A&A Strategic Plan 2026–2030
A&A Next
2026–2030 Strategic Plan
Strategic Plan
Executive Summary
The College of Arts and Architecture enters the next five years at a pivotal moment – for Penn State, for higher education, and for the creative industries our students will shape. While A&A is one of the smallest colleges at University Park, we play a significant and essential role across the institution in cultivating imagination, promoting creative problem solving, fostering cultural vitality, and preparing students to navigate a world defined by rapid technological, economic, and societal change.
This plan charts a clear direction for 2026–2030 by centering the people, programs, and partnerships that define A&A’s distinctive identity. Developed through a collaborative, semester-long process involving faculty members, staff members, students, alumni, and partners, the plan identifies five strategic goals.
The plan’s objectives and strategies translate these goals into actions – emphasizing investments in shared spaces, interdisciplinary curricula, community engagement, emerging technologies, workforce-aligned programs, student support, and philanthropic partnership.
By 2030, A&A will be globally recognized as one of the most influential arts and design colleges among public land grant universities – a place where human-centered creativity drives innovation, community engagement enriches public life, and students graduate prepared to succeed in their fields and to shape the future of the arts, design, and society.
Goal 1
Build a culture of collaboration within and beyond the college that strengthens trust, connection, and belonging across A&A’s people, partnerships, and programs.
Goal 2
Amplify our responsibility as a cultural bridge that enriches campus, community, and civic life across Pennsylvania – and beyond.
Goal 3
Empower learners to build the future by cultivating skills, imagination, and agency.
Goal 4
Champion the arts and design as transformative forms of research, creative practice, innovation, and human understanding to advance discovery, insight, influence, and impact.
Goal 5
Cultivate an equitable community for all by ensuring every student, faculty, and staff member has the support, access, and opportunities needed to thrive within and beyond A&A.
Who We Are + Who We Serve
The College of Arts and Architecture is one of Penn State’s smallest academic colleges at University Park, comprising 3.00% of overall students, 7.43% of overall full-time faculty, and 3.21% of overall full-time staff at University Park, yet one of its most diverse and creatively vibrant communities. Our academic and engagement units span architecture, graphic design, landscape architecture, art history, visual arts, music, theatre, integrative arts, and the performing arts – forming a creative ecosystem that supports makers, performers, designers, scholars, educators, and cultural leaders.
A&A students come to Penn State from across Pennsylvania, across the country, and around the world. They represent rural, suburban, and urban communities; first-generation and continuing-generation learners; and a wide mix of socioeconomic, cultural, and artistic backgrounds. Many arrive with strong artistic passions; others discover their creative identities once immersed in our studios, classrooms, and performance spaces.
We serve undergraduate and graduate students pursuing more than two dozen majors and programs, along with thousands of students from across the University who engage with A&A through general education courses, performances, exhibitions, and community programming. Our alumni network spans creative industries, cultural institutions, design firms, arts organizations, schools, nonprofits and government agencies, and emerging sectors throughout Pennsylvania and beyond.
Who we serve – and how we serve – is central to this strategic plan. Our work must respond to the needs of today’s students while anticipating the creative challenges, civic responsibilities, and technological transformations they will encounter in the years beyond graduation. Strengthening access, expanding career pathways, deepening mentorship, and preparing learners to navigate and thrive in a rapidly changing world are core commitments that guide this plan.
The Case for Action in the Years Ahead
The next five years present both significant challenges and unprecedented opportunities for the College of Arts and Architecture. National and global shifts in demographics, higher-education economics, technology, political and social contexts, and workforce needs will shape how we recruit, support, and prepare students – and how we sustain the programs, people, and creative work at the heart of our mission.
Declining population trends and the “demographic cliff” are reshaping the higher education landscape, particularly across the Northeast and Midwest. As the number of traditional college-aged students shrinks, competition for enrollment intensifies, and institutions must differentiate themselves by offering distinctive learning experiences that align with student needs, career aspirations, and emerging creative fields. For A&A, this means strengthening recruitment partnerships, expanding access pathways, and elevating the visibility of our programs statewide, nationally, and internationally.
Global dynamics also affect who we serve. International enrollment pressures – including visa restrictions, geopolitical uncertainty, and increased global competition – require new approaches to attract and support high-caliber international students. Creative fields, which often draw significant numbers of international applicants, must ensure that degree pathways, advising structures, and community support are strong and responsive to these evolving realities and emerging creative technologies.
Higher education more broadly is navigating economic pressures, shifting or flat state and federal funding, rising operational costs, and growing public scrutiny about the value of a college degree. For arts and design programs, the need to articulate clear career pathways, demonstrate workforce relevance, and expand paid experiential learning is more important than ever. These pressures underscore the importance of strengthening collaborations with industry partners, aligning curricula with emerging creative technologies, and accelerating innovation across programs.
