Office of the President

October 15, 2026

Dear Students, Staff, and Faculty,
 
Thank you to everyone who reviewed the draft Strategic Plan and shared your thoughts. More than 250 members of our community responded to the college-wide survey, in addition to the conversations and engagements that occurred across our campuses. Your feedback helps us understand where the draft reflects our shared priorities and where we need to take another look.
 
Several Themes Came Through Clearly
Teaching and learning need a stronger presence. You asked us to make CT State's academic mission more visible, including academic excellence, the liberal arts, and transfer pathways. How students experience CT State matters. You identified opportunities to improve admissions, onboarding, advising, basic-needs support, and access to services. You also reminded us that our students balance college with family, employment, transportation, and other responsibilities, and that our structures and schedules can either help or create additional barriers.
 
AI requires both opportunity and care. We heard differing perspectives about artificial intelligence — from its potential to improve teaching, learning, and services to concerns about safeguards, oversight, academic integrity, and preserving the human relationships essential to advising and student support. Revisions will consider AI within a broader commitment to mission-driven, human-centered, and ethical uses of emerging technology.
 
The plan needs greater strategic focus and a practical path forward. The draft’s 15 goals and 87 strategies reflect the breadth of CT State’s work, but they also make it difficult to distinguish our most important institutional priorities from the activities that support them. You asked us to consider staffing, workload, resources, responsibility, implementation, and how progress will be measured. Importantly, your feedback challenged us to be clear about what is truly strategic and what CT State can realistically accomplish. The next iteration must also consider what Connecticut will need from CT State over the next five years as we respond to demographic changes, workforce shortages, evolving student needs, emerging technologies, and constrained public resources.
 
You also want to know what happens to your feedback. Shared governance, student participation, continued communication, and transparency about how feedback influences the plan were recurring themes.

Cabinet is Now Reviewing the Plan
The feedback is now part of the next stage of the work. The cabinet and I are reviewing the draft pillar-by-pillar. The revisions will likely retain a four-pillar framework while considering how overlapping Goals and Strategies can be combined, clarified, or moved into the implementation work that follows. Representatives from the Strategic Planning Steering Committee are participating at key points to provide context and continuity.
 
The goal is not simply to add more to the plan in response to feedback. It is to incorporate what we have heard while narrowing the initial goals and strategies into a stronger, more focused second draft. This institutional Strategic Plan should make clear where CT State intends to go, what needs to change, and where we should concentrate our time, resources, and energy. We continue to work toward a completed plan in late November.
 
Planning is also Moving Closer to our Campuses and College Office Areas
CT State is beginning its Strategic Priorities Planning (SPP) process. The institutional Strategic Plan will establish our shared college-wide direction and intended outcomes. After the plan is adopted, the SPP process will allow campuses and College Office functional areas to develop the activities, responsibilities, timelines, and measures that advance that direction while responding to their students, communities, evidence, strengths, and opportunities.
 
The early SPP work is intentionally focused on data. Teams will begin by examining evidence and data about their specific campus environments while continuing to listen to the people they serve. After the Strategic Plan is adopted, they will identify a focused set of strategic priorities. Their work should reflect where they can make the most meaningful contribution based on evidence, capacity, readiness, and opportunity.
 
This is an important transition in our planning process. The Strategic Plan provides a common direction for CT State, while Strategic Priorities Planning creates the opportunity for our campuses and College Office areas to determine what that direction means in their specific environments. Together, they allow us to connect college-wide priorities with the work already happening in our classrooms, student services, workforce programs, operations, and community partnerships while also identifying areas of opportunity and innovation.
 
Thank you again for taking the time to participate. Your feedback is helping shape the next version of the plan, and we will continue to share updates as the work progresses.

Sincerely,
 
Christina Royal, Ph.D.
Interim President