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Open the Door to What’s Next:
Strategic Vision 2023-2026

Our Mission

Cedar Crest College is a liberal-arts college, primarily for women, dedicated to the education of the next generation of leaders. Cedar Crest College prepares students for life in a global community by educating the whole student at all stages of life and experience.

Our Principles

  • Undergraduate Scholarship, Liberal Arts & Sciences, Creativity
  • Graduate Scholarship & Innovation, Collaboration & Professionalism
  • Women’s Leadership
  • Global Connectivity
  • Civic Engagement
  • Health & Wellness

Our Vision for 2026

Cedar Crest College is a caring and inclusive community in which individuals flourish through exploration and learning.

We nurture the heart, mind, and soul by fostering a life of curiosity, critical thinking, and creativity.

Cedar Crest College will open the doors to an ambitious future by:

Delivering distinctive and innovative academic experiences
Providing holistic support to foster community well-being
Unlocking the potential within each student to achieve at the highest level
Creating connections that advance local, national, and global change for our common good
Three young women walking and talking to one another on campus

Deliver Distinctive Academic Experiences

Cedar Crest will deliver distinctive academic experiences that make us the comprehensive college of first choice among prospective students.

Our approach to teaching and learning will champion the strengths of each student to understand and act on the most pressing issues of our day.

We will write a new chapter in our College’s history that draws upon our tradition of expanding access to those students who need it most, lifting the voices of women as leaders through higher education, championing the values of exploration through the liberal arts and sciences, and excelling in the education of advanced, professional practice.

As a college of innovation, Cedar Crest academics will remain at the distinctive forefront of higher education.

Objectives:

Increase full-time equivalent enrollment to 1,300 students.

Maximize enrollment potential for our existing academic programs in our portfolio.

Create innovative, new academic experiences that promote excellence in the liberal arts and sciences, practitioner programs, and undergraduate and graduate education.

Build new academic programs, in growing educational markets, that advance the Cedar Crest mission of leadership, women’s education, and life in a global community.

Expand Health Science academic programs in service to community health and wellness needs.

Accelerate bachelor’s degree completion programs—as with 3-year programs including summer study—to provide enhanced access to graduate degrees and early career success.

Enhance scaffolded degree programs that emphasize the interconnectedness of certificate, bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and practitioner doctorates, as with 3+ undergraduate programs that lead to advanced degrees.

Primary Initiatives:

The Learning Commons: Center for Teaching and Learning
Accelerating Student Success: 3+1 Bachelor’s/ Master’s Degree
Programs Advancing New Health Science Programs

Unlock Student Potential

Opening doors for new generations of learners is central to Cedar Crest’s special place in higher education.

Cedar Crest believes that each student has the ability to lead a life that benefits from higher learning. In seeing and supporting the whole of a student’s life, we will help students persevere toward achieving their academic and career goals.

Our education will lead students to purposeful lives— made meaningful by exploration and ambition—with clear paths and experiences to draw upon as they set forth on their careers.

Enhance access to well-designed co-curricular experiences—such as internships, athletics, and study abroad—that elevate student learning, inclusive community building, and success.

Improve first-year undergraduate retention to 80%, as a three-year average, among a student body.

Improve graduation rates to 65%, while supporting students toward their degree completion progressively through their years of study.

Enhance pathways with community colleges for transfer students to expand bachelor’s-degree completion.

Provide teaching approaches and support services that enhance student success and persistence.

Maintain affordability to ensure access to a Cedar Crest education, especially for funding student participation in co-curricular experiences.

Four students sitting on a stage and making an
Laptops for All Students
Fully Fund the Carmen Twillie Ambar Sophomore Expedition
Enhance Athletic Programs
Expanded Access to Paid Internships
Textbooks Included with Tuition

Support Community Well-Being

At Cedar Crest, people are important. We believe that higher learning leads to visionary lives and better circumstances for families and communities. Well-being is thus central to how our diverse community—both employees and students—studies and lives, works and plays in order to achieve the goals we set for ourselves.

Cedar Crest will continue to build a diverse and inclusive community of staff and faculty members who are motivated by our mission to expand higher-education access for gender equity as a women’s college, to enable adult undergraduates to earn their degrees, and to provide excellence in advanced practitioner programs that help others in need. In doing so, Cedar Crest will support employee and student well-being by being a place-of-choice for members of our community to develop their talents, collaborate with their colleagues, be recognized for their accomplishments, and integrate their personal life, work, and study time to achieve a meaningful quality of life.

Objectives:

Improve the recruitment and retention of our high-achieving staff and faculty who are committed to Cedar Crest’s educational mission.

Become a place-of-choice to work within higher education, for high-achieving staff and faculty.

Attain and sustain a healthy employee retention rate.

Increase the diversity of our employee population in an inclusive community that mirrors the diversity of our student body.

Ensure fiscal responsibility that creates budgetary margins so as to act on opportunities for distinctive academic and co-curricular programs, to invest in reimagined and improved campus spaces and services, to build a college of first choice for study and employment, and to realize our educational mission.

Renovate campus buildings that focus on generating new student learning and living spaces, with a $2M comprehensive campaign investment.

Primary Initiatives:

Employee Wellness Program
Student Wellness Program
Campus Renovations
Improvements in Student Accessibility

Build Change for Our Common Good

Cedar Crest believes that education at its best happens in relationships with communities both nearby and global in reach. And Cedar Crest educates a diverse student body— across all stages of life and experience—who are members of varied and interconnected communities that deserve access to the education we provide.

We will work with community partners and area employers to create change for a common good for those in need.

Develop solutions to pressing challenges for life in the Lehigh Valley and through our relationships with other national and global communities.

Connect with community leaders and regional employers to build educational experiences that serve community needs.

Expand scholarships that support our students based upon merit and financial need, enabling students from diverse communities to achieve their academic goals through a Cedar Crest education.

Increase the College endowment and alternative revenue streams to ensure continued affordability of a Cedar Crest education, maintain academic and co-curricular quality, and decrease the College’s operational budget tuition dependency through new initiatives to build auxiliary revenue.

Expand sponsorship contributions as the community’s investment in the College’s programs.

Become a center of expertise for the community, highlighting the number of presentations to academic, professional, and popular audiences.

A young, blonde woman wearing a Cedar Crest College School of Nursing uniform, smiling, looking straight ahead. She is holding up her hands, making an
School of Nursing Health-Care Clinic
Increase Cedar Crest Fund
Increase Endowment
Center for Community Engagement through the Arts and Humanities