. In a rapidly changing world, achieving our aspirational goals requires innovative use of technology and physical spaces that are adaptive and vibrant.

HUB rendering

KEY INITIATIVES

Designing Our Future:

  • Student Experience Expansion
  • Learning Extension/Expansion

Invest in People:

  • Professional Development, Training and Awareness
  • Responsive & Transparent Communication

Leveraging Technology & Integrating Data:

  • Optimizing Existing Technology Platforms
  • Maximizing Teaching and Learning Using Existing Technology

Adaptive & Vibrant Spaces:

  • Innovative & Collaborative Student-centered spaces
  • Preserving & Promoting Our History

METRICS

Designing Our Future:

  • Identify spaces for students to create/learn/work/socialize together.
  • Create a “one-stop” Student Service Center to simplify the student experience for problem-solving in the areas of Student Accounts, Financial Aid, registration, and student ID functionality.
  • Match institutional priorities for space along with the philanthropic interest of our closest constituents.

Invest in People:

  • Combine technology resources from Online Education and Innovation (OEI), The Teaching and Learning Center (TLC), Information Technology (IT), and the library in one area that is simple and intuitive to access.
  • Create a “super-user” system, by investing in staff who specifically focus on data, integrations, and analytics.
  • Invest in, and offer more, flexible opportunities for pedagogical support.
  • Provide consistent accessibility in digital spaces.
  • Identify constituencies, demographics, and modalities.

Leveraging Technology & Integrating Data:

  • Audit data architecture and consolidate software. Identify priority processes to refine.
  • Develop a policy to support documentation of workflows and resources for perpetuity and sharing of knowledge.
  • Begin building or identifying digital resources to support and identification of platforms or tools for digital repository.

Adaptive & Vibrant Spaces:

  • Evaluate and identify more student-centered spaces, for example, DEI, Student Government, e-sports, academic support, one-stop-shop.
  • Refurbishment of South Hall into usable spaces, and explore museum viability.
  • Assess current uses of all historic buildings on campus, evaluating the possibility of leveraging historical significance.

SPONSOR

  • Mark Reed

RESOURCES

  • Fundraising
  • Increased Revenues
  • Reallocation of Existing Resources

Aligning for Growth

Our future growth will be driven by continued investment in current and new academic programs and by new external partnerships. Relatedly, we have an opportunity to better tell our unique story and be more sophisticated in our recruitment strategies.

Commencement

KEY INITIATIVES

Next Generation Academic Programming:

  • Academic restructuring.
  • Global study away programming.
  • Expansion of collaborative and cross-disciplinary graduate and undergraduate programs.

Invest in Enrollment:

  • Create 5-year Enrollment Model.
  • Expand Geographic Reach of Recruitment Efforts.
  • Increase Diversity of Student Body.

Compelling Marketing & Storytelling:

  • Support transition to Moravian University.
  • Enhance Moravian's online presence.

Pathways for New Possibilities:

  • Center for University Partnerships (UP): Building pathways.

METRICS

Next Generation Academic Programming:

  • Structure designed and approved for implementation for Academic Year 2022-23 (i.e. starting Fall 2022).
  • Program is fully drafted and ready for implementation in the 2022-2023 academic year.
  • Curriculum development team and timeline established and initial draft of program developed.
  • Program start for Master of Arts in Clinical Counseling and partnership with St. Luke’s; Business model and needs assessment for MSW developed.
  • Development of centers, with programming and business models.

Invest in Enrollment:

  • The 5-Year Enrollment Plan defines recruitment targets needed to achieve financial stability for the University.
  • Increase number of out-of-region enrollments. Expand reach of digital marketing for Undergraduate, Graduate, and Degree Completion students.
  • Increase number of Diverse, International, Military, Transfer, and Adult Undergraduate Students.

Compelling Marketing & Storytelling:

  • An updated identity is in place and thriving across the entire University ecosphere by Year 2.
  • The Moravian website is revamped to support the growing needs of the University.

Pathways for New Possibilities:

  • By Year 4, a fully functional and integrated Center for University Partnerships to support the initiatives and revenue generation for the University.

SPONSOR

  • Cynthia Kosso

RESOURCES

  • Fundraising
  • Increased Revenues
  • Reallocation of Existing Resources

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