Phase 1

Planning and Execution Actively Underway

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    Academic Review and Future Visioning

    This initiative began in Fall 2024 to create a bold and future-focused academic infrastructure for Emerson’s future. The project involves mapping current educational programs and priorities and analyzing the future direction of arts and communication disciplines to provide recommendations for future growth and investments. This data-driven project engages faculty, staff, and students to review curricula, majors, minors, and interdisciplinary programs and consider programs to create, improve, change, or sunset. 

    Performance Targets Include

    • Update undergraduate program offerings so all majors have at least 30 students and all minors have at least 20 students by Fall 2026
    • Develop and launch at least two new interdisciplinary undergraduate majors and two new interdisciplinary graduate programs by Fall 2028

    Goals Supported

    • Goal A.1 : Increase innovation, interdisciplinarity, and collaboration throughout the academic enterprise
    • Goal D.1 : Increase financial strength through innovative academic and programmatic offerings, increased philanthropy, and operational efficiencies

  • Faculty Research Hub

    Emerson faculty expands the boundaries of research in higher education, advancing knowledge, creating change in the world, investigating complex problems, and creatively bringing ideas to life. The Emerson College Faculty Research Hub initiative launched in Fall 2024 to improve synergies among faculty researchers, fund individual and collaborative research internally, and raise awareness of Emerson faculty research expertise externally.

    Performance Targets Include

    • Launch at least two new interdisciplinary research initiatives, labs, or centers by Fall 2026
    • Increase overall extramural research funding by at least 20% by Fall 2027
    • Increase the number of grant applications by 20% by Fall 2027

    Goals Supported

    • Goal A.3 : Expand and strengthen career readiness for all students
    • Goal A.4 : Recruit, develop, and support an innovative and inclusive faculty

  • Alumni Relations

    The Alumni Relations department and the Alumni Board have re-engaged to rebuild alumni relationships through alumni events and improved communication and engagement. Building and strengthening alumni relationships is paramount to achieving many of the College’s strategic goals and is necessary for many other initiatives to succeed.

    Performance Targets Include

    • Grow active participation of alumni in philanthropy and other areas of engagement by at least 20% by Fall 2027

    Goals Supported

    • Goal C.1 : Support a vibrant community culture and experience that fosters creativity, curiosity, belonging, accessibility, and well-being
    • Goal C.3 : Cultivate and strengthen robust alumni relations and engagement and increase campus involvement
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    EmersonTogether

    EmersonTogether was created in Fall 2024 to help the community come together around solutions and shared values to address institutional silos and tensions. EmersonTogether is a living initiative supporting a spectrum of involvement across the silos that can sometimes form in higher education communities. Students, faculty, staff, and alumni at all of Emerson’s sites can contribute.

    Performance Targets Include

    • Conduct at least two community-building events or programs per month starting in Fall 2025
    • Develop Emersonians’ overall perceived sense of belonging as measured by Emerson360 starting in Fall 2025

    Goals Supported

    • Goal C.1 : Support a vibrant community culture and experience that fosters creativity, curiosity, belonging, accessibility, and well-being

  • Student Success

    The Student Success Initiative fosters a coherent and holistic approach to ensuring student retention, graduation, and overall success. This initiative builds on findings from the 2024 External Review and will create equitable, targeted student outcomes by addressing key barriers, such as financial challenges, curriculum limitations, and broad student concerns and needs, while improving communication and collaboration across campus. These efforts reflect a commitment to inclusion and belonging and developing a vibrant community where all students can be high-achieving scholars, creatives, and communicators.

