The College of Arts and Sciences has a history of excellence in fields across the sciences, mathematics and humanities that seek to understand, create, bridge, sustain and transform worlds. For instance, A&S physicists are international leaders in understanding the creation of our universe through gravitational waves, the worlds of cells and living materials in the BioInspired Institute, and the sub-microscopic worlds of particle physics, and quantum computing. Unjust worlds and diverse structures of inequality are tackled by renowned A&S scholars in interdisciplinary fields such as Native American and Indigenous Studies; African American Studies; Women’s and Gender Studies; Languages, Literatures and Linguistics; and Writing and Rhetoric, as well as in disciplines from Mathematics to English to Religion. New worlds capturing our lived experiences are crafted by novelists and poets in our top-ranked Creative Writing Program. The Engaged Humanities Network supports the world-bridging work of community-engaged research and innovative pedagogy, with projects led by faculty in departments as diverse as Mathematics, Communication Sciences and Disorders, Biology, Art and Music Histories, English, Physics and Philosophy.

Notably, research and pedagogy that bridge, transform and reimagine worlds through university- and community-shaping partnerships has been supported by recent renowned and highly competitive grants. For instance, a recent Mellon Foundation award supports a new center where humanists and scientists can engage with world-transforming research in Indigenous studies with an emphasis on environmental justice, while another recent Mellon grant is supporting pivotal work on Black-Arab racial justice across Central New York communities. A new NSF award supports collaborative research to form a transnational Indigenous alliance focused on rematriating Indigenous knowledges across northern communities. Many faculty in the sciences, including members of the BioInspired Institute, have active NIH and NSF grants to support research into complex biological systems to address challenges in health.

Our strengths in understanding, creating, bridging, sustaining and transforming social, natural, creative and theoretical worlds augment all areas of distinctive excellence in “Leading with Distinction”: Emerging Technologies, Human Thriving, Global Diversity, Experiential Inquiry and Engaged Citizenship. The College of Arts and Sciences is uniquely positioned to work across and knit together these five foci and to deepen connections between and among faculty, students and staff across units within A&S, between A&S and the university, and between the university, the region and the world.

A&S faculty, students and staff understand, create, bridge, sustain and transform worlds by fostering collaborative, cross-disciplinary and community-engaged partnerships and by drawing on our strengths in experiential inquiry and emerging technologies. Recent examples include Project MEND, SURPh, Data Warriors, the Narratio Fellowship, the Haudenosaunee Elder series, the BioArt Research Consortium and student- and faculty-curated exhibitions with SU’s Coalition of Museum and Art Centers.

Capitalizing on our current strengths and future opportunities in Understanding and Re-Imagining Worlds, in the next 5 years, we will:

1. Increase world-bridging collaborative research and teaching between humanists, mathematicians and scientists in A&S. We will measure success in this commitment as higher success rates for large-scale grants that allow faculty to tackle pressing issues regarding sustainability, inequity and the nature of democracy.
2. Become a model of pedagogical innovation and experiential inquiry that bridges worlds by collaborating with SU Abroad centers to facilitate curricular connections and enhance undergraduate research opportunities across sites of study.
3. Devise clear pathways for students to maximally benefit from a world-shaping Liberal Arts education that increases social, cultural and global awareness and has a positive impact, locally and globally, by:
   1. increasing community-engaged research and learning opportunities tied to the new Liberal Arts core; and
   2. using student input to enhance mechanisms for integrating the new Liberal Arts core into individualized educational and career paths.
4. Use print and digital publications, awards and celebrations to increase the visibility of faculty and student work across the humanities and STEM in understanding and transforming diverse natural, social, theoretical and imagined worlds and to enhance A&S recruitment and retention of top faculty and students.

Our commitment to STEM excellence and expansion within A&S includes a recognition that envisioning and enacting more sustainable communities and environments require reducing carbon emissions through technological innovations, improving our ability to sequester carbon in natural and artificial systems, and more accurately predicting the future of climate and water on a changing planet. With strengths in biology, ecology, chemistry, physics and Earth science, and in collaboration with the College of Engineering and Computer Science, A&S is already pursuing these goals through distinctive research in sustainable materials (e.g., BioInspired), ecosystem management, water science and climate reconstruction and prediction.

Given the central cultural, social and political dimensions of the diverse environmental crises facing our world, it is essential to bridge STEM innovations with humanities research and teaching, and A&S is ideally positioned for this work. The College is currently integrating distinctive strengths in global Indigenous cultures and the environment, transnational feminisms, decolonial theory and the publicly engaged humanities, along with emerging strengths in the environmental and digital humanities, with the efforts of natural and physical scientists and mathematicians. For example, the Environmental Storytelling Series of Central New York, a collaboration between A&S and SUNY ESF that involves students across SU schools and colleges, interconnects scientific expertise, artistic expression and humanistic interpretation to build programs and curricula that deepen understandings of and strengthen responses to the impacts of the climate crisis.

