Announcing the Strategic Planning Process

Dear Members of the Georgetown Community,

I am pleased to announce a university-wide process that will engage our community in the development of a Georgetown University Strategic Plan – a roadmap for Georgetown’s priorities and progress over the next five years.

The process of planning is an important tool for organizing our collective efforts and ambitions. This is a moment for communal discernment, to work together to advance the Georgetown mission, to engage important issues, to take advantage of new opportunities, and to chart a way forward for Georgetown in a time of profound transformation in higher education.

A core focus of this process will be on what makes Georgetown distinctive. Georgetown holds a special place within American higher education, as a student-centered research university with a strong tradition of academic excellence, founded on Jesuit, Catholic values, located in the nation’s capital, and working around the world as a global institution dedicated to advancing the common good.

We are fortunate to begin this process with a strong sense of many of our key priorities, including:

• Realizing the generational opportunity presented by the Capitol Campus, to include increasing undergraduate enrollment.
• Realigning our Research structure to increase Georgetown’s capacity for research leadership and competitiveness for external funding opportunities.
• Developing a strategic vision for Georgetown to assume a leadership role in research and public engagement around Artificial Intelligence that builds on existing research strengths and the university’s Jesuit, Catholic values.
• Strengthening our Graduate Program framework to enhance recruitment and enrollment, including pathways from Georgetown undergraduate to graduate education.
• Continuing to affirm our Jesuit and Catholic identity, including by addressing the recommendations from the most recent Mission Priority Examen and deepening our institutional engagement with the Catholic intellectual tradition.
• Enhance Georgetown’s leadership as an institution committed to Affordability and Accessibility in higher education.
• Strengthening Georgetown’s Global Engagement, deepening our connections and collaboration across the university’s expanding global presence, consistent with our position as a leading global university in service to the world.
• Continuing and extending our work of Reconciliation around Georgetown’s historical involvement in the institution of slavery.
• Creating a strategic roadmap for Intercollegiate Athletics in an era of transformation.
• Reimagining our university Budget Model to reflect our reality as one Georgetown focused on our mission and to enhance our efforts around revenue generation and cost containment. 

Many of these areas have corresponding work underway that will influence the direction of our planning. In each of these, and other, areas, our goal will be to make thoughtful decisions on the most important priorities as well as identify significant intersections among these areas of focus. We will also incorporate learnings from adjacent initiatives, including those focused on improving and streamlining university processes and procedures.

I have convened a steering committee of faculty, staff, and students to advise me as we launch the planning process. In addition, the Board of Directors has established a special working group to provide guidance and oversight as the process moves forward. I have asked Joseph Ferrara, Senior Vice President for Strategic Engagement, to coordinate this process. We will also engage external organizations in different areas to support this process. The goal is to develop a university strategic plan that can be submitted to the Board of Directors at its June 2027 meeting for review and approval.

A substantial amount of planning work is already underway across the university, including an ongoing series of Listening Sessions, which are taking place this semester, as I learn more about your ideas and aspirations for Georgetown.

For more information about the process, please consult our Strategic Plan website, which will be updated regularly as we move forward. If you have questions, please email strategicplan@georgetown.edu. 

I look forward to sharing this work with you, and I thank you for the many ways you uphold Georgetown’s mission, values, and excellence every day.

Respectfully,

Eduardo M. Peñalver
President