Three times each year, following the September, December and April Board of Trustees meetings, the university will release via Marquette Today a status update on implementation of the university’s Marquette 2031 strategic plan, “Guided by Mission, Inspired to Change.” All strategic plan implementation updates and information are housed on the Marquette 2031 Strategic Plan Teams site. (The Teams site and its files are restricted to those with Marquette email addresses.)
The status update features the initiative description, a list of implementation team members and a set of updates for each of the 10 active strategic initiatives across the plan’s three themes: Thriving Students, Healthy Campus and Care for the World. Additionally, the December progress report includes a metrics dashboard.
Following are some of recent highlights of strategic plan implementation progress. The full December 2025 status update and metrics dashboard are available on the Teams site.
THRIVING STUDENTS
- Advancement of Teaching and Learning — The Teaching Quality Framework was endorsed by University Academic Senate in October. Additionally, the Marquette Core Curriculum Examen Report was presented to UAS in October, and the initiative team created recommendations for expanding training in Ignatian pedagogy aligned with an Ignatian-inspired teaching quality framework.
- Student Belonging and Well-Being — The Campus Climate final report is on schedule to be shared with campus later this month. Additionally, a National College Health Assessment has been scheduled for March 2026, and the Division of Belonging and Student Affairs strategic goals tracking dashboard has been completed and went live in November.
HEALTHY CAMPUS
- Employee Belonging and Well-Being — An assessment of compensation funding and identification of investment areas will be completed for FY27.
- Undergraduate Enrollment Strategy — Marquette enrolled an outstanding fall 2025 cohort of more than 2,000 new first-year and transfer undergraduate students. Additionally, the Enrollment Tactical Committee is implementing a series of strategies aimed at achieving the key enrollment metrics for the fall 2026 cohort. The university is seeing an increased number of campus visitors and applications, and the enrollment management team is executing a broad range of strategies to achieve enrollment targets in collaboration with partners across campus.
CARE FOR THE WORLD
- Mission-focused Research Communities — Two new research communities launched this fall semester: the Women and Family Health Research Collaborative and the ReOrienting Migration Research Community.
- Enhancement of Research Infrastructure — Monthly kickoff meetings for new grant awards launched this fall semester. Additionally, a new grant advocate was hired with support from the National Science Foundation-funded MU POST grant. Based on stakeholder feedback, MU POST grant priorities for FY26 include improvements to the Student Grant Support Form, grant budget transfer requests and grant expenditure transfer processes, as well as the award closeout process.
Streamlined set of 10 initiatives rolled out this month
As a reminder, Marquette 2031 strategic plan initiatives are reviewed annually as the plan evolves. The most recent review showed that some of the original 19 initiatives have completed their initial scope of work, become part of the university’s standard operations, or demonstrated enough overlap with one another that consolidation was necessary.
To that end, the university this month rolled out a revised set of 10 initiatives. Read more in Marquette Today.
RELATED CONTENT:
Marquette 2031 strategic plan progress report: September 2025
Marquette 2031: Spring strategic plan implementation highlights