Our pursuit of just and sustainable communities and environments involves co-creating knowledge with affected local and global communities. Through community-engaged projects and courses, A&S provides faculty and students across disciplines with opportunities for experiential teaching and learning and participatory action-based research on environmental issues. For instance, Data Warriors brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars from mathematics, education and geography with local high school teachers and students to engaged in math and mapping research, teaching and programming on environmental justice issues, such as lead exposure and Syracuse population changes related to I-81.

Figuring out how to live more sustainably, with a strong eye toward social, economic and environmental justice, is a critical aspect of human thriving in the 21st century. This work will require not only technological innovations, in line with the university’s goal to support emerging technologies, but also an incorporation of diverse viewpoints and perspectives, in line with the goal of supporting global diversity. Moreover, this pursuit requires deep investment in engaged citizenship, and A&S’s research and teaching in this signature area will cultivate and expand faculty and student capacities for deliberation, understanding and interacting across differences, reflecting and acting individually and collectively, and enacting an ethics of reciprocity.

Capitalizing on our current strengths and future opportunities around Just and Sustainable Communities and Environments, in the next 5 years, we will:

Distinguish ourselves by fostering research and teaching that approach interconnected environmental and social challenges from a holistic perspective, including fundamental science and mathematics, as well as thinking about the ethical and cultural elements of community action and implementation. In this pursuit, we will:

1. Develop new cross-unit collaborations and humanities-STEM partnerships, while deepening existing partnerships, to drive new research and teaching ventures that jointly consider the ethical and social dimensions of sustainability, as well as the technological and scientific challenges associated with anthropogenic climate change.
   1. These new collaborative structures will enable us to secure national grants and awards (e.g., NSF Climate Justice centers, Sloan Foundation calls for specific topics) focused on partnership models as the best way forward to combat these crises.
2. Continue to build our disciplinary expertise in areas that support high-quality scholarship and research in topics related to environment and sustainability, including but not limited to climate adaptation, carbon, renewable energy, the interaction of coupled human and natural systems, environmental humanities, ethics and communication.
3. Expand coursework, new curriculum, and undergraduate and graduate research and internships around sustainability so that every A&S unit will offer coursework and experiential learning opportunities that share their unique disciplinary perspectives on questions of environmental sustainability and justice.
   1. Collaborative structures will also enable us to build on existing pedagogical strengths to equip our students to be leaders in questions of sustainability, climate risk and infrastructure and climate change and environmental justice.

The College of Arts and Sciences has a rich history of supporting research and curricular excellence in translational health and equitable outcomes. We have multiple Centers and Institutes that provide students with unique, immersive learning opportunities that coalesce around distinct but interrelated specializations in STEM, humanities, physics and health sciences.

1. The BioInspired Institute leverages transdisciplinary expertise to meaningfully and sustainably address global challenges in health, medicine and materials innovation. Areas of distinctive research excellence include implementing emergent intelligence in living and material systems to tackle intractable problems such as antibiotic resistance and bacterial propagation.
2. The Syracuse University Humanities Center and the Engaged Humanities Network promote research, teaching and programming directed toward individuals’ and communities' restorative and reparative needs. Translational health initiatives include HIV/AIDS activism, prison education, decarceration efforts and healing for Veterans through writing groups and mindfulness approaches.
3. The Center for Global Indigenous Cultures and Environmental Justice forges innovative research and programming that addresses food insecurity and inequality, sustainable development strategies and enhanced community wellness and cultural revitalization through Indigenous health and healing traditions.
4. The newly established Center for Health Behavior Research and Innovation involves partnerships between A&S and the D’Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Affairs. This Center will cultivate innovative health behavior research, student training and community outreach through collaborations with multiple A&S disciplines and related University entities.

We excel in interdisciplinary curricula that go beyond what is offered through individual departments to promote collaborative and translational health, medicine and well-being perspectives. The College offers three interdisciplinary programs/majors that directly pertain to health and well-being and have shown strong growth in the number of enrolled students within the last 5 years. Neuroscience teaching and scholarship explore brain and behavior relationships and support translational student research and interdisciplinary interactions. Health Humanities teaching and scholarship advance discipline-specific scientific knowledge with awareness of the social and cultural landscapes that affect health outcomes. Biotechnology develops career preparedness in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, health professions and environmental conservation. Partnerships between Chemistry and Biology for a pre-med study abroad program in Madrid offer unique, experiential and immersive learning opportunities for students. Majors within the Languages, Literatures and Linguistics department are interdisciplinary and prepare students for optimal abroad experiences through the 17 different languages taught. Nationally accredited clinics such as the Psychological Services Center and the Gebbie Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic provide student training that translates classroom instruction to evidence-based, high caliber clinical care for Syracuse and surrounding communities.

