This is a time for movement and for movements.
It is a moment to be visionary and unflinching, and to translate the work of our mission and values through bold expression.
Haverford 2030 positions the College to expand its impact and reputation in a world ready for agile minds and active doers.
Haverford College offers students better learning for broader impact as scholars, creators, citizens, and practitioners. Committed to critical inquiry and ethical practice in local and global settings, we foster an inclusive intellectual learning community to prepare students for lives of integrity, ambition, and purpose.
For almost 200 years, Haverford College has offered an incomparable liberal arts education rooted in Quaker practices of social justice, and a belief in the inner light and wisdom of each student. With more than 70 majors, minors, and concentrations, a world-class faculty, and extensive partnerships with Philadelphia-area and global communities, Haverford promises an inclusive, values-centered academic experience, and a gateway to the world, all within a vibrant and caring residential community.
Haverford 2030 envisions three action areas: Aspire, Connect, Transform.
At the heart of Haverford’s foundation and future aspirations lies a capacious, curious, and probing liberal arts education that combines keen inquiry and steady practice with listening, expression, and lifelong exploration inside and outside the classroom.
Jump to the section that covers AspireThrough sustained collaborations with local and global communities, Haverford prioritizes an experiential learning community that situates students in the world as ethical thinkers and leaders.
Jump to the section that covers ConnectWith a commitment to inclusive excellence, Haverford will enhance the financial and material resources that undergird our educational mission, steward our environmental impact, and invest in the next generations of students upon which our mission is premised.
Jump to the section that covers TransformDesigned to meet Haverford’s highest Strategic Priorities, these domains will:
At the heart of Haverford’s foundation and future aspirations lies a capacious, curious, and probing liberal arts education that combines keen inquiry and steady practice with listening, expression, and lifelong exploration inside and outside the classroom.
To launch problem-solvers, researchers, builders, entrepreneurs, scholars, and leaders, Haverford commits to ensuring that our students have the opportunity to engage in a wide array of intellectual studies and innovative programs, including those supported by our three academic Centers, the libraries, and our consortial partners. Through new faculty positions, the College will ensure the vitality, balance, and breadth of an ambitious and relevant academic program.
In an increasingly accelerated and virtual world, we prioritize sharing together in the slower practices of reading, writing, speaking, and listening that anchor both our studies and social interactions. A designated gathering space for writing, interpretation, and creativity will help foster and disseminate scholarly undertakings that span languages, modalities, and areas of study, and will also complement a dynamic first-year writing experience.
Through the practice of talking and listening across differences, we will explore salient issues that connect and divide us, mindful of tenets of Quaker practice and the Honor Code.
Sponsored jointly by the Office of Institutional Equity and Access, the Office of the Dean of the College, and the Office of the Provost, the initiative will create opportunities and resources for the Haverford community to strengthen our individual and communal sense of belonging, purpose, and value.
Building upon, and well beyond, our successful Customs program, Haverford will formalize a holistic, four-year experience to help all students thrive, making the most of their living and learning undergraduate years. Guided by the Student Life division and the Center for Career and Professional Advising (CCPA), this program will help all students identify goals and directions, while synthesizing and articulating the learning they have acquired across coursework, internships, community and civic engagement, study abroad, leadership positions, and campus employment.
Aspire…to learn better, to cultivate in our learning environment the practices, modalities, and connections that advance all of us as stronger leaders, collaborators, thinkers, and changemakers.
Through sustained collaborations with local and global communities, Haverford prioritizes an experiential learning community that situates students in the world as ethical thinkers and leaders.
A Haverford education wrestles with critical ethical questions in the classroom, laboratory, studio, and field, encouraging students to steep themselves in ethical inquiry, and to seek justice and right relationship in all of their endeavors. As part of a large-scale initiative, Haverford will launch an Ethical Inquiry and Leadership Institute that will support student learning and faculty scholarship in a unique interdisciplinary context. For learners both within and beyond our undergraduate student body, the Institute will add depth, breadth, and dimension to the College’s current educational model, while enhancing Haverford's presence and visibility worldwide.
Fords in Action invites students and faculty to explore the pedagogy, scholarship, and practice of action-based learning in close and sustained collaboration with community organizations and partners. The initiative will coordinate approaches to community engagement and will include new optional opportunities for January-term and summer activities.
It has never been more valuable for students to gain experience outside the classroom within professional, creative, and research environments. As part of its educational charge, the College will facilitate and fund at least one paid summer internship, language study, fellowship opportunity, or research position for each student over their four years at Haverford.
Connect…by honoring and deepening interdependent networks that stretch across Philadelphia, the U.S, and the world, Haverford seeks to work more effectively and equitably by realigning structural and operational support for collaborative community scholarship and practice with external partners; to expand ethical inquiry and leadership within the curriculum; and to provide paid summer internship, fellowship, language study, or research opportunities for every Haverford student.
