I. Contemporary Teaching and Learning Infused with Ethics and Justice

We live in a time when there is a growing insistence on education as little more than narrowly focused career preparation. Concurrently, the new digital learning ecosystem and the free, unfiltered flow of information are calling into question established ways of teaching and intellectual authority. This is our opportunity to show the world the value of an unabashedly humanistic education for digital natives. By imaginatively retooling our pedagogy for new ways of learning, and by helping students understand the broad range of meaningful professional futures open to them, we serve our mission of promoting holistic development, prepare students for gainful and productive employment, and ultimately produce the most important outcome of all: thoughtful, active citizens who are capable of changing the world.

A. Inspire Personal and Social Transformation through Liberal Education

1. Create new academic programs, many of them interdisciplinary and interprofessional, that enable students to master a body of knowledge while examining it critically through the lenses of ethics, social justice, respect for human dignity, and the sustainability of the world in which we live.
    
2. Employ contemporary models of teaching and learning that strengthen the responsiveness of undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs to the learning needs of contemporary students.
    
3. Develop our students’ perennially valuable skills in effective communication, including critical reading, analytical thinking, clear writing, and persuasive speech.
    
4. Create innovative models of doctoral education that deliver the competencies and skills that our most advanced students need to succeed in a variety of career pathways, within and outside of academia.
    
5. Move resolutely toward the construction of state of the art science facilities and infrastructure at Rose Hill to strengthen collaborative and experiential teaching, learning, and research of the highest quality in STEM areas and serve students and faculty on all campuses.

B. Reimagine Student-Centered Teaching and Learning

1. Provide national and international leadership in rethinking how the needs of the twenty-first century and of contemporary learners are met by the traditions of Jesuit pedagogy and liberal education. To do so, we will establish a University-wide resource for teaching and learning able to support faculty of all career stages, ranks, and fields of inquiry.
    
2. Recruit, develop, and retain faculty members who are committed to ongoing experimentation, adaptation, and improvement in their perspectives and methods regarding teaching and learning.
    
3. Promote digital literacy and prepare globally aware digital citizens by designing and deploying innovative instructional technologies adapted to the particular needs of different students, disciplines, and courses.
    
4. Design and implement academic calendars and course delivery methods that better align academic programs with the needs and interests of students, and strive to achieve an optimal educational balance among online, hybrid, and traditional pedagogies.

C. Promote Holistic Personal Development

1. Promote the integrated, holistic wellness of students by designing and implementing a distinctive, integrated, and collaborative model for student growth and formation that reflects the deepest concerns of Jesuit education, including the service of faith and promotion of justice, and that includes learning outcomes specific to each stage in a student’s development.
    
2. Deepen the sense of community commitment and spirit among all members of the University by providing a range of activities, including varsity, club, and intramural athletic competitions, arts performances, and recreational opportunities.
    
3. Create new spaces and reimagine existing facilities to foster the exchange of ideas, collaborative learning, a sense of community, and individual wellness; including, but not limited to, the design and planning of a new campus center (or a combined campus center and recreation center) on the Rose Hill campus and additional recreational space at the Lincoln Center campus.
    
4. Institute faculty and staff development programs that support the mission and identity of Fordham as a Jesuit, Catholic university in a context of genuine collegiality and in the face of declining numbers of Jesuits.