Strategic Plan & Progress Updates

Strategic Goal: Foster community and a sense of belonging in a welcoming environment where all students feel at home.

Tactics and 2026-2027 Action Items:

Collaborate across Student Life offices to design and implement innovative programs and initiatives that foster a sense of belonging and build community for all students.

• Create a shared definition of belonging for the Institution.
• Expand our First-Year Experience initiatives, including Ever Better Beginnings and FYRE residence hall initiatives.
• Explore opportunities to centralize graduate student orientation.
• Continue to grow intentional, home-grown, and collaborative programming within first-year residence halls.
• Identify new opportunities to build community among international students and graduate students.

Implement a newly re-imagined campus dining experience focused on inclusive hospitality, emphasizing well-being, creating authentic cuisine, and providing a welcoming environment where every member of the URochester community feels at home.

• Expand collaboration with student organizations to bring authentic experiences to dining spaces, offering comforts from around the globe, and expanding the Dining Around the World program.
• Create individualized dining experiences at times that align with students' needs and schedules, where the value exceeds that of external options.
• Transform dining plans by moving beyond restrictive meal-swipe models to flexible, student-centered spending solutions that support the diverse lifestyles, schedules, and professional pathways of undergraduate, graduate, doctoral, and career-specific student populations.
• Conduct an evaluation of the current dining facilities to understand future opportunities and how to incorporate the newest trends

Develop and implement plans that address key facility priorities, including student housing, student life spaces, learning spaces, athletic and recreation facilities, and spaces that promote student well-being and community building.

• Continue the planning and development of the new Student Life building.
• Continue improving residential hall infrastructure, including interior spaces (bathrooms, lounges, kitchens) and exterior spaces (shelters, seating, landscaping, bike racks, charging areas for lithium batteries, safe storage for e-bikes and scooters).
• Conduct a space study to explore future opportunities for a multi-use building.
• Explore future opportunities for the Fraternity Quad buildings, prioritize urgent infrastructure work, and review current occupancy policies and expectations for Greek and non-Greek houses.

Strategic Goal: As educators, support students’ growth by providing opportunities to develop leadership and life skills, empowering them to thrive at the University and succeed beyond.

Tactics and 2026-2027 Action Items:

Develop and implement a comprehensive strategy for a robust suite of competency development programs that teach "real-world" skills, leadership, interpersonal dialogue, and civil discourse. Ensure inclusive access for all students - from first-year undergraduates to graduate students across all schools.

• Develop a pilot for a first-year experience course to launch in the fall 2027 semester.
• Continue to grow the Medallion Leadership program as our signature experiential learning program.

Expand and integrate experiential learning opportunities across Student Life, ensuring students engage in meaningful experiences that increase career competencies and provide critical growth opportunities.

• Identify all experiential learning opportunities currently offered to students across USL. Work in partnership with the Greene Center to determine the future direction of experiential learning opportunities for students within USL.
• Implement a unified student employment experience across USL offices with similar onboarding procedures, centralized communication, and annual student employee satisfaction surveys.

Strategic Goal: Provide essential resources and support through a unified system to help students thrive academically, socially, and emotionally, while promoting holistic well-being, including mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional health.

Tactics and 2026-2027 Action Items:

Establish an interdisciplinary committee dedicated to student well-being.

• Analyze well-being assessment tools currently in use, determine future needs, and lead an ongoing well-being survey strategy for USL.
• Provide a comprehensive annual report on the state of student well-being to inform continuous improvement.
• Enhance the visibility, accessibility, and effectiveness of well-being and support resources by defining offerings, evaluating services, and improving communication to help students connect to them.

Analyze and address the needs of our most vulnerable students using a data-informed approach.

• Better understand our students' food insecurity and develop ways to address this need.
• Create a proactive outreach protocol and develop a user experience survey for the CARE Network.
• Collaborate with Academic Excellence to address the needs of supporting faculty with distressed students.

Reimagine and expand Religious and Spiritual Life to foster our students’ spiritual well-being and build connections across diverse traditions within the campus community.

• Analyze current programs and initiatives, assess gaps in need, and strategize the development of future offerings.
• Develop new spaces to create inclusive environments for our largest faith communities.
• Foster the growth of three new spiritual communities.

Increase staff and student readiness and response in emergencies.

• Risk to provide training to over 200 students and USL staff related to AED/CPR and Naloxone best practices to increase the number of people on campus ready to intervene during emergent situations.

Strategic Goal: Engage students in meaningful traditions and activities that celebrate the uniqueness of the student body and foster respect and inclusion.

Tactics and 2026-2027 Action Items:

Host activities, traditions, and events that enhance school spirit, celebrate the University of Rochester's unique identity, and foster student engagement across all schools.

• Continue to increase engagement in Spirit Fridays.
• Develop and implement a strategy to increase attendance of all URochester community members at athletic events.
• Create a comprehensive communication strategy across multiple channels to inform students about our activity and engagement opportunities.
• Elevate existing residence hall traditions and events.

Transform campus recreation, bringing together club sports, fitness, recreation, and intramurals in new ways that better meet evolving student needs.

• Implement initial phases of the intramurals/group fitness transition plan.
• Create a funding request proposal for the expansion of campus recreation and present to Advancement.

Enhance training for student event managers for on-campus events.

• Develop a new training to assess better, mitigate, and transfer risk during on-campus events through SWARM (Students Wanting Activities Responsibly Monitored) Event Manager Trainings.

Strategic Goal: Create a high-performing and people-centered division by streamlining operations, fostering employee growth and belonging, leveraging data and communication strategically, and developing the next generation of student affairs leaders.

Tactics and 2026-2027 Action Items:

Redesign operating procedures across University Student Life to centralize processes, services, teams, and systems, enhancing efficiency, streamlining work, and promoting fiscal responsibility.

• Create and implement a strategy to centralize IT and finance functions across USL.
• Propose a centralized approach to managing systems and services across USL.
• Provide training for USL leaders on budget management and program evaluation.
• Evaluate opportunities for the expansion of CCC across USL.

Foster an exceptional employee experience within the USL team by delivering a welcoming onboarding process, supporting professional development, celebrating and publicizing accomplishments, and regularly incorporating employee feedback to drive improvement.

• Improve communication with USL staff by launching a staff newsletter.
• Create avenues to celebrate and publicize employee accomplishments.

Contribute to the higher education career pipeline by offering internships, fellowships, and assistantship opportunities for current students, as well as career opportunities for recent graduates, to gain experience in student affairs while enhancing the student experience.

• Fully launch the Apeiron Project this fall by creating a USL Student Advisory Committee.
• Strategize opportunities for Graduate Assistants who work across multiple USL units and contribute to our success.

Develop and implement an assessment strategy that leverages institutional data, student surveys, involvement metrics, published higher education literature, and industry best practices to strategically collect, analyze, and report data, creating a road map that aligns with and supports student success.

• Complete an inventory of surveys launched and data collected across all USL offices.
• Create and implement a USL survey strategy.

Continually foster partnerships with offices throughout the institution to enhance the student experience collaboratively.

• Create a “lookbook” of funding opportunities to share with Advancement.
• Prioritize increased engagement with and strategize plans to collaborate with the following offices in the 2026-2027 academic year: Undergraduate Admissions, Office for Global Engagement, and URochester Libraries.