    Performance Targets Include

    • Increase undergraduate student 6-year graduation rate to at least 80% by Spring 2027
    • Increase first- and second-year undergraduate student retention to at least 90% by Fall 2028

    Goals Supported

    • Goal C.1 : Support a vibrant community culture and experience that fosters creativity, curiosity, belonging, accessibility, and well-being

  • Emerson Branding Initiative

    Through external and internal research involving deep engagement with Emersonians, the Emerson Branding Initiative will allow the College to evaluate Emerson’s position in the marketplace and impact on cultural and prospective student conversations. This initiative will craft an updated expression of the Emerson College brand that authentically represents the College and effectively highlights the unique value of an Emerson education. The process will allow the College to refresh the key messaging and creative expression of the brand, inform all of the College’s communication platforms and materials, and provide clear guidelines and tools for Emersonians as brand ambassadors.

    Performance Targets Include

    • Develop and launch the updated branding platform by Spring 2026
    • Build brand awareness and support among targeted audiences as measured against our baseline by Fall 2027

    Goals Supported

    • Goal D.3 : Refine and elevate Emerson’s branding, positioning, marketing, media, and engagement with priority audiences
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    Emerson Master Classes Initiative

    The Emerson College Master Classes Initiative offers curated opportunities for alumni, parents, and friends to share their expertise with the Emerson community. The program connects students with accomplished professionals and industry leaders across Emerson’s campuses, providing the real-world experience essential for career readiness.

    Performance Targets Include

    • Develop and launch one Master Class program per month for the 2025-2026 academic year, increasing to two Master Class programs per month in the 2026-2027 academic year.

    Goals Supported

    • Goal A.1 : Increase innovation, interdisciplinarity, and collaboration throughout the academic enterprise
    • Goal A.2 : Enhance student education and institutional capacity in emerging media and technologies

  • Student Modernization Initiative

    The Student Modernization Project is a transformative, five-year initiative to improve how students are supported through administrative processes. For one part of this project, the modern, mobile-friendly platform, Workday will replace Banner. This project will fundamentally redesign the student academic journey and internal administrative operations by providing students with self-service tools to map their own degree progression and plan flexible, career-aligned academic paths. By unifying student records across academics, financials, and advising into a single source of truth, the initiative will reduce departmental silos, process redundancies, and manual data entry. This will empower faculty and staff to collaborate more effectively and focus on higher-value student support. Ultimately, the project will create a secure, scalable, and adaptable infrastructure with robust reporting capabilities, enabling data-informed strategic decisions and ensuring the institution can evolve with best practices.

    Performance Targets Include

    • Increase user satisfaction with system usability and key services to ≥75% by Spring 2028 (students ≥80%, faculty/staff ≥75%). Track registration, advising and billing using 5-pt scale (≥4.0/5)
    • Achieve ≥95% of project objectives by Fall 2028. Define a benefits register with weighted objectives; count “met”, “exceeded” and “net met”.

    Goals Supported

    • Goal A.1 : Increase innovation, interdisciplinarity, and collaboration throughout the academic enterprise
    • Goal B.3 : Develop and diversify industry, organizational, and community collaborations and partnerships
    • Goal C.2 : Strengthen internal communication, engagement, and collaboration among students, faculty, staff, and administrators
    • Goal D.2 : Develop coordinated enterprise data systems, analyses, and infrastructure to inform strategic decisions and direction

  • Emerson Career Readiness Initiative

    The Emerson Career Readiness Initiative will gather, assess, review, and analyze current career development programs to improve and expand career initiatives at Emerson. This initiative will document current programs and resources, curate data on each program, and assess its effectiveness (job placement, salary, internships, etc.). It will also benchmark Emerson’s programs against peer institutions. This initiative will develop plans for potential investment, realignment, new programs, program integration, potential staffing, and targets for new comprehensive and coordinated career readiness programs, emphasizing increased alumni involvement and mentoring.

    Performance Targets Include

    • Expand undergraduate first-job placement and satisfaction to at least 90% by Fall 2027
    • Grow the number of students completing an internship before graduation by at least 20% by Fall 2028

    Goals Supported

    • Goal A.3 : Expand and strengthen career readiness for all students
    • Goal B.3 : Develop and diversify industry, organizational, and community collaborations and partnerships