With a commitment to inclusive excellence, Haverford will enhance the financial and material resources that undergird our educational mission, steward our environmental impact, and invest in the next generations of students upon which our mission is premised.
A renewed focus on student living is an opportunity not just to modernize residence halls, but also to weave in programmatic elements on a campus where life and learning co-exist across settings. The College will make enhancements to various co-curricular spaces, including athletic facilities and other areas that support the development of the whole student.
Haverford is committed to fostering a sustainable world that reflects our deeply held values around stewardship, equality, justice, and social responsibility that can be traced back to the College’s Quaker foundations. Accordingly, a Haverford education should challenge every student to confront the urgent ethical and tangible dimensions of sustainability and climate justice that will shape the world that their generation, and future generations, will inhabit.
Fostering an inclusive and equitable learning community begins with meeting the demonstrated financial need of each admitted student. Haverford will grow our endowed funding for financial aid in multiple areas within our need-aware system, making Haverford more affordable for students and families by increasing our investment in aid awards.
We will adapt the College’s structures and resources in order to foster a community of learning, belonging, and excellence that promotes the professional growth, scholarly ambitions, and wellbeing of our faculty and staff.
To do everything we do with integrity, and to do it both better and smarter, we will develop next-generation information systems that connect data across our various enterprise platforms.
Transform…by aligning our institutional policies, practices, and infrastructure to prioritize sound financial management, care and concern for its people, respect for the history of the land on which the College is located, and responsible environmental stewardship.
The following priorities offer a comprehensive guide to the needs and opportunities that anchor this vision for 2030. Taken together, they provide the means for Haverford to advance its mission and enhance its impact on the cusp of its third century.
In both established and nascent fields, a Haverford education will prepare students for intentional and synergistic lives of impact and of the mind, body, and soul.
The power of open and discerning speech must be met with the power of radical listening—with an open heart and curious intellect—to fulfill our promise as a learning community that values and explores diversity and equity in all its forms.
Haverford will invest in our capacity to support all students as they look beyond their college years to a wide range of career and life trajectories guided by fully funded summer internships, research opportunities, and other co-curricular experiences.
The Plan proposes new programs and spaces for students, faculty, and staff to develop and practice ethical leadership in a broad international arena; organizational shifts to ensure more sustainable, visible, and integrated operational structures for community engagement and partnerships; and deep engagement with the curriculum.
We will invest further in financial aid and equitable access to a Haverford education so that we can enroll the most capable students from a full range of socioeconomic backgrounds.
Haverford must take this moment to ensure that its financial resources will support its educational model, and ensure its position among the leading colleges and universities in the country, well into our third century.
We recognize the value of personal and professional development for our employees and will support growth opportunities for colleagues across campus and be attentive to staffing levels to assess internal pressure points, putting sufficient energy where needed, and we will invest in compensation in order to attract and retain industry-leading, diverse talent.
We commit to conscientious stewardship of our campus and physical plant in ways that manifest our values within a perpetual community and organization.
Haverford will invest in data systems, technological infrastructure, staffing resources, and organizational development around an integrated data culture in the service of accountability and evidence-based decision making.
Haverford 2030 positions the College to meet the intellectual ambitions of future generations of students, to create an inclusive and just campus community for all, and to prioritize the need for creators and leaders who will engage the world’s unprecedented and continuing challenges.
Our contexts have changed radically since 1833, but our fundamental mission carries us forward to aspire intellectually, connect globally, and transform the institution intentionally as responsible and responsive stewards of our mission.
The fundamental value of Haverford 2030 will be measured by the extent to which its realization and the achievement advance Haverford’s educational mission. The steps toward successful implementation are threefold and will extend into the coming months and years supported by faculty, staff, students, Board of Managers, and alums:
The Vision & Planning stage began in the fall of 2019, culminating in the presentation of the Plan for the Board of Managers’ approval in December of 2022. This first stage offers the context, analysis, vision, action areas, and steps to move forward into program development and implementation.
Development & Scoping across many of the Action Areas has already begun and will occur on different timelines across each initiative. For every Action Area, lead teams will be assigned to develop, coordinate, and report out on initiatives, ensuring that appropriate infrastructure and operational support are in place.
The various stages of Implementation will coincide with, and follow development and scoping for, each initiative or action item. Each of the lead teams will regularly report to the implementation and assessment group, while also working closely with key Senior Staff and designated colleagues across offices to ensure timely and consultative completion over the coming 3-5 years.
Finally, we will Assess the strategic success of each initiative, and the cumulative effects of Haverford 2030 as a whole, by establishing benchmarks and key performance indicators, including target ranges, against which we will track the Plan’s longitudinal impact on the College’s educational program and competitive position.
Haverford 2030 is simultaneously pragmatic and aspirational—a foundation and way forward that includes steps we will take for Haverford over the next eight years. Most importantly, the plan asserts the promise and potential of this extraordinary learning community, one that will always be a work in progress and worthy of our highest hopes and collective industry. All of this is to position Haverford for a thriving and bright third century.
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