CAS Strategy
On these pages, I am pleased to share the college’s five-year strategic plan. This plan clarifies our priorities as we deliver a liberal arts education that meets the needs of 21st century students and advances the public mission of the university. It serves as a roadmap for focusing our efforts, guiding our investments, and ensuring that we are making the greatest possible impact for our students, the state and the world. While the strategy is intentionally aspirational, setting ambitious aims allows us to move further and accomplish more than we would be by settling for less.
Developed with extensive input from the CAS community, this strategy is ultimately centered on preparing students for an ever-changing job market and an increasingly complex world, while contributing meaningfully to discovery, understanding, and the public good. The plan will be carried forward through the college’s collective work—by faculty and staff who continue to advance innovative research, engage students through excellent teaching and mentoring, and provide strong support for CAS academic programs.
Chris J. Poulsen
Tykeson Dean of Arts and Sciences
Professor of Earth Sciences
Strategic Priorities
The College of Arts and Sciences’ five-year strategy is committed to providing students with a rigorous liberal arts education that is foundational to a purpose-filled life.
Through meetings with stakeholders and the CAS community, the college developed a set of strategic priorities that will stay true to the ethos of a liberal arts education but in a 21st-century context.
Vision and Mission
Every strategy needs a North Star or compass for direction. The College of Arts and Sciences' vision and mission will provide inspiration for students, faculty, staff, and all members of the college's community.
Vision
The College of Arts and Sciences offers an inspired, forward-looking, inclusive liberal arts education that prepares students for a life of purpose and well-being while maximizing the opportunities afforded by a world-class research university.
Mission
The College of Arts and Sciences is Oregon’s premier liberal arts institution: an inclusive and collaborative community of critical thinkers, curious learners, and creative scholars, working together to build a better world.
Values
To guide our culture and decision-making, College of Arts and Sciences stakeholders selected four values to unite us over the next five years:
Collaboration
A liberal arts education makes vivid the value of diverse perspectives and varied disciplinary insights and methods. Our collective strengths and abilities are a necessity for addressing the complex problems that will define the future. In CAS, faculty, staff, and students work and learn together, benefiting from each other’s contributions and expertise.
Creativity
We value and teach curiosity and exploration as the wellsprings of creativity and innovation. In CAS, we cultivate the combination of rigorous and imaginative thinking that leads to novel and insightful solutions.
Equity
In CAS, we recognize, honor, and support individual differences while striving for fairness and justice. We aim to address the varied needs of our diverse community and to eliminate disparities in access and educational achievement to ensure everyone in our community can flourish.
Transparency
We are committed to values-driven, fair processes and strive for open, clear, and timely communication. We recognize that transparency and accountability increase trust. The CAS community is strengthened when each of us understands the College’s purpose and priorities.
How the Strategy Was developed
Over the past few years, College of Arts and Sciences leadership held forums with the college community and created a committee to guide the process of the strategy development. During the development of the strategy, CAS heard from students, faculty, staff, alumni–and more.