Strategic Plan

Light the Way 2020 Building on Foundations for Excellence: Achieving and Sustaining Competitive Advantage presents the community an opportunity to affirm its vision and outline its hopes and aspirations for the intermediate future.

The recently completed plan, “Foundations of Excellence,” guided us faithfully through the last five years of developing the institution and has assisted us in realizing many notable achievements. Building on these achievements this current plan invites the community to concentrate our efforts on goals and initiatives that will carry us successfully through a period of unprecedented challenge and opportunity in independent higher education, while affirming our liberal arts foundation in a relationship with professional studies and our Catholic and Assumptionist tradition.

Above all, the new plan recognizes and upholds the primary mandate for each of its elements to aim at excellence in inspiring students to flourish while at Assumption and throughout their lives.

This new plan narrows the focus of our efforts to four critical aspects of the institution's life, allowing us to concentrate on our highest priorities, without in any way diminishing the breadth and extent of our vision, which extends even beyond this plan. The four Pillars which constitute the superstructure of our plan demonstrate our resolve to strengthen Assumption’s essential qualities and support our highest aspirations.

Innovation, integration and focus represent the overarching themes that animate and fortify each of the four Pillars of this new plan. Flowing from these primary themes, the plan reiterates our long-standing commitment to student-centeredness and excellence.

The plan challenges Assumption to re-imagine academic, co-curricular and business models in order to respond to a world that has been thoroughly transformed by globalization, the digital revolution, demographic shifts and other powerful forces. We must innovate with vigor and intention. The plan also recognizes that our students and their families demand and deserve a coherent and distinctive educational program that is both rigorous and relevant. Thus, this plan calls for weaving a seamless, integrated educational whole from the many outstanding parts of Assumption drawing on our enduring mission yet applying it in innovative and compelling ways within contemporary contexts. Our graduates must be liberally educated in preparation for launching lives of meaning through completion of a distinctive program that is multi-disciplinary and inter-professional. Finally, this plan recognizes that we cannot be all things to all people. Rather, we must focus on and re-organize those assets that are mission-critical and make Assumption distinctive and valuable. We are called to build on our Assumptionist character to establish a niche that aligns with our mission and fills a specified market need.

Assumption has a long and distinguished tradition of concentrating its efforts on serving its students by providing them with a transformative experience within a close-knit learning community. Above all, the new plan recognizes and upholds the primary mandate for each of its elements to aim at excellence in inspiring students to flourish while at Assumption and throughout their lives.

Light the Way 2020: Building on Foundations of Excellence Mid-point Update

Assumption's Strategic Plan

Assumption will become a leading Catholic institution of higher learning in the Northeast. To accomplish this goal, the institution will become a more competitive and selective institution. The institution will be known for its strong commitment to its mission, its solid academic reputation that rests on a classical liberal arts curriculum rooted in a Catholic and Assumptionist tradition, its strong business and professional programs, and a faculty who are recognized teachers, scholars and mentors. Drawing on the enduring vision of its founders, the Augustinians of the Assumption, the institution will emphasize excellence in all dimensions of the student experience through a holistic and integrated approach to the complete formation of students.
Expand, renew, and strengthen academic offerings to ensure an intellectually engaging, academically rigorous, and personally and professionally enriching experience for our students consistent with the mission.

This pillar addresses the quality of our academic enterprise and articulates our commitment to academic excellence. The 4 strategic goals and 15 strategic initiatives set out an ambitious array of activities that promise to transform the character of our current academic program into one that is more assertive, coherent, and engaging of new programs, pedagogies and partnerships. It also emphasizes the need to integrate more fully the undergraduate, graduate and continuing education divisions of the institution into a continuum of related offerings that make an Assumption education more accessible, affordable and sustainable.
Enhance the quality of the student experience through curricular and co-curricular initiatives that lead to personal as well as professional success consistent with the mission.

This pillar addresses the quality of our efforts and commitment to educate the whole student. The three strategic goals and eight strategic initiatives set out an ambitious array of activities that promises to fully develop the character of our student affairs enterprise as steadfastly student-centric and tightly integrated with each dimension of the community especially Academic Affairs. It also emphasizes the need to attend to emerging student populations and faith formation when developing and implementing signature co-curricular programs that make the Assumption student experience exhilarating, transformative and enduring.
Enroll, retain, and graduate a diverse student body in a manner consistent with the mission.

This pillar addresses the quality of our student recruitment and retention enterprise. The three strategic goals and ten strategic initiatives set out an ambitious array of activities that promises to fully develop the nature of our enrollment management efforts as assiduously data-driven, aggressively expansive while continuing to maintain deep engagement with our traditional markets, and committed to affordability and accessibility. It places special emphasis on engaging international students as well as communities with a robust Catholic presence both near and far. Finally, the plan fully embraces strategies that utilize digital and web-based approaches that leverage marketing of our enhanced academic and co-curricular programs towards achieving and maintaining desired enrollment levels.
Expand and maintain facilities and systems in support of mission to form the whole person.

This pillar addresses the quality of our facilities and systems. The three strategic goals and six strategic initiatives set out an ambitious array of activities that promise to significantly enhance the physical presence of our campus as modern and inspirational. The centerpiece of this priority is the design and construction of a signature academic facility that manifests the integration of the liberal arts and pre-professional studies by housing the Business Studies department and at least one of the Humanities departments, thus symbolizing the holistic approach to education embodied in the Catholic liberal arts tradition. Related to this centerpiece is a set of additional capital projects that will further contribute to the intellectual, moral, physical, creative and spiritual formation of our students.

Strategic Plan

Light the Way 2020 Building on Foundations for Excellence: Achieving and Sustaining Competitive Advantage presents the community an opportunity to affirm its vision and outline its hopes and aspirations for the intermediate future.

Assumption's Strategic Plan

Light the way.

A Catholic university located in the heart of New England in Worcester, Massachusetts, Assumption University strives to form graduates known for their critical intelligence, thoughtful citizenship, and compassionate service.