Enrich Academic Quality and Distinction

The faculty of Saint Joseph’s is committed to educating a new generation of leaders, grounded in Jesuit values with a deep moral and ethical perspective. Saint Joseph’s liberal arts core provides intellectual and moral formation, with practical application through the professional disciplines and experiential growth through learning opportunities outside the classroom.

Saint Joseph’s will increase levels of academic rigor through re-energized organizational structures and relationships, promoting inclusive excellence as a distinctive element of our Jesuit educational mission, identifying key resource investments, addressing great societal challenges such as sustainability, and pursuing strategic alliances and partnerships.

Facilitate the expansion and development of professional schools and programs, while sustaining the prominence of the liberal arts and sciences at the core of the SJU academic experience.

Rationale

At its foundation, SJU delivers a superior liberal arts education that is grounded in Jesuit and Catholic intellectual thought, integrates extraordinary experiential opportunities and exposes students to diverse perspectives while providing strong academic support. Fully embracing and operationalizing a comprehensive University model will allow us to expand our offerings and more competitively position SJU among peers.

Highlights

• Engage the faculty in a robust examination and restructuring of the College of Arts and Sciences to enhance our liberal arts foundation.
• Implement the development of new schools that may include allied health, education, communications, technology and the arts.
• Support and charge the more focused colleges and schools — and the deans and faculty, in particular — to imagine and create updated and new academic programs, modes of delivery and opportunities for SJU to make a difference, attract students and garner distinction.
• Ensure an ongoing commitment to academic program review and assessment, incorporating all forms of relevant academic, financial and student data and metrics.
• Increase and expand mechanisms for equitable access to experiential learning opportunities by strengthening a collaborative Co-op, internship and experiential learning infrastructure for all students, connecting theory to practice.
• Provide additional student access to a comprehensive academic support infrastructure, services and programs throughout the intellectual journey.
• Supply support to strengthen regional, national and international rankings received by programs within the Haub School of Business and seek additional accreditations and rankings for other programs and disciplines where possible across the University.
• Add opportunities and increase access for students to participate in faculty-supervised research, internships and Co-ops, civic engagement, and creative endeavors.
• Partner with regional organizations to advance existing SJU programs and develop new ones.

Endorse and reaffirm a commitment to recruiting and retaining an outstanding and diverse faculty, including Jesuits.

Rationale

Saint Joseph’s exposes students to diverse perspectives, core Jesuit values and creative pedagogy. At the heart of this enterprise is our faculty. SJU will invest resources in recruiting and nurturing faculty as teachers, scholars, servants and leaders at the University — in their disciplines, across disciplines, in their communities and in the world at large.

Highlights

• Assert our commitment to hiring tenure-track faculty in numbers sufficient for achieving the educational excellence to which we aspire.
• Continually evaluate and ensure the appropriate composition of the full-time faculty.
• Cultivate academic and ministry opportunities to attract Jesuits to the faculty and staff.
• Target new academic resources to recruit, retain and support an increasingly diverse faculty, while ensuring appropriate balance among programs and disciplines.
• Reaffirm the importance of professors of practice, or clinical faculty, and adjunct faculty as valuable members of the academic community.
• Support faculty through increased research opportunities, teaching fellowships, curriculum development and faculty mentorships; enhance their capacity for strong leadership and service.
• Increase sponsored faculty research opportunities. Inspire faculty to be innovative and entrepreneurial in research and teaching by developing and supporting an “incubator” culture.
• Create decision-making and resource-allocation systems to facilitate innovation, reward collaboration, leverage comparative advantage and function efficiently.
• Ensure the highest standards of pedagogy and inclusive excellence through increased support of the Office of Teaching and Learning.

Identify and construct quality programs for new student populations to complement our current strengths.

Rationale

Saint Joseph’s has a tremendous opportunity to provide high-quality programs for new student populations, especially graduate students and adult learners — locally, nationally and abroad. Connecting these populations to a robust virtual campus will aid students in understanding and appreciating SJU and our Jesuit values.

Highlights

• Create a vibrant online campus by strengthening the digital platform and presentation to provide students with a comprehensive menu of online opportunities in a coherent and exciting manner.
• Provide adequate support for course development, training and incentives for faculty to provide the best student experience.
• Invigorate professional and continuing education programs including credit and non-credit offerings.
• Enhance summer course offerings to serve internal and external constituencies.
• Consider three-year and 12-month programs that include internships and Co-op experiences.
• Structure an incentive model encouraging departmental and faculty engagement in experimentation in new program/course development and delivery for future market needs.

Develop and support new pedagogical spaces and cutting-edge facilities matching the quality of our academic product.

Rationale

The University sets continually higher educational standards for its students. While the caliber of SJU’s academic programs, students and faculty attests to its growing reputation, there is more that can be done to improve upon the University’s academic infrastructure.

Highlights

• Identify and construct, modify and/or modernize key experiential learning spaces, including dry/wet labs, study commons or lounges, makerspaces, a moot court room, financial trading rooms, case rooms, sales labs, data analytics labs and performing arts spaces.