Several specific lines of A&S scholarship distinguish Syracuse University as a top-tier leader in translational health and their innovative nature is recognized through multiple large-scale federal grants including NSF and NIH awards (see Appendix A).

Faculty within A&S departments and Centers have created and implemented innovative public engagement partnerships that combine our strengths in the humanities and STEM, providing experiential learning opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to develop cultural competence and engaged civic responsibility. Students receive training in trauma-informed multidimensional healthcare for refugees (SOAR program), while community initiatives target eating disorders prevention and depression (The Body Project) and Indigenous trauma healing and community belonging (The Community Healing Series). The ALIGN program implements multifaceted support to promote the retention and success of underrepresented health sciences graduate students. These initiatives are fundamental for promoting diversity, inclusion and belonging for our University and Syracuse city communities.

These signature area strengths align well with the University’s areas of distinctive and aspirational excellence outlined in the overall academic strategic plan, “Leading with Distinction.” Smart materials and AI-driven health interventions demonstrate the implementation of Emerging Technologies to advance Human Thriving. Community-based research and projects such as those with Indigenous populations and Veterans positively impact the health and sustainability of local and global communities, thereby advancing Global Diversity. The College is unique in its wide scope of local and international immersive learning opportunities for students that address health-related training and intervention, thus promoting Experiential Inquiry as well as Engaged Citizenship.

Capitalizing on our current strengths and future opportunities in Translational and Equitable Health and Well-Being, in the next 5 years, we will:

1. Become a national leader for developing and applying biocompatible elements and intelligent materials that offer innovative solutions to global health challenges.
2. Expand the number and breadth of interdisciplinary student learning and research pathways that transform scientific and humanistic building-block knowledge into integrative and translational health initiatives, elevating community and societal health and well-being while increasing equitable outcomes.
3. Demonstrate an increase in externally funded, innovative health and wellness scholarship that targets impactful outcomes for individuals and communities such as increased job opportunities, elevated educational success, resounding social connectedness and enhanced socioemotional well-being.

Collaborative and transdisciplinary research and scholarship require procedural and physical infrastructures, sufficient numbers of faculty and staff and incentives and recognition, since transdisciplinary work is often done by faculty in addition to their regular research, teaching and service loads. Becoming a preeminent institution for transdisciplinary research and scholarship in A&S signature areas will also require increased success with external funding, awards and honors. The following commitments will build this preeminence and award success:

• Create boundary-crossing physical and operational infrastructures to advance and sustain inter-departmental, inter-college and multi-institutional research and creative work.
• Hire exceptional tenure-track faculty who specialize in key areas of transdisciplinary inquiry, and then incentivize their collaborative work.
• Develop financial, time, material and award incentives to retain faculty and staff whose outstanding scholarship, teaching and skills support the College’s distinctive excellence and three signature areas. Retention strategies should address the disproportionate loss of staff and faculty of color, in recognition that diversity is critical to academic and institutional excellence.
• Establish core shared facilities that include large-scale equipment and staff sufficient to conduct outstanding transdisciplinary research. Necessary facilities include a statistical core staffed by biostatisticians and social science statisticians and a large instruments core that houses instrumentation for advanced imaging and cryo-electron microscopy, with scientific and technical support staff to sustain their use.
• Increase the College’s research development team to deepen faculty capacity for writing grant and fellowship applications, publishing articles and books and writing for wider publics.
• Update and renovate the existing infrastructure (office spaces, exhibition spaces, classrooms, labs) to be on par with other R1 institutions.
• Implement programmatic changes and increased administrative support to improve efficacy and reduce bureaucracy for pre-award, award submission and post-award stages of external funding, awards and honors.
• Implement and enhance programs and provide sufficient support staff to increase the visibility and impact of A&S community-based health and humanities programs that model collaborative partnerships and innovative interventions.
• Increase the number of post-docs, graduate and undergraduate research assistants working within and advancing signature areas, including postdocs and assistantships in the humanities.
• Recognize and value transdisciplinary, publicly engaged and applied research and scholarship in annual reviews, CV update forms, tenure and promotion processes and internal awards/prizes.
• Increase funding for international research needs; incentivize Open Access publishing, including book publishing, to enhance the College’s research impact and to make our research more broadly accessible.

