Priority one

Inspire Student and Scholarly Success — Prepare bold leaders and learners who innovate and adapt in a rapidly changing world. 

Objectives

• Engage students to lead in a rapidly changing world.
• Expand interdisciplinary opportunities to meet critical societal challenges in our local, state and global communities.
• Create a seamless journey over a CMU learner’s lifetime.
• Commit to supporting our faculty and strategically investing in research and creative endeavors that address society’s grand challenges and enrich the learning opportunities for all.

2025-2026 SMART goals

Updated and approved by the CMU Board of Trustees on September 18, 2025

• 95% of undergraduate students are employed, involved in military or volunteer service, or in graduate school within six months of graduation as reported in the First Destination Survey.
  • Measure: Annual measurement of the Career Outcomes Rate
• Within 5 years, every undergraduate student will have an immersive experience in a university-approved program by the time they graduate. Immersive experiences include, but are not limited to, leadership development programming, internships, research opportunities, study abroad, alternative breaks, and other relevant experiences with clear learning objectives. 
  • Measure: Complete the initial list of approved programs as well as a governance process for review and approval of immersive experiences that will count toward this goal moving forward by December 2025. Complete the pilot of the comprehensive learner record (CLR) in Fall 2025 and develop a timeline for integrating data from approved programs into the CLR by June 2026.
• Create a program to streamline the learner experience and achieve a continued increase in the number of learners who return to CMU over their lifetime. 
  • Measure: Form all subgroups outlined in the 2024-2025 recommendations summary, setting clear goals for moving forward, and specific action plans for increasing the number of students that return to CMU by May 2026.
  • Measure: Report out on the year-over-year change for the number of students that return to CMU by August 2026.
• Establish and implement a plan to strategically grow the research and graduate enterprise.Measure: Complete an external review of the graduate and research enterprise by December 2025 to be better prepared to respond to the changing landscape of graduate education and research funding.
  • Measure: Develop an implementation plan with deliverables for implementing key recommendations from the external review and a prior internal review by June 2026.
• Analyze campus-wide data across socio-economic divides and create a plan to address financial stratifications.
  • Measure: Develop the plan by August 2026 and annually measure changes to decrease gaps in stratification.

Update on 2024-2025 progress

• First Destination Survey results show 94.3% of students are employed, involved in military or volunteer service, or in graduate school within six months of graduation.
• Collaborative efforts university-wide toward the development of a shared definition of immersive learning experience and a pilot program to track immersive experiences in a comprehensive learner record platform.
• Identification of population sets to include in lifelong learning, as well as selection of methodology and data sources to track CMU returners. Completion of data review to create baseline information for future comparisons.
• Given uncertainty in federal funding for research and federal policies relating to international students, some 2024-2025 goals were reimagined for the 2025-2026 year.
• In 2024, CMU achieved a 94.9% Career Outcomes Rate, which put the university close to its 95% goal. In addition, that year saw a new record in research funding - $38 million in grants for research, creative endeavors and scholarly activity.