UST Prepares New Strategic Vision
What do you see when you think about UST in 2030?
As UST celebrates our 75th anniversary year, we asked our extended community to think about their answer to that question. Through an abundance of workshops, surveys, open forums and online ideation sessions, our community and university leadership answered with great enthusiasm and great consensus!
What did we see? Together, we visualized the University of St. Thomas in 2030 as a very special place, committed to the values of our Basilian fathers, our Catholic faith and to the love of Christ as reflected in its motto, Crescamus in Christo. We pictured a university that is bold, innovative and delivering on its mission of educating students in the Catholic intellectual tradition to be the best that they can be.
The feedback we received proposed a University of St. Thomas in 2030 that will be an integral part of our city and will serve the needs of more than 10,000 student learners! A UST with more than 1,100 students living on a campus, lending to a culture that is vibrant and alive. Our community imagines a university that has fully embraced technology, is meeting our students where they are today, and providing them with the educational options they need, demand and deserve.
This community sees the University of St. Thomas at the center of a growing technology hub in the Montrose area and leveraging that technology infrastructure to create global awareness that empowers and advances our mission to new places. Our process envisioned a university that is in the modern world and provides its students with multiple clear pathways for success in the jobs and careers of the future. We will manifest our vision through strong academic programs, mentors and widely available internships.
Finally, this community also sees the University of St. Thomas as an educational institution that is financially strong and sustainable and is accessible and affordable.
“Greater Things,” our new strategic vision, will represent a year’s worth of input from the UST community and will be rolled out as the university begins the fall 2022 semester. It will provide both a foundation and a roadmap to accomplish a shared vision that builds upon our mission, values and our impressive 75-year history.
Does this New Plan Change UST’s Mission?
Not at all. Our 2030 vision and strategic vision is driven by a shared desire to amplify our mission through greater local and global engagement. Delivering on our 2030 vision will enable us to model our commitment to the Catholic intellectual tradition, pursue excellence in teaching, scholarship and service, and teach students to think critically, communicate effectively, succeed professionally and lead ethically on a greater and grander scale.
Strategic Vision has four key objectives:
The University of St. Thomas will be a model for Catholic higher education and considered one of the top Catholic universities.
Higher education has changed significantly over the last decade and that trend is expected to continue. This shifting business environment has created critical challenges for small liberal arts universities and Catholic universities to define the “why” of their existence and to deliver a product that meets the needs of today’s students. Our strategic vision will take on this challenge and look at it as an opportunity. As a Catholic university, our “why” has never been in doubt, and our approach of educating the whole person and helping each student discover their purpose has never been more needed than it is today. Every part of our new strategic vision will build upon what has made UST unique and special for 75 years.
The University of St. Thomas campus and community will be a premier place and an integral part of our greater Houston community.
With enrollment growth, UST will need an improved infrastructure, including physical classrooms, student gathering, studying and learning centers and information technology support. This infrastructure, which will require new capital funding and innovation, will include a new residence hall that will allow for more than 1,100 students to live on campus. The new plan also calls for a renovation of the library into a modern high-tech, multi-use facility for student learning, conferences, lectures, performances and programming. An expansion of Campus Ministry is also included as part of the growth.
The University of St. Thomas will leverage international partnerships and be known globally for innovative Catholic education.
UST has friends and partnerships around the world and is continuing to build new ones. By combining a strong core curriculum with innovative and dynamic new programming, and delivering that programming across flexible modalities, UST will leverage its partnerships to create awareness of our mission and drive future enrollment. As we develop the strategic vision, creating a robust technology infrastructure will be key to bringing UST’s mission and vision to the world in the digital age.
The University of St. Thomas will be financially sustainable.
The strategic vision calls for the continuation of the financial discipline model that was established by UST in 2019. All initiatives will undergo a financial review before implementation. Financial resources and funding will be identified for these new initiatives, and commitments will not be made that would risk the financial sustainability of the University. We want to dream big, but we need to know how we’re going to pay for it.
RENDERING OF PROPOSED RESIDENCE HALL
by Design Collaborative