College Goals

The goals that Union College aims to achieve at an institutional level are identified in the strategic plan. There are 27 goals, which are divided among the six sections of the strategic plan. Goals that begin with blue text are student learning goals; goals that begin with red text are institutional effectiveness goals.

Note: These goals are based on the May 31, 2013 version of the plan, as approved by the Trustees.

1. Union College will enroll diverse, talented, accomplished, and creative students committed to the life of the mind and prepared to take advantage of the educational opportunities offered by the College.
2. Union students will discover lifelong intellectual interests and strive to excel in them.
3. Union students will develop an attitude of inquiry: they will ask questions that matter, and develop the capacity to engage complex challenges with skill, creativity, and confidence.
4. Union faculty will contribute to knowledge through their scholarship.
5. Union students will graduate with deep and broad knowledge.
6. Union students will graduate with the skills needed to communicate clearly and effectively, work both independently and collaboratively, have developed information, technological, and visual literacy, be prepared to live and work in a culturally-diverse world, and understand ethical considerations and act upon them.
7. Union students will contribute to improvement of the human condition, both locally and globally. As intellectually engaged, innovative, and open-minded citizens of the world, they will, as Eliphalet Nott urged, carry their humanity with them into that world.

1. Union College will provide a residential educational experience that promotes responsible behavior and intellectual engagement outside of the classroom.
2. Union College will work to maintain a high level of student success by fostering an intellectually engaged community and by offering appropriate services.
3. Union College will be an inclusive community with students, faculty, and staff from diverse backgrounds, and where students can develop the cultural competencies necessary to succeed in a multicultural, globally complex, world.
4. Union students will develop a sense of themselves as a "whole person," with the skills necessary for the pursuit of life-long learning, global citizenship and effective work with others, through co-curricular programs that complement the academic mission.

1. Union College will enhance its reputation by focusing on the accomplishments of our students, faculty, and staff and by sustaining an environment that fosters further accomplishment.
2. Union College will attract, reward and retain faculty and staff while also ensuring that we optimize the use of their valuable time.
3. Union College will cultivate and efficiently use all available resources – financial, physical, temporal, intellectual, cultural, and technological - in order to support critical programs and services, while remaining competitive, affordable, accessible and sustainable.
4. Union College will preserve and renovate campus facilities in accordance with our commitment to sustainability, climate neutrality, the master plan and the spirit of Joseph Ramée.

1. Union students will live and work in an academic and social environment where close relationships flourish and endure and where they receive highly personal instruction and care.
2. Union College will grow and sustain a diverse and inclusive community of faculty, administrators, staff, and students.
3. Union students will develop and enhance their understanding of their own and others’ race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, and other dimensions of our diverse community and cultures.
4. Union students will appreciate the significance of place as a context for people’s lives and actions, both locally and globally.
5. Union students will appreciate the importance of history for understanding the identities and perspectives of diverse peoples and places.

1. Union students will engage in disciplinary, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches, and will have opportunities to learn at the intersection of fields of study.
2. Union students will receive a broad and deep education that includes exposure to important and distinctive connections within and across the full spectrum of disciplines, including the arts, humanities, social sciences, physical and natural sciences, mathematics, and engineering.
3. Union students will learn through a combination of theory and practice, using both critical thinking and expertise.
4. Union students

1. Union College will find inspiration in its history as well as in its rich roots in the region.
2. The Union College campus community will be creative and innovative in their respective fields of endeavor.
3. The Union College campus community will be socially responsible in their activities.