Strategies

• Provide an Intellectually Challenging Environment: Educate students broadly and develop their skills in advanced critical thinking, analysis, and problem-solving, preparing them to bridge foundational knowledge with real-world applications and to succeed in their goals for future education and employment.
• Prepare Students to Navigate Life Beyond UVM: Provide opportunities for students to find purpose and meaning through which they read the world, weigh tensions, and act with intention in their lives and in their work during their time at UVM and well beyond graduation.
• Expand Opportunities for Experiential Learning: Engage every student in rich, hands-on learning occurring through opportunities such as internships, community-engaged learning, research, clinical practice, independent projects, co-op experiences, and international study that help them develop skills, build networks, and forge a meaningful career path.
• Connect Alumni and Students: Engage alumni as mentors, project hosts, and door openers in partnership with the UVM Foundation and the Career Center—inspiring current students to serve as the alumni of tomorrow.
• Foster UVM Community, Pride, Belonging, and Connection: Create an environment where students learn, build community, make lifelong friends, engage with the natural world, and grow.
• Prioritize Well-being: Integrate mental, physical, social, and spiritual well-being into the student experience, ensuring students have the capacity to fully participate and learn while building lifelong skills in resilience and balance.
• Ensure Accessible Student Success: Advance a human-centered support model that provides clear and comprehensive guidance across the intersecting zones of academic success, health and well-being, involvement and belonging, and career preparation.

Note: Unless otherwise noted, the word “student” is used in this document to refer to all learners, including undergraduate, graduate, medical, professional education students, and online and community-based learners throughout Vermont. In some cases, we also refer to individuals who are not yet students but aspire to be or are learners we hope to recruit.