A 1926 Aerial View of the Wagner Campus

Adopted by the Board of Trustees in 2004, Wagner’s strategic plan clearly articulates the path to the college’s future.  The plan identifies four over-arching objectives that focus on the continuous improvement of Wagner as one of the nation’s premier urban liberal arts colleges. By following this plan, we are putting Wagner first!

1. Educational Excellence We must continue to attract the best and brightest students and faculty as well as retain the quality faculty that we have. A liberal arts education opens minds to the great diversity of cultures, historical epochs, values and systems of human organization as well as ethical and moral dilemmas that make up our world. The essence of a liberal arts education is practical. At its best, a liberal arts education is anchored in the real world. Experiential learning together with the liberal arts is the ideal marriage of two learning paradigms that best prepare students for the future.

2. Facilities Improvement The strategic plan calls for increasing and modernizing instructional spaces, improving student residences, enhancing and expanding technology and establishing a sustainable program of maintenance.  Maintenance always remains a central concern. The facilities need constant attention. Many buildings need enhancement and  renovation. And cost-efficient methods of operating the campus are being developed. More work needs to be accomplished in order to ensure that the educational excellence of a student experience is appropriately facilitated by a learning environment of comparable quality.  

3. Institutional Reputation Wagner College is well along the road toward the third goal of the Strategic Plan: establishing Wagner as an innovative and distinctive residential liberal arts institution that serves the nation as well as metropolitan New York. Institutions held in high regard enjoy greater success in recruiting top students, stellar faculty and voluntary financial support.  A college’s reputation is measured, in part, by its ability to attract human and financial resources. Colleges are known by the quality of their graduates, and Wagner alumni, so effective in their professional and personal pursuits, constitute the foundation of the college’s reputation. As the reputation of the college expands, the value of a Wagner degree will grow. At Wagner, students and their parents now know that the time and tuition that they invest will prepare them for a successful future.  With every achievement, alumni and other donors see anew the strategic stewardship of the funds they have contributed.  A college as deeply committed as Wagner to its local community is highly valued by its leaders, not only for the services it brings but for the prestige of having it in the community’s midst.

4. Resource Enhancement An effective and sustained enhancement of financial resources is critical for Wagner’s future. Wagner’s success in expanding its financial footing has been astounding. Consider the endowment growth over the last 10 years: from $2.4 million in 1995 to $34.5 million in 2005. Simultaneously, indebtedness has been reduced from $43.7 million in 2000 to $39.5 million in 2005. The need to increase permanent endowment to levels commensurate with the caliber of education Wagner provides is a strategic imperative. The college is not yet keeping pace with the need for investment in our students and faculty. Wagner lags behind many of its peer institutions in a comparison of endowments and operating budgets.