Fairfield's Strategic Vision: Windows to the Future

By Barbara D. Kiernan, M.A. '90

"Fairfield's strategic plan will serve as a compass to guide the University into the future. With it in hand, our every next step will have a reference point by which to assess the potential of a given project or proposal to move us toward our "true north." At Fairfield, our "true north" will be the integration of the core curriculum, of life and learning, and of Jesuit values into graduate education - not for their own sake, but for the glory of God, and the creation of a diverse environment that supports that sacred process. ... Clearly, trust will be an important element of our planning - not blind trust, but bold trust. Trust that as we seek truly life-giving goals for the students we serve, even the occasional blind alley will bear fruit."

Rev. Jeffrey P. von Arx, S.J.
Address to Alumni, Oct. 2005

After a 25-year focus on the physical and programmatic growth that established Fairfield among the best regional universities of its kind, Fairfield's strategic plan is poised to help separate the University from its peers in important and measurable ways. In December 2005, the Board of Trustees gave its stamp of approval to a strategic vision refined and reshaped during the course of 2005-06 in a collaborative process that involved nearly every facet of campus life. More than 400 members of the University community - faculty, administrators, staff, students, alumni, parents, benefactors, and advisory board members - contributed to the shaping and reshaping of this document.

Meant to be implemented in phases during the coming seven-to-ten years, the strategic vision promises to strengthen all that is good, all that is useful, all that is life-giving and spirit-building in Jesuit liberal arts, professional, and graduate education. A bold claim, to be sure (and not yet as quantifiable as it will be) as the University moves into the first year of implementation. 

This President's Report invites you to imagine what a more fully implemented plan will look like, through facets of each goal that foreshadow the expansion to come. Drawing on these existing strengths and strategically building on them will create a Fairfield University known for its integrated approach to education and for the nimble-minded, holistic ways its graduates view the world and their place in it. 

Already on campus, conversations make reference to the goals by number - Goal I, Goal II, Goal III - and almost everyone knows what each one means. Likewise, it's the rare person on campus who does not realize that both fostering the Jesuit mission and increasing diversity and are integral parts of each goal - and everyone's responsibility to bring about. 

We now invite alumni, parents, benefactors, and friends to join the institutional "in crowd" by learning the lingo and its links to the kinds of learning to come!

Goal I: Integration of the Core Curriculum

Fairfield's core curriculum embodies the principal tenets of Jesuit liberal arts education: open-mindedness, respect for human dignity, formation in values, and attention to the religious dimension of life. These attributes arise through habits of mind that are shaped by an intentionally integrated core curriculum. At Fairfield, this body of knowledge comprises fully half the credits required for graduation. The integration of the core will come about in stages through faculty collaboration and creativity in delivering it. Through their efforts, connections will be more purposefully made across academic disciplines, becoming a wellspring of insight and energy to students as they pursue the more focused courses of their major. To that end, faculty members have begun a series of cross-disciplinary conversations and activities that will spark this goal to life.

Goal II: Integration of Living and Learning

The integration imagined by this goal recognizes that education is a holistic process involving mind, body, and spirit, and that every activity a student engages in offers another path to self-discovery. Currently, Ignatian Residential College offers one such model; special-interest residence hall floors are another. To implement stronger connections between living and learning, the academic and student affairs divisions are working collaboratively on concrete ways to help students become attentive to and reflective about the whole of their daily lives, and relate it to the wider world. As Fairfield University commits itself to creating a jewel of an environment and a network of support for students, the integration of living and learning - a lifetime quest - will become one of its hallmarks.

Goal III: Integration of Jesuit Values in Graduate Education

For decades, Fairfield University has developed master's-level programs to serve the needs of the region for competent teachers, counselors, engineers, nurses, and business executives. Academically, they are the best programs in the area. Goal III centers on making this fact more well known, and on bringing the process of earning a graduate degree into closer alignment with the Jesuit mission. Thus, efforts are under way to: 1) better serve the individual adult learner, 2) strategically infuse Jesuit values into the curriculum so that consideration of the common good becomes a habit of mind and an influence on the given profession, 3) make appropriate choices related to the growth of existing programs, and 4) ensure that new program development is consistent with Fairfield's mission.

Diversity

St. Ignatius recognized that each person is endowed with God-given gifts, and that activating these gifts depended in large part on a person's circumstances. He came to understand that education could serve as a powerful force for good in transforming individual potential into skills, values, and attitudes that could benefit, bless, and serve the world. While increasing the racial and socioeconomic diversity of Fairfield's campus could have been a stand-alone goal, the President and Board considered it too important to be seen as just one area's responsibility. This goal is not just about numbers; however, numbers do help move an institution toward a critical mass - within the faculty, administration, and student body. Only then can the point of diversity happen - interaction, understanding, and enlightenment. Thus, this goal is woven throughout the strategic vision, and relies on an entire institution for implementation.