AUP’s current strategic plan, Navigating 21st-Century Pathways 2020–23, is the product of collaborative discussions to decide on a shared vision of the University’s future.

The goal of this reflective process was to recognize and build upon our strengths as a community, while working on strategies to confront potential challenges, allowing us, in the process, to seize on all opportunities to grow as an institution.

The plan is supported by five key pillars, which are extensions of the pillars used in the last strategic plan, AUP Ascending 2015–20.

Curriculum

Communication

Campus

Continuous Improvement

Community

While every strategic plan has engaged with all these categories, the first two focused most heavily on community and campus respectively. Now, with Navigating 21st-Century Pathways 2020–23, AUP is shifting emphasis to curriculum and communication.

Given that AUP has concretely identified its target student and reorientated its campus facilities to respond directly to that student’s needs, the logical next step is to apply that same reorientation process to the curriculum – all the while communicating the University’s rising profile to as wide an audience as possible.
As the University celebrates its 60th anniversary, its new strategic plan reaffirms its commitment to providing a student-centered, academically-rigorous, career-enabling, and transformative learning experience to the global explorers who are its students.

CURRICULUM

  • Re-imagining the educational experience at AUP to focus on the navigating of self-designed pathways through the AUP curriculum and toward employment or further study.
  • Renovating the first-year experience for incoming global explorers to encourage them to think deliberately about the curricular and co-curricular choices during their time at AUP.
  • Emphasizing integrated advising in all aspects of the university experience, allowing for a holistic approach to student life and learning.
  • Fully implementing the Global Liberal Arts Core Curriculum (GLACC) and Global Professional Skills (GPS) Program, the University’s signature co-curricular experience.

COMMUNICATION

  • Continuing to build on our global reach and reputation as the premier institution of Anglophone American international education in Europe. 
  • Placing our revised curriculum at the center of our recruitment strategy, leveraging the academic excellence and interdisciplinary scholarship of AUP students and faculty. 
  • Maintaining a diverse portfolio of strategic partnerships with international educational institutions, while assuming our role as a leader among such universities abroad. 

CAMPUS

  • Completing a six-year campus renovation program with the opening of The Monttessuy Center for the Arts. 
  • Bringing student accommodation in house by establishing an AUP-owned and self-managed residential life program. 
  • Adopting a campus-wide digital transformation strategy, which upgrades and integrates our entire IT system, while ensuring compliance with GDPR regulations and data security governance. 

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

  • Professionalizing further our planning and assessment targets. 
  • Increasing the environmental sustainability of our campus. 
  • Continuing to develop a solid business model, resting on expanded enrollment and the management of the University’s own student housing program. 
  • Developing new fundraising strategies to support the strategic plan, including planned giving options and the creation of an endowment funded by alumni generosity. 

COMMUNITY

  • Emerging from the health and economic challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. 
  • Building on the work of the last two strategic plans by recalibrating the concept of the global explorer and extending our recruitment reach globally. 
  • Exploring new student populations, including English-language learners, European-based professionals, and adult global explorers. 
  • Working with our worldwide network of alumni, parents and friends to provide mentoring, internships and job offers to students.