The pathway for UVA to become the best public university in the nation and one of the best universities anywhere in the world runs directly through the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.
To enable UVA to achieve its comprehensive vision for the future, A&S is focused on four priorities:
1 DELIVER AN UNDERGRADUATE EXPERIENCE SECOND TO NONE
In Fall 2023, the College of Arts & Sciences will deliver a shared academic experience for all of its first-year students in the form of the Engagements courses. This provides the academic architecture that will enable us to connect new and current programs supporting academic wayfinding, community-building, and student flourishing. When we succeed, we will deliver something that approaches an honors college experience for all of our students and at scale in a public university.
BY 2030, A&S will be recognized for delivering a second-to-none undergraduate experience that is also an unprecedented achievement in public higher education.
2 RECRUIT, ADVANCE, AND RE-RECRUIT EXTRAORDINARY TALENT
As a high-performing research university with an unwavering commitment to providing the very best undergraduate educational experience, we are in a perpetual war for talent. We must be an academic community of choice where faculty—and their teaching, mentoring, research, discovery, scholarship, and creativity—thrive and flourish. That flourishing occurs in a broader ecosystem with engaged and talented staff who experience A&S as a great and good place to work.
By 2030, A&S will attract, recruit, advance, and re-recruit a highly productive and recognized faculty; staff will be engaged, recognized, and rewarded for their contributions to A&S and university missions.
3 DEVELOP AND IMPLEMENT A STRATEGIC RESEARCH PLAN FOR A&S AND FUEL ACADEMIC INNOVATION
Investments in Grand Challenges are having an impact. Pathways to Research Preeminence—such as Democracy, Environmental Resilience and Sustainability, Precision Medicine, the Brain and Neuroscience, and Digital Technology and Society—are also bearing fruit. This exciting activity only underscores the need to develop an overarching research strategy that also guides new academic program development and faculty recruitment.
BY 2030, A&S will garner national and international recognition for research excellence and academic innovation across its divisions. For further information, see the Strategic Research website.
4 TRANSFORM THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS & SCIENCES (GSAS) BY FOCUSING ON GRADUATE EXCELLENCE AND THE RESOURCES TO SUPPORT IT
The most robust and academically diverse school in the University community, GSAS is crucial for accelerating UVA’s aspirations for research eminence and realizing academic innovation. Exceptional graduate students advance the frontiers of knowledge and discovery, mentor undergraduate students, and serve as thought partners for our faculty.
BY 2030, GSAS will be more competitive, support more students engaged in leading- and cutting-edge research and creative expression, and fuel the ambitions represented in A&S’s overarching research strategy.
SIGNAL INTENTION
Belonging in all A&S-wide initiatives and routine activities—explicitly taking up the meanings, conditions, and possibilities for building a community that fosters a deep sense of belonging.