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Curry College campus from above

2024-2027 Plan

Curry College is in the first year of a transformative three-year strategic plan designed to enhance its distinctive educational offerings, differentiate the College, foster new partnerships, broaden its revenue streams and strengthen its community engagement. Under the leadership of President Jay Gonzalez, the Strategic Planning Steering Committee led an academic year-long process in 2023-2024 to identify key strengths and new opportunities. The Committee proposed several critical initiatives reflecting the institution’s commitment to innovation and excellence in higher education.

In September 2024, the Curry College Board of Trustees endorsed the three-year plan moving forward, with an initial investment of $1M to to fund each initiative’s initial action items and priorities.

The Five Strategic Plan Initiatives

Students learn in PAL's Assistive Technology Center

Initiative One: Neurodiversity Center for Excellence

Goal: Leverage the College’s expertise, experience, and reputation for supporting students with learning differences to broaden its impact by reaching new markets, generating new revenue, and strengthening its position as a leader in supporting neurodivergent learners and workers.

Alignment: Building on its Program for Advancement of Learning (PAL), which Curry pioneered over 50 years ago, the Center aims to expand Curry’s leadership in neurodiversity education by providing specialized support and services to a broader population of neurodivergent learners and workers and serving as a thought-leader and convener on the issue.

Skubie Mageza '14 hosts an ESPN program

Initiative Two: The Curry Commitment

Goal: Address the number one interest of students and families investing in a college education today – career readiness. Central to this initiative is the Curry Commitment job guarantee program, which ensures that all participating graduates acquire the skills and experiences needed to secure meaningful employment within six months of graduating.

Alignment: By partnering with industry leaders and offering robust career readiness programming and resources, this program establishes a new standard for post-graduation success.

Women's Volleyball team celebrates a point

Initiative Three: Athletics

Goal: Strengthen and expand our athletics programs and staff to boost enrollment, enhance recruitment and retention of student-athletes, and generate revenue through facility rentals.

Alignment: The athletic program is a strength of Curry’s and a big part of our culture. With student-athletes comprising 30% of the Curry College student body and achieving high retention rates and GPAs, strengthening and expanding our athletics program promises to be a sound investment for Curry.

A student demonstrates the Anatomage table in the Learning Commons

Initiative Four: Center for Innovation

Goal: Create new revenue sources by leveraging Curry’s academic resources to serve new markets.

Alignment: The Center will act as an innovation hub that can respond promptly to market demands and opportunities through certificate programs, professional development offerings, and new academic programs, such as graduate programs targeting international students. The Center will also launch incubator spaces to support student and faculty startups.

Students hang out together in Bell Hall

Initiative Five: First-Year Experience

Goal: Provide first-year students at Curry College with an experience that promotes student success and growth through meaningful guidance and support for academics, co-curriculars, and extra-curricular activities. The focus will be on fostering self-discovery, building community connections, and enhancing academic engagement.

Alignment: By partnering with faculty, staff, alumni, peers, families, and external thought leaders, the first-year experience will create opportunities for students to define how they engage, learn, and thrive at Curry College. This initiative aligns with our mission of promoting student success and aims to increase the retention of first-year students by improving their overall experience in a manner that is consistent with Curry’s reputation as a caring and supportive community.

Curry College flag flies on the Academic Quad

Strategic Planning Steering Committee

Curry College’s Strategic Planning Steering Committee was charged with developing a three-year Strategic Plan that is focused on identifying strategic initiatives that will move the needle in a meaningful way for differentiating Curry and generating more revenue.

Our Mission

The Curry College mission is to educate and graduate students prepared to engage in successful careers and active citizenship with a global perspective. We are an inclusive community of diverse learners and educators, committed to continuing our legacy of developing effective communicators with reflective and critical thinking skills. We mentor and empower our students, building meaningful relationships that inspire them to achieve their ambitions.

Curry College provides rigorous and relevant academic programs to undergraduate and graduate students, and our rich blend of liberal arts and career-directed programs is enhanced by practical field experiences and co-curricular activities. Learning at Curry extends beyond the classroom and is embedded in all that we do.

Our Values

A student performs at a Curry College Music and Dance exhibition

Diversity

Diversity, in all of its forms and intersections, is a core value and critical component of our College. Our vision is to facilitate a learning community that nurtures the capacity of people to engage with one another and their environment in a manner that supports and respects the inherent dignity and worth of all. This means embracing and supporting differences of ability, age, culture, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, nationality, race, religious and spiritual belief, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. We aim to commit to and embed diversity across all areas of the College, including teaching and learning, student programming and life, representation, and extracurriculars. This is an intentional, clear priority of the College.

A chef reveals an Asian noodle dish in the Marketplace

Sustainability

The College is committed to improvement in our sustainability practices, striving to set higher benchmarks, adapting to changing realities, and finding opportunities in sustainability on our campus. This will include areas of campus operations such as food service, energy sources, and technology. The College will also foster a culture of sustainability through education and awareness programs for our community.

A Massachusetts State Police officer speaks to a Curry Criminology and Criminal Justice class

Connections/Partnerships

The College understands that success for our students means expanding their opportunities and experiences outside of the boundaries of our beautiful campus. Fostering and maintaining productive external partnerships and connections with businesses and organizations, local communities and leaders, alumni, and key stakeholders is crucial to connecting our students to experiential learning opportunities, clinical and field placements, internships, and post graduate jobs. These relationships also offer rewarding opportunities in teaching and learning, extracurriculars, and student life.

Graham gets pets from President Gonzalez and Curry students

Caring Community

The idea of a caring community is the DNA of this College. It is the core of our brand promise, messaging, and ethos. Our small size allows us to have many touchpoints between the various constituents of this campus. Faculty and staff know students well and support them inside and outside of the classroom. Collaborative work between departments and disciplines is encouraged. Alumni engagement and connections is a priority. Showing up for each other is how we foster the care we commit to daily.