St. Mike’s 180: Rooted in the Future

We want to hear from you again as we continue to develop our strategic plan

A Message from President Sylvester

Last summer, the University of St. Michael’s College launched an institutional visioning process to explore how we can build on our historical and current strengths to enable this community to flourish in the years ahead.  This process was guided by a communal exercise of imagination, asking: where do we hope St. Mike’s will be on our 180th anniversary, and what do we need to do to get there?

We consulted with St. Michael’s students, faculty, staff, collegium members, alumni, and community partners through a variety of means from July 2019 to March 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic that arrived in March impacted many of our plans and operations, requiring us to focus on the integrity and continuity of academic programming, student and staff support, and health and safety of our and the broader community. At the same time, it offered us the opportunity to pause and reflect on this visioning exercise and to test our emerging priorities. We are all currently immersed, quite literally, in a collective experiential learning moment. It is an important opportunity for us to reflect critically upon our current planning, and upon who we are as a faith and learning community, in order to imagine how our work can continue to be transformational for our students and the community in which we locate ourselves.

With that in mind, we are sharing the emerging high-level priorities and goals that have developed through our series of consultations and discussions. We are reaching out again to ask you specifically to help ensure that the priorities and goals we have identified make sense to you and to St. Mike’s. The priorities that have been emerging in our planning exercise will come as no surprise to any member of the St. Michael’s community. A compassionate and creative commitment to community, academic excellence and social justice have long been the foundation of the St. Michael’s community. These values, rooted in our Catholic identity, have provided a guide in real time for our decision-making during the current crisis our society is currently facing, and I expect will remain at the heart of this plan and the mission of St. Mike’s.

Thank you again for your engagement in this important process, and for helping St. Michael’s ensure a vital and relevant future in service to our students and the common good.