Approved by the Board of Trustees on May 5, 2008
Introduction
The Board of Trustees of Canisius College adopted a Strategic Plan on May 5, 2003. That Plan envisioned the development of a Plan for Academic Excellence, which was presented to the Board in May, 2004. Since that time, the college has made progress toward the realization of the goals of both plans but circumstances have also changed. New vice presidents in business and academics have been recruited, prompting a reassessment of the Plan for Academic Excellence and the methods by which the college develops operating and capital budgeting.
The college has completed plans for the largest comprehensive campaign in the college’s history, A Legacy of Leadership: The Campaign for Canisius College, which is scheduled to conclude on May 31, 2010. In January 2007, the college’s Long Range Strategic Planning Committee undertook a comprehensive review of the plans as well as other strategic plans that had been developed by various divisions and operating units within the college. The LRSPC has developed revisions to the 2003 strategic plan to guide the college through May 31, 2010 and to set the stage for further planning beyond.
The Board of Trustees received and accepted this plan on May 5, 2008. The Board has directed the President and his senior staff to review progress on the plan with the Board at least annually and update the document as required. The President has delegated the ongoing internal review of the plan to the college’s Long Range Strategic Planning Committee.
Vision Statement
Canisius College will become a major regional university enrolling high-quality students from geographically diverse areas.
Brief Mission Statement
Canisius College is an independent, co-educational comprehensive university conducted in the Catholic and Jesuit tradition. It offers undergraduate programs built upon a liberal arts core curriculum, leading to baccalaureate degrees, plus graduate programs in business, education and other professional fields leading to the master’s degree.
Core Values
As an institution, Canisius College embraces the following core values and strives to use them as guiding principles for all decisions and actions:
- Honesty and Integrity
- Care and Respect for the Whole Person
- Commitment to the Life of the Mind and Spirit
- Commitment to Quality, Excellence and Continuous Improvement
- Commitment to Teamwork
- Personal Safety of Every Member of the Campus Community
- Personal Accountability
- Enhance the Intellectual Life of the Campus.
Enhance the intellectual life of the campus by pursuing the priorities of our plan for academic excellence.
a. Develop a first class interdisciplinary science building and office complex at the BlueCross BlueShield Building.
b. Secure permanent endowment for initiatives that promote mission, scholarship, and engagement with the broader world as a means to highlight the academic quality of the college.
c. Hire and retain an excellent and more diverse faculty at competitive salaries and move toward a lower student: faculty ratio and teaching load to encourage scholarship and research.
d. Support activities that explore the Jesuit Catholic tradition that animates Canisius College. - Improve Student Life.
Improve the quality of student life and the residential experience on campus.
a. Utilize current residence hall spaces at optimal capacity while determining additional future needs for undergraduate and graduate students.
b. Enhance student programming, services, and facilities to meet the increasing demands of residential and commuter students.
c. Implement safety measures to respond to national concerns about campus safety. - Diversify and Increase the Quality of the Student Body.
Attract a more diverse, more residential and increasingly talented student body.
a. Increase the undergraduate applicant pool from outside the Erie/Niagara region to increase selectivity and geographic diversity.
b. Create a campus culture of diversity that attracts and sustains an increasingly diverse faculty, staff and student body.
c. Develop and implement a comprehensive integrated marketing plan that will link enrollment management (covering both undergraduate and graduate programs), public relations, student affairs, government relations, human resources, development, alumni relations, campus ministry and athletics.
d. Create a student-focused environment that enhances student satisfaction and attracts and retains a greater proportion of the region’s high achieving students.
e. Enhance the profile of distinctive graduate programs in regional, national and international markets to attract an increasingly qualified and diverse graduate student enrollment. - Build a Competitive Athletics Program.
Develop a high-quality, competitive athletics program in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference that insures a high-quality athletic and academic experience for our student athletes and offers programs that regularly compete for conference championships.
a. Insure academic excellence.
b. Promote athletic excellence. - Secure our Financial Future
Secure the necessary resources to achieve the goals of this strategic plan and position the college for sustained future growth and development.
a. Recreate the operating and capital budgeting processes to align the allocation of resources with the goals of this strategic plan.
b. Use the success of the Legacy of Leadership campaign as a means to insure long term growth in all advancement programs of the college.
c. Engage the college’s 37,000 living alumni in meaningful ways to create a sense of connection to Alma Mater and to provide the opportunity to ask our alumni to give back to Canisius with their time, talent and treasure.
d. Assess short-term and long-term facilities needs and develop a campus master plan to guide facilities development after Science Hall is completed.