Strategic Goals

To achieve this plan, we will focus on the following strategic goals and corresponding measures. Unless otherwise noted, the timeline to achieve these goals is by 2023-24. Each division and department at the college will annually identify and map their top priorities to the strategic goals.

Recruit and retain students from diverse backgrounds who can excel at Colby-Sawyer.

  • Attract 300 first-time students (275 first-years and 25 transfer) each year and build traditional undergraduate enrollment to 820 total by 2023-24.
  • Enroll 207 professional learners by the fall of 2023.
  • Seek racial, demographic and multicultural diversity.
  • Increase racial diversity in the student population to 15% by 2024.
  • Maintain academic quality of entering undergraduate students by achieving a 3.3 average GPA for the incoming first year class.
  • Achieve first-year-to-sophomore retention rate of 76 percent by fall 2023.
  • Maintain a gender balance of at least 30 percent male students.

Improve student outcomes.

  • Achieve 65 percent undergraduate 6-year graduation rate by fall 2023.
  • Meet post-graduation job placement and graduate school rate of 95 percent within 6-months of graduation for each graduating class, based on a minimum of 85 percent data collection rate.
  • 80% of students will meet or exceed program learning outcomes in annual program assessment.
  • Meet or exceed 95 percent pass rate on NCLEX exam.
  • Develop measures for student satisfaction.

Attract and retain talented faculty and staff who share the institution's values and reflect diverse backgrounds and talents.

  • Achieve and maintain competitive compensation for employees, relying on the Planning Comparison Group as the basis of comparison.
  • Provide annual salary increases for continuing employees at a rate reflective of the college’s available resources and at a level that preserves competitiveness with our benchmark schools.
  • Regularly review employee salary pool for inequities and compression and as resources allow, plan and implement appropriate adjustments.
  • Achieve a faculty profile of 75 percent full-time and tenured or tenure-track in the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Business and Social Sciences.
  • Develop a faculty profile for full-time and tenured or tenure-track in the School of Nursing and Health Sciences.
  • Maintain student to faculty ratio of at least 13 to 1.
  • Strive to ensure that new faculty and staff hires each year include people of color, with a goal of increasing the percentage of faculty and staff who identify as members of racial or ethnic minority groups.
  • Maintain a racially diverse Board of Trustees that mirrors the student population.
  • Form a diversity and equity committee, office, and/or officer to advise on and implement policies and programs related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and human rights on campus and make cultural competency trainings and activities available to the campus community.

Establish and enhance financial stability.

  • Consistently balance operating budgets.
  • Meet $1 million Colby-Sawyer Fund annual goal and increase target and dollars raised by 3 percent annually from Fiscal Year 2021 and thereafter.
  • Increase alumni giving participation rate to 15 percent by FY2024.
  • Grow the endowment to $70 million by 2023-24.
  • Obtain annual gifts to the endowment of $1,500,000 by 2024.
  • Draw a maximum of 5% from the endowment for operating expenses by 2024.
  • Develop and implement a capital improvement plan that addresses annual deferred maintenance costs and repayment of long-term debt.
  • Develop and launch the goal for the next capital campaign.

Deliver a dynamic curriculum that exposes students to a range of disciplines as well as equips them with essential skills.

  • Review existing programs every six years and identify new initiatives relative to our mission.
  • Collect and review feedback from internship placement sites and address areas of concern.
  • Develop resources to support professional learners.
  • Conduct an inventory to assess the Foundational Commitments (via SDG’s) and vocation/CEL course offerings across disciplines and make that listing available to prospective and current students.
  • Engage students to build a better world through community-engaged learning experiences.
  • Develop a plan for vocational exploration across the student experience by 2024.
  • Develop plans to ensure that the Foundational Commitments are elements of the learning outcomes of the Liberal Education Program and the entire student experience.

Provide a range of leadership and engagement opportunities to students.

  • Define and measure student outcomes related to leadership qualities across co-curricular activities such as athletics, student government, student clubs, work-study roles, community service, and other student activities.

Embed a whole-systems sustainability approach across the institution.

  • Provide wellness programs and/or employee assistance services that enhance the health and wellbeing of the entire campus community, including students, faculty, and staff.
  • Increase local sourcing of food served by dining services, with a goal of at least 25 percent of food sourced from within New England.
  • Identify efficiencies in energy and water consumption, maintaining 70% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the 2008 baseline.
  • Address the goals in the 2020 Strategic Vision for Institutional Zero Waste.
  • Implement outreach campaigns directed towards employees and students to advance awareness and behavior around the institution’s Foundational Commitments.

Strengthen and create new partnerships with the Town of New London, the region, and employers.

  • Invite and engage alumni participation in networking, internship support, professional development, and community building activities.
  • Establish and launch advisory boards for the three Schools.
  • Celebrate and enhance long-standing relationships such as Town of New London, Adventures in Learning, Gordon Research Conferences, and Dartmouth Health.
  • Explore new and strengthen formal and informal existing articulation agreements with other institutions that support our students’ learning.
  • Develop engaged learning experiences with community partners across all academic programs.

Build a culture of high performance.

  • Develop and adopt a diversity, equity, and inclusion plan with measurable goals.
  • Implement employee performance reviews, achieving an annual participation rate of 100 percent.
  • Identify barriers to effective internal communication and improve communications within and across departments.
  • Achieve 98 percent “up-time” for all information technology resources and support systems.
  • Use student feedback to improve curricular and co-curricular opportunities.
  • Ensure a broad variety of faculty and staff professional development opportunities.
  • Provide at least seven faculty sabbaticals every year.
  • Develop program through which we invite faculty fellows to campus.