The Refreshed Strategic Plan

The refreshed strategic plan is grounded in the MassArt Mission and Values, and Priority Areas. A series of bold, high-level strategies for realizing them constitutes the framework for action for the next five years. The new Strategic Partnership Plan brings together two planning frameworks – the MassArt Strategic Plan and the MassArt Partnership Plan – to cohesively guide all aspects of the work of the College. It establishes a set of strategic aims and, in doing so, brings greater focus to our work and a harmonized approach to measuring our progress. 

Integrating the Strategic Plan & Partnership Plan

As an independent public institution with a special purpose designation from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, MassArt received approval from the Board of Higher Education (BHE) nearly 20 years ago, under Chapter 26 of the Acts of 2003, Sections 49, 50, 633, and 634, to enter into a strategic partnership plan. This legislation provided the MassArt Board of Trustees the ability to expand our mission, profile, and orientation to a more regional or national focus and to submit to the BHE, for approval, five-year plans embracing an entrepreneurial model focused on achieving higher levels of excellence. In 2005, the Legislature approved language to make permanent the provision in Section 633 that allowed the MassArt Board of Trustees to retain all tuition and fee revenue.

This partnership has been renewed several times over the last 20 years, and has continued successfully to the present day. MassArt has operated with the flexibility and autonomy to achieve its educational aspirations, fulfill its mission as the only independent public college of art and design in the country, develop non-state revenues, and strengthen its role as a cultural and educational resource for other public institutions. As part of the agreement, MassArt committed to assessing and sharing progress of the plan’s proposed goals and objectives and to adapting and implementing strategies to achieve the identified goals and objectives. The 2024 Strategic Partnership Plan will provide the basis for that assessment, reporting, and adaptation for the coming five-year period.

Plan Priorities and Strategies

The Strategic Plan goals, along with several others, are part of a revitalized Strategic Partnership Plan, grounded in a series of bold, high-level strategies for realizing them in the next two to five years.

The plan has five major priorities, as did the 2019 plan:

1. Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
2. Environment for a Creative Campus
3. Quality Workplace and Effective Organization
4. Transformative Learning and Teaching
5. Reputation and Resources

To ensure that the overarching priorities of the plan are being achieved through implementation of each strategy’s specifics, a number of targeted steps have been put into place or are underway.

Assessment and Evaluation

MassArt has a robust set of processes in place to gauge our success in implementing the updated Strategic Plan.

• Each division of the College will assess, on both an ongoing and annual basis, completion of the activities in its yearly work plans.
  All budget requests will be linked to the Strategic Plan.
• Institution-wide meetings will be held at each year’s end to discuss progress, share and celebrate what we have learned, and, critically, recalibrate as needed.
• At the 2- and 5-year mark, Vice Presidents will work with cross-departmental teams to track the achievement of the 2- and 5-year goals.
• The Office of Institutional Research and Strategic Effectiveness will support reporting and evaluation at each juncture.

At the conclusion of the plan, the College will evaluate the impact of the high-level strategies, with a focus on identifying the difference that the plan has made in areas such as student success, for example, by using retention and graduation rates and complementary qualitative data.

Strategic Planning Committee & Planning Sessions

One hallmark of the strategic planning process was a series of input and review

sessions. The President and the Strategic Planning Committee convened these discussions at key junctures in the process to ensure that the MassArt community could inform each stage of the plan’s development.

Early discussions focused on broad-based information gathering, while later ones were designed for input on the emerging plan. Once the preliminary plan was developed, the sessions focused on the various roles that each group would play in bringing the plan to life. 

Strategic Planning Committee Members

This refreshed plan is the product of exemplary cross-campus engagement and collaboration. We are grateful to members of our Strategic Planning Committee for their discerning and innovative approach to the planning process. They listened with open hearts and minds to the challenges and aspirations voiced by our students, faculty, staff, trustees, and alumni. Then, building on our accomplishments, they wove the essential work already underway at the College together with bold, future-oriented strategies that will expand and deepen our impact.