From the beginning, UMBC was a bold move.
Conceived during an era of great expansion of access to higher education in the U.S., UMBC was established by the Maryland General Assembly in 1963, the result of numerous commissions that recommended expanding higher education in the state. One of those, in 1962, asserted in its report:
“...the Commission is convinced that as many qualified young people as possible should actually be encouraged to obtain the advanced technical or academic training they will need to find career opportunities in our society. Both the economic development of Maryland and even our survival as a nation may ultimately depend upon a successful effort to upgrade the skills of our population.”
— Report of the Commission, 1962
On the day UMBC opened its doors, September 19, 1966, Chancellor Albin O. Kuhn wrote to students:
“We do not expect UMBC to be quite like any other campus. Each of you brings individual backgrounds, talents, and education to our new campus. Collectively, you are a different student body from any previously assembled. In working with the faculty and staff of UMBC, make the most of this opportunity to help create a center of learning in which those who give their best in the laboratory and on the playing field develop a brilliance that is the mark of their efforts and the UMBC environment.”
— To the first students · opening day
From the start, UMBC knew who it was, what it aimed to be…and that it was different. And that has made all the difference.
Expanding educational access, welcoming learners from all backgrounds, sharing in the creation of excellence in service to the public, and engaging deeply with communities near and far were all there at UMBC’s founding and in its early days. In the 60 years that have followed, UMBC has made bold move after bold move, growing from a three-building campus with 750 students, 45 faculty members, and 35 staff members, to an institution serving students in multiple locations, including at the Universities at Shady Grove, and in multiple modalities, including online. Today, UMBC has graduated more than 100,000 students; we are a globally recognized model of inclusive excellence; an R1 research university with more than $180 million a year in research expenditures and distinctive strengths across the arts, humanities, social sciences, sciences, and engineering; and a national leader in community-engaged scholarship, research, and service.
Today, the world is changing rapidly in ways that are both profound and unpredictable. Society is more divided than ever; public institutions and democratic systems are under attack; and complex global challenges, including climate change, weigh heavily in our everyday lives and in the prospect for our future. At the same time, the value of higher education is being questioned, and inclusion is positioned in many places as a barrier to excellence instead of integral to it.
The moment demands our commitment, our focus, and Bold Moves.
UMBC is still clear on who it is and what it aims to be. We are still different. Boldly, proudly so. With this strategic plan, we honor the past and commit anew to pursue our public mission and our vision of inclusive excellence. We reaffirm our values and our purpose and set our sights on our highest priorities.
Across five key strategic pillars focused on student opportunity and success; teaching and learning; research and creative achievement; organizational innovation and vitality; and Maryland and its communities, UMBC will make bold moves.
What We Imagine
We imagine a day when anyone admitted to UMBC can come to UMBC.
We imagine student success not just as completion rates, but rather as a Retriever Promise–a defined set of opportunities, experiences, and outcomes that every UMBC student can expect.
We imagine scaling the transformative impacts of our signature programs to all UMBC learners.
We imagine building on our excellence in undergraduate teaching and community engagement to prepare all students for professional success, local and global engagement, and lifelong thriving.
We imagine a thriving research and creative achievement enterprise whose excellence is defined by its inclusiveness and its public impact.
We imagine an organization where employees from all backgrounds are supported in their thriving and growth, where we invest in what matters most, and where we cultivate sustained excellence for future generations of UMBC.
We imagine our mission as advancing the public good in all we do and contributing to the vitality and well-being of the State of Maryland, especially our closest neighbors in Baltimore City and Baltimore County.
We imagine an educational ecosystem, Honoring the Potential, that will support the long-term educational success of Marylanders from their earliest years to and through college.
We imagine our role as a launchpad and a leader in partnering with industry and the public sector, leveraging our distinctive expertise, location, and opportunities to fuel innovation, entrepreneurship, and workforce development.
These are among the bold moves we will make in UMBC’s future, which begins now. This is worthy work, and we commit to pursuing it together, with steadfastness and with gratitude, on behalf of our students, the state of Maryland, and the world.
Vision and Values
In 2016, as UMBC reflected on and celebrated its 50th year as a public university in Maryland, our community looked to the future and articulated a vision for UMBC that boldly asserted our purpose. The vision statement continues to inspire us, and it is this shared imagining of the future that drives our strategic plan.
Our Vision2016
Our UMBC community redefines excellence in higher education through an inclusive culture that connects innovative teaching and learning, research across disciplines, and civic engagement. We will advance knowledge, economic prosperity, and social justice by welcoming and inspiring inquisitive minds from all backgrounds.
