Executive Summary
From the start of our strategic roadmapping process, The College of Arts & Letters at MSU knew we had to think big.
We needed to create a map of the ways our commitments entwine: our human-centered, compassionate work and learning; the intensity of our academic rigor; the needs and identities of our communities; our own individual senses of wellbeing; and the necessities of accessibility, equity, and accountability. Each thread or intersection represents a crucial aspect of how we engage the world, engage our work, and engage one another. We knew our strategic roadmap would need to connect our values and practices in a way we could show our community; we knew we’d need to illuminate the ways our contributions connect to the world around us. We want to make clear the value of the arts, languages, and humanities to critical thinking, professional excellence, and the creation of knowledge and culture.
The purpose of an education isn’t simply content mastery: education provides the frameworks and lenses through which a person experiences themselves and their life. A liberal arts education should cultivate the skills necessary to participate both emotionally and intellectually in the world, our world, which constantly changes. To engage a world that evolves before our very eyes, the college recognizes that the education and opportunities we provide need to recursively evolve and adapt, too.
We asked ourselves: What do students need to prepare them for their futures? How can we ensure that our faculty and staff have the support they need to mentor students in their journeys forward? How can we connect students to culture, global experiences, and community? How can we commit to diversity in word, deed, curriculum, and strategy? How can we avoid the comfortable temptations of thinking small or static, and instead focus on what matters most: cultivating an education that equips our graduates to live the lives they’ve imagined for themselves?
Our Goal
Guided by our college values of openness, equity, and community, the College of Arts & Letters’ strategic plan will cast light on and address inequities in our own practices and communities; to look more closely at areas of inquiry, and assessment, and at one another; to foster a depth of understanding of both ourselves and one another as we bring the entirety of our lives into each new day.
Our attention on the core of who we are as a college and as a community will generate the momentum needed to make CAL an irresistible destination for people who aren’t afraid to do the work, to look closer, or to imagine a new future for themselves or for our world.
Our strategic process identified five key focus areas to illuminate:
- Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
- Arts & Storytelling
- Engaged Pedagogy & Practice
- Well-being
- Research & Innovation
These areas represent the hallmarks of our identity as a college: they are the lenses through which we understand ourselves. But how does our community – our students past, present, and future; our colleagues; our neighbors and friends – understand us?
Our strategic plan frames and communicates our value, commitments, and contributions to the world around us, inviting more learners, scholars, and supporters to join us along the way. Our plan centers two beliefs: that the possibilities of the arts, languages, and humanities are full of rigor, excellence, and imagination – and that ours is a story worth telling. To tell our story, we have to know and understand our own story – and so we’ve also taken particular care to engage assessment, accessibility, and accountability.
Through these practices, the college will be better able to represent its successes and will challenge itself to be the best at getting better, inspiring all of us within the college to do the same.
We want to be a place of irresistible possibility.
PURPOSE STATEMENT
We create a better world through the transformative power of the Arts, Letters, and Humanities.
ASPIRATION STATEMENT
We will be an irresistible destination for those who imagine and work for a more just and more beautiful future.
Excerpted from the CAL 2030 Strategic Roadmap
From the start of our strategic roadmapping process,
The College of Arts & Letters at MSU knew we had to think big.
We needed to create a map of the ways our commitments entwine: our human-centered, compassionate work and learning; the intensity of our academic rigor; the needs and identities of our communities; our own individual senses of wellbeing; and the necessities of accessibility, equity, and accountability. Each thread or intersection represents a crucial aspect of how we engage the world, engage our work, and engage one another. We knew our strategic roadmap would need to connect our values and practices in a way we could show our community; we knew we’d need to illuminate the ways our contributions connect to the world around us. We want to make clear the value of the arts, languages, and humanities to critical thinking, professional excellence, and the creation of knowledge and culture.
The purpose of an education isn’t simply content mastery: education provides the frameworks and lenses through which a person experiences themselves and their life. A liberal arts education should cultivate the skills necessary to participate both emotionally and intellectually in the world, our world, which constantly changes. To engage a world that evolves before our very eyes, the college recognizes that the education and opportunities we provide need to recursively evolve and adapt, too.
We asked ourselves: What do students need to prepare them for their futures? How can we ensure that our faculty and staff have the support they need to mentor students in their journeys forward? How can we connect students to culture, global experiences, and community? How can we commit to diversity in word, deed, curriculum, and strategy? How can we avoid the comfortable temptations of thinking small or static, and instead focus on what matters most: cultivating an education that equips our graduates to live the lives they’ve imagined for themselves?
Our Goal
Guided by our college values of openness, equity, and community, the College of Arts & Letters’ strategic plan will cast light on and address inequities in our own practices and communities; to look more closely at areas of inquiry, and assessment, and at one another; to foster a depth of understanding of both ourselves and one another as we bring the entirety of our lives into each new day.
Illumination is a form of paying attention;
attention is a form of investment;
investment is a form of intention.
Our attention on the core of who we are as a college and as a community will generate the momentum needed to make CAL an irresistible destination for people who aren’t afraid to do the work, to look closer, or to imagine a new future for themselves or for our world.
Our strategic process identified five key focus areas to illuminate:
- Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
- Arts & Storytelling
- Engaged Pedagogy & Practice
- Wellbeing
- Research & Innovation
These areas represent the hallmarks of our identity as a college: they are the lenses through which we understand ourselves. But how does our community – our students past, present, and future; our colleagues; our neighbors and friends – understand us?
Our strategic plan frames and communicates our value, commitments, and contributions to the world around us, inviting more learners, scholars, and supporters to join us along the way. Our plan centers two beliefs: that the possibilities of the arts, languages, and humanities are full of rigor, excellence, and imagination – and that ours is a story worth telling. To tell our story, we have to know and understand our own story – and so we’ve also taken particular care to engage assessment, accessibility, and accountability.
Through these practices, the college will be better able to represent its successes and will challenge itself to be the best at getting better, inspiring all of us within the college to do the same.
We want to be a place of irresistible possibility.
Need: Box on the side with Purpose Statement (“We create a better world through the transformative power of the arts, letters, and humanities.”)
Need: Box on side with aspiration statement: (“We will be an irresistible destination for those who imagine and work for a more just and more beautiful future.”