To provide every A&S student with an opportunity for immersive, engaged learning experiences that cultivate values of inclusivity, diversity and equity, it is necessary to enhance and increase programs and curricular pathways that involve transdisciplinary partnerships, translational science, study abroad and away and community-engaged teaching and learning.

The following commitments will sustain and grow departmental programs and initiatives and Institutes, Centers and Clinics that promote immersive, experiential learning and research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students.

• Create boundary-crossing physical and operational infrastructures to advance and sustain inter-departmental teaching and learning.
  • Identify and reduce barriers for co-teaching interdisciplinary courses.
  • Inventory and evaluate possibilities for cross-listing courses within signature areas.
  • Delineate clear interdisciplinary paths within signature areas and develop curricular and co-curricular opportunities for faculty, staff and student collaboration and community building along these paths.
  • Expand common spaces within and across departments to deepen students’ sense of belonging across the broad network and diverse physical spaces of A&S entities.
• Engage in curricular development and revision pertaining to experiential learning, study abroad and community engagement.
  • Increase existing and create new internal grants for experiential course development and revision.
  • Encourage and reward committee work addressing curriculum revision.
  • Create co-teaching opportunities that provide students with multidimensional perspectives.
  • Increase administrative, fiscal and infrastructural support, including transportation, for community-engaged research and teaching.
  • Develop and interconnect publicly engaged graduate curriculum across programs, with emphases on environmental and social justice and community wellbeing.
  • Create more internship, assistantship and course credit opportunities by investing in and diversifying partnerships in the greater Syracuse and Central New York region and globally, including with non-profits, local schools other educational and medical institutions, as well as with companies such as Micron.
  • Enhance and integrate A&S Abroad offerings through the growth of the Health and Science program and Health Humanities in Madrid and the development of a Publicly Engaged and Environmental Humanities program in London and/or Santiago.

Academic and operational excellence depends on inclusion and belonging as orienting values and practices. Inclusivity and belonging are crucial to the College’s core commitment to recruiting, supporting and retaining outstanding and diverse students, faculty and staff. It is also necessary for A&S students, faculty and staff to recognize themselves and one another as vital members of the College’s collective work. The following commitments will forward and refine our efforts to build a community that values and thrives from the experiences, knowledges and perspectives of its diverse faculty, staff and student body.

• Recruit and retain diverse students, faculty and staff.
• Maximize transparency in A&S policies, procedures and operations.
  • Create core manuals that provide how-to guidance for common procedures (e.g., how to manage grant expenditures, how to find and use pedagogical resources).
  • Open pathways for collaboration across departments and offices as part of developing and improving onboarding, mentoring and training as well as retention of faculty and staff.
  • Create and maintain networks and repositories of knowledge-sharing across departments (e.g., administrative procedures, effective structures, equitable metrics, parallel leave policies and practices)
  • Ensure equity in faculty workloads by developing and using rubrics for measuring faculty service (departmental, College, University, professional) and for assessing teaching loads (including course types and enrollments), research mentorship of students and community collaborations.
• Increase access to and support of opportunities for ongoing personal and professional development for staff.
  • Offer staff-focused workshops, mentoring and pathways for networking and knowledge-sharing across units and departments; and invite staff input on strategic decisions and innovations.
  • Create opportunities for teaching faculty’s ongoing pedagogical and professional development (e.g., providing funds to participate in conferences, retreats; generating resources and mechanisms for knowledge-sharing; appointing a rotating named chair among teaching faculty).
  • Provide students with comprehensive and sustained academic and career advising services to facilitate the transition to University life and enable success during and after their college careers.
• Develop and demonstrate engaged citizenship and constructive communication and mutual respect across the College to deepen an atmosphere of belonging where diverse ideas and people can thrive.
  • Increase awareness and use of existing resources to address how communication practices affect College community members’ interactions, as well as the College’s intellectual and professional climate (including STOP BIAS, the associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion, and the University ombudsperson).
  • Provide training opportunities and support for developing faculty leadership and conflict and mediation dialogue techniques (as department chairs and in other leadership positions).

In these ways and over the next five years, A&S will draw on its disciplinary excellence and multidisciplinary reach and design to model collaborative infrastructures and provide leadership for research, curricular, cultural and community collaborations across the College, University and wider communities, locally and globally. Advancing the Liberal Arts for a Better Tomorrow will also showcase how A&S’s boundary-crossing approach to advancing the Liberal Arts for the public good provides students with an indispensable education that is comprehensive, research-driven, forward-looking and socially responsive.

This document is the product of the work of multiple constituencies and committees, as A&S experienced a leadership change during its initial drafting stage. Going forward, this strategic plan will be supported by an implementation plan, which will define, prioritize, and map out timelines to execute these goals and meet our aspirations and commitments over the next five years.