The UMBC community shares a commitment to a set of core values that guide our work every day and inform our aspirations for the future. In the fall of 2024, the community reaffirmed these values through a campuswide Core Values survey. Five core themes emerged:
- 01 Inclusive Excellence Most strongly held
- 02 Student Success Core value
- 03 Academic Excellence Core value
- 04 Community Engagement Core value
- 05 An Innovation Mindset Core value
Inclusive excellence was, by far, the most frequently cited value among survey participants, and it is the community’s most strongly held commitment. It is, therefore, embedded meaningfully throughout the strategic plan; inclusive excellence is the lens through which we envision our future, and our aspirations for inclusive excellence live in every goal of this plan. The four other core values articulated by our community are deeply connected to inclusive excellence and to one another. This plan reaffirms these values and, across five mutually reinforcing strategic pillars, sets ambitious goals to more fully live them.
At UMBC, inclusive excellence is a shared commitment to building a community where every person—regardless of role, identity, or background—can participate fully, contribute meaningfully, and thrive. It is rooted in the belief that there is no hierarchy of human value, and that our excellence as an institution depends on every member's ability to belong, grow, and shape this community alongside each other. How we engage in dialogue, how we share responsibility, and how we hold ourselves accountable all flow from this recognition. We believe that excellence is only possible when diversity, inclusion, equity, access, belonging, and civic learning are intentionally woven into the daily life, policies, practices, and expectations of our entire community.
Inclusive excellence at UMBC includes developing the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to build communities where everyone can flourish. As a community, we listen deeply; reflect critically on the systems we inhabit; engage across differences with curiosity, honesty, and respect; build trust; navigate conflict constructively; and work together toward meaningful, equitable change. We hold ourselves accountable to these aspirations and to the people whose belonging and thriving depend on them.
Strategic Pillars
We will provide equitable access to a UMBC education and seek the success of every UMBC student. In pursuing these ambitions, we will serve more learners from Baltimore and from across the state, and we will boldly redefine student success and UMBC’s role as a bridge to lifelong thriving.
Explore the pillarWe will foster a faculty that reflects the diversity of Maryland and our student body and nurture their growth as innovative teachers and mentors. We will advance pedagogies and curricula to prepare students for professional success, local and global engagement, and lifelong curiosity.
Explore the pillarWe will build and nurture a research and creative achievement ecosystem that serves the public good, whose excellence is defined by its inclusiveness—reflected in the people who comprise it, the work they do, and the principles, practices, and methods they embrace.
Explore the pillarWe will retain and renew a world-class employee community of staff and faculty and support its ongoing excellence. We will foster success by nurturing an inclusive, accessible culture and investing in tools, infrastructure, and systems that empower our people, strengthen effectiveness, and spark innovation.
Explore the pillarAs a collaborative institutional anchor, a top attractor and developer of talent, and a national leader in ethical, community-engaged research and learning, we will advance the public good and contribute to the vitality and well-being of the State of Maryland and our neighboring communities.
Explore the pillarHow the Plan was Developed
As we set our sights on a bold future for UMBC, we have been inspired and guided by the aims articulated in the 2026-2030 Maryland State Plan for Higher Education and the University System of Maryland’s Vision 2030. The latter, a system-wide 10-year strategic plan, approved by the Board of Regents in June 2022, established a framework for our own institutional planning efforts and an overall focus on elevating Maryland’s position as a national leader in higher education.
UMBC’s new strategic plan is grounded in learnings and lessons from a robust set of community listening sessions, UMBC Bold: Campus Conversations, held in the spring of 2023. More than 1,000 participants attended 22 sessions that invited the broad UMBC community to share their perspectives on the state of the university and consider its aspirations for the future.
A series of critical surveys further informed the plan, including: a fall 2023 Shared Governance survey; the 2024 Core Values survey; and a 2025 Campus Climate survey. Along the way, a strategic plan steering committee guided campus conversations and gathered feedback from all stakeholder groups.
In the spring of 2025, President Valerie Sheares Ashby articulated in a campus conversation five emerging themes that would serve as strategic pillars for the new plan and invited the community to engage in refining those themes and shaping the goals and objectives that would live within each of them.
Throughout the academic year 2025-26, the steering committee led the development of the plan, forming subgroups for each of the five strategic pillars and drafting plans for each through extensive engagement and collaboration and additional surveying of the broad UMBC community.
What results is a set of strategic ambitions for UMBC that is deeply rooted in shared values and enriched by a multitude of voices. We are grateful to all who participated in the development of this plan. Your questions, ideas, and perspectives have shaped its creation. Your collective partnership will ensure its success.
Implementing the Plan and Tracking Our Progress
UMBC’s vision statement is our North Star. Bold Moves is our strategic roadmap to reach the future we imagine together.
We anticipate this plan will guide us for several years and that the goals and commitments comprising it will endure for the life of the plan. We will, however, review it on a regular basis and adjust as needed to address new challenges, respond to new opportunities, and adapt to evolving contexts.
As we embark upon this journey, we will develop annual action plans that set out a finite number of ambitious yet achievable objectives to advance toward our strategic ambitions. These action plans will be focused, developed by university academic and administrative leadership in collaboration with units across the organization. We will determine where investment is needed to advance this work, whether new or reallocated, and develop resource plans to support it. Success will be measurable–across a set of agreed-upon key results for each objective–and we will track and regularly share updates on our progress with the UMBC community.
