UWest updated and adopted its current strategic plan in June 2021. Based on extensive consultation with stakeholders across the university over a two-year period, the strategic plan, with four overarching strategic areas, was deliberately written as open and dynamic. The UWest community has identified four strategic areas on which to focus for the next five years:

• Campus Engagement

• Our campus will offer a vibrant, inclusive, and engaging culture in which to study, learn, live, work, and excel.
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• Academic Quality

• We will expand our educational offerings and improve the quality of our academic programs to better serve current students, improve reputation, and attract prospective students.
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• Revenue & Resources

• We will strengthen and improve the university’s financial outlook through enrollment growth/increased tuition revenue, fundraising, and cost-effective practices.
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• Education for a Successful Life

• We will cultivate job-ready and culturally competent graduates by supporting our students at all levels in their self-defined journeys towards success.

The institutional goals are organized by the acronym CARE, which references UWest’s values and vision as an institution where students, faculty, staff, and all stakeholders both care and are cared for.

The UWest community is characterized by interdependence, a central Buddhist concept that underscores the importance of our connections to and impact upon others. We view our strategic goals through this same lens; all areas of focus are intrinsically connected to each other, and strengthening one means strengthening the whole.

The relationships between these goals and the strategies for achieving them are vital to the sustainability and success of UWest.

Through ongoing professional development opportunities for our faculty and staff to understand and address student performance difference across groups and a focus on efforts on campus engagement, the academic quality of our programs, the stability of our revenue/resources, and our ability to educate students for a successful life, we move closer to the fulfillment of our mission.