Every academic major and faculty member at Franciscan University challenges and supports our students to be the Catholic version of their chosen profession—not a nurse who’s Catholic, but a Catholic nurse; not an engineer who’s Catholic, but a Catholic engineer. That is why our faculty choose to dedicate their careers here. Through their teaching and their own lives, they want to model for young people how faith and reason nourish each other and how professional and spiritual formation complement each other. Our professors embrace the role of developing new generations of extraordinary missionaries who excel in the temporal world.

But rapid changes and the rising expectations of prospective families demand that we strengthen our 
commitment to making a Franciscan education rigorous and relevant—and recognized as such. 
Doing so will ensure that our graduates become sources of light in board rooms, emergency rooms, classrooms, and courtrooms; in start-ups and scientific innovation; in policymaking and politics at every level.

As a relatively small institution, we can nimbly marshal faculty, staff, administrators, and alumni to develop a Franciscan University at which every undergraduate student is personally supported and intentionally prepared. Our students can, thus, grow as sons and daughters of God in a vibrant Catholic community in which the faith is not only preached but lived, and then graduate fully prepared to confront and transform the culture.

We will:

• Dramatically expand our undergraduates’ personal vocation preparation through a range of curricular and
 co-curricular activities. Our goal is to engage every student with opportunities for formalized mentoring,
 experiential learning (including paid internships), and leadership development. By cultivating students’ 
 academic acumen, emotional intelligence, and professional identity with the same intensity we bring to their 
 spiritual formation, we can ensure they will be in demand with both employers and graduate programs.
• Align degree programs and modalities—including those at the doctoral level—with audience demand, market
 potential, emerging fields and sectors, and societal needs. We will create or reinvigorate external advisory boards 
 to work with every academic unit in the review and renewal of our academic portfolio, leading to measurably 
 impressive learning outcomes and maximum post-graduation employability and graduate program admission.
• Bring a new level of intentionality and expansiveness to the Franciscan University network. We will connect and
 consistently engage students, alumni, benefactors, and adult conference participants in a lifelong community
 that offers not only formation and spiritual support, but also access to job opportunities, workplace-tested career 
 knowledge, and other employment-related resources. We will continuously engage 50 percent of alumni in our campus community through lifelong learning, ongoing formation, networking, and student mentorship.

Franciscan University is “a city on a hill”—an unwavering beacon to Catholics everywhere. Our circle of influence is remarkably wide and growing. We have brought people of all ages into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ and the Church through our evangelistic outreaches. Fifteen percent of ordained
men in the United States point to a Steubenville Youth Conference experience as being influential in their vocation to the priesthood. We have courageously and prophetically confronted the powers of this world through countless publications of research, scholarship, and popular works. We have refused to be coerced or to compromise our values, standing up to governmental regulations that violated our Catholic identity. Look to any thriving Catholic 
organization, parish, and diocese, and you will find Franciscan graduates acting as a wellspring of charity, energy, and ideas.

Still, many individuals do not yet know us, or are not able to come to us. They, too, could benefit from a 
relationship with Franciscan University. We must cast out into the deep, for the world needs encounter, conversion, and community. Our strategic vision now calls us to push our horizons even further, broaden our reach, and expand our tent.

Like St. Francis, we will not live our lives behind walls. The entire world was Francis’ cloister, and he brought Christ’s love and truth to men and women everywhere. We imagine a future in which the University fully establishes numerous pathways into lifelong Franciscan relationship, education, and formation—to exponentially increase the number of people we reach now, in person and virtually.

We will:

• Increase online, for-credit enrollment from 1,000 to 1,500 students by May 31, 2027; to 2,000 students by
 2029; and to 5,000 students by 2034 through new and expanded programs including high school dual 
 enrollment, Franciscan Advantage, and Advanced Placement alternatives.
• Fully launch Franciscan University of Steubenville Encounter, encompassing various non-traditional offerings
 including the Catechetical Institute, faithandreason.com platform, certificates, badges, Continuing Professional
 Education courses (CPEs), and lifelong learning—growing current engagement in these areas from 40,000 to
 65,000 individuals annually by May 31, 2027; to 75,000 by 2029; and to 125,000 by 2034.
• Dramatically grow conferences and outreach efforts from our current participation of 30,000 to 50,000 participants by May 31, 2027; 70,000 participants by 2029; and 100,000 participants by 2034. This includes a special
 focus on our youth conferences, which are a unique way Franciscan University lives out our call to evangelize
 and share the Gospel. Our success in growing the conferences in a post-COVID world demands fresh thinking
 in everything from programming to marketing to formats and locations.
• Establish a Washington, D.C., hub, with 150 students engaged in the D.C. Extension, and a dozen alumni
 working in D.C. to change the culture of our national government. We will also research and identify a handful
 of other major metropolitan areas for potential presence, adding at least one other active location by 
 May 31, 2027.

This time of significant change in higher education presents Franciscan University with a tremendous opportunity. Now is the time to galvanize support and resources as Franciscan prepares to serve future generations. Now is the time to become the University the Lord is calling us to be.

We are reinforcing our identity and values and building on our strengths. We are greeting a new dawn—a hopeful future where Franciscan 
University has an even greater impact in the next 78 years than we have had during our first 78 years. We will uncompromisingly challenge ourselves to embody our core Franciscan value of ongoing conversion. We will intentionally build upon our model of a Catholic university that is both educational institution and evangelistic ministry; one that integrates faith and reason in both the person and the institution; one that builds an organizational culture rooted in the values of encounter, community, and conversion; one that forms leaders with the capacity, courage, and expectation to serve the needs of others for the glory of God.

While this vision is exciting, it also challenges us to do some things differently—culturally and operationally—as a university. We are not changing who we are as an institution, but we are going deeper and bigger, and we will be moving at a faster pace. 
We must operate within a unified, optimized, and strong organizational culture that fosters the ongoing success of our mission, our people, and our institutional operations and finances.

Our fuel for addressing many of these challenges is philanthropy. We continually hear from Catholic audiences how much they value and rely on our unwavering culture, our evangelistic ministry, and our leadership in faithfully Catholic dynamic orthodoxy. We need to better articulate how the generous, consistent investment of our friends makes possible all we are doing now for our students, our Church, and our world—and all we aspire to do in the future.

We will:

• Continue to build on our success in creating a hilltop home that’s worthy of our dreams and our audiences’ expectations, in keeping with our campus master plan. During this strategic plan, we will add, expand, or renovate several hundred thousand square feet of residential, student activity, sacramental, and academic facilities, and update our technological infrastructure. Each new project brings us closer to our goal of the Steubenville campus of the future, creating optimal conditions, services, and facilities for learning, living, worship, formation, community, and encounter.
• Rededicate ourselves to supporting our exceptionally talented and mission-dedicated employees—from our processes in recruiting, hiring, and retention to the resources we commit to rewarding, professionally developing, and spiritually nurturing them. This includes the continual evaluation of all processes and procedures to ensure efficiency and effectiveness.
• Galvanize and rapidly expand our family of donors, enlisting them as true partners in our vision. Donor support will be particularly important in stabilizing our discount rate while reducing the average cost of an undergraduate degree by 10 percent.
• Develop sustainable financial and operational models that enable us to be both resilient and ready for new opportunities. We will simplify and improve processes and remove unnecessary obstacles to progress and advancement. This will allow the University to be nimble and flexible as both challenges and opportunities arise.
• Undertake more sophisticated data collection and analytics so we can make evidence-based decisions on how to innovate, grow our audiences, and expand our mission.