At the same time, rapid developments in artificial intelligence, immersive media, digital fabrication, and creative technology are transforming how artists, designers, and cultural leaders work. A&A is uniquely positioned to lead in these areas – but doing so requires investment in faculty and staff member development, interdisciplinary curricula, research and creative infrastructure, and flexible learning models that prepare students for the creative economy of the future. Certainly, the challenges AI presents are rapidly evolving and increasingly urgent given the potential for clients, industry, and the general public to resist cultural products created by skilled artists and designers in favor of the speed and ease of AI-generated content. Future artists and designers must continue to be the soul of creativity that only visual artists and designers can bring to the creative process. This is an essential responsibility A&A must, and will, accept.
These challenges occur alongside internal opportunities. As Penn State updates its institutional priorities and launches a new University-wide strategic plan, A&A has an opportunity to shape – and be shaped by – the University’s direction.
Finally, the college must continue strengthening its commitment to equity, well-being, and belonging for all members of our A&A community. Staff and faculty members face increasing workload pressures, while students find themselves navigating financial barriers, mental health challenges, and a competitive academic environment. Ensuring that every member of the A&A community can thrive is essential not only to our culture, but to the excellence of our programs and the sustainability of our community.
Together, these forces create a clear case for action. This strategic plan responds directly to the realities shaping the arts and design in higher education today, and lays out a focused, forward-looking roadmap for how the College of Arts and Architecture will grow, adapt, and lead through 2030.
How We Developed This Plan
This plan was developed through a highly participatory, community-driven process. Hundreds of faculty members, staff members, students, donors, and alumni engaged in 10 collaborative workshops, as well as shared their perspectives through a college-wide survey. The process was intentionally designed to ensure transparency, broad input, and shared ownership.
We followed a three-act model:
Act 1: Discover and Define
The planning process began with a series of workshops with alumni, faculty, and staff members as well as a college-wide survey. Collectively, these workshops identified the themes, strengths, challenges, and opportunities most essential to A&A’s future. This stage surfaced hundreds of insights about collaboration, student experience, curriculum, research, community engagement, space needs, and equity.
Act 2: Develop Goals and Objectives
Act 2 transformed these insights into a strategic framework. Using interactive, cross-unit workshops, participants distilled the emerging themes into five draft strategic goals and objectives. These goals were then refined through additional feedback from students across various majors within A&A.
Act 3: Shape Strategies and Next Steps
Act 3 focused on action. Through multiple sessions with faculty and staff members from across the college, participants worked through each goal and objective to identify the strategies needed to bring the plan to life. A draft set of strategies and metrics was developed as a result and shared with the college through a virtual session to get additional feedback.
Throughout the process, a core planning team and advisory committee coordinated engagement, synthesized input, drafted and refined language, and ensured alignment with Penn State’s institutional goals and emerging priorities. This strategic plan reflects the collective creativity, expertise, and vision of the A&A community – a shared roadmap for advancing the arts and design at Penn State and strengthening our role across the University and the Commonwealth.
Moving forward, we will develop baselines for many of the KPIs by using existing University-administered and adopted survey data and routine college surveys. For some KPIs where such data is not currently available, we will develop a process to collect this data. Doing so will enable us to determine where we are starting and to gauge our progress throughout the implementation of our plan. Toward that end, we will put in motion an implementation strategy to ensure we follow, monitor, assess, and revise the plan as needed to ensure and reflect our success and accomplishments in the next five years.
Core Planning Team
- B Stephen Carpenter II, Michael J. and Aimee Rusinko Kakos Dean in the College of Arts and Architecture
- Kate Domico, Assistant Dean, Administration
- Sharon Hoover, Planning and Analysis Consultant
- Spud Marshall, Strategic Planning Facilitator, My Creative Community
Advisory Committee
- Mallika Bose, Associate Dean for Research, Creative Activity and Graduate Studies
- Chingwen Cheng, Director, Stuckeman School
- Sita Frederick, Director, Center for the Performing Arts
Mission
We create transformative learning experiences, impactful creative and scholarly work, and collaborative initiatives through arts and design.
Vision
By 2030, we will be a global leader in arts and design education and practice.
Goals + Objectives
Goal 1: Build a culture of collaboration within and beyond the college that strengthens trust, connection, and belonging across A&A’s people, partnerships, and programs.
- 1A. Reimagine shared physical spaces and systems to foster collaboration and creativity
- 1B. Integrate cross-disciplinary collaboration inside and outside A&A into curricula, research, and creative practice
- 1C. Reduce administrative burden through collaboration to ease – rather than exacerbate – existing workloads
Goal 2: Amplify our responsibility as a cultural bridge that enriches campus, community, and civic life across Pennsylvania – and beyond.
- 2A. Create a reciprocal campus–community arts and design pathway in the Centre Region
- 2B. Expand artist residencies and student experiential opportunities, such as internships, research / creative activity projects, and service initiatives
- 2C. Embed human-centered design principles into courses, performances, and creative practices
- 2D. Strengthen A&A’s visibility and partnerships at state, national, and global levels
Goal 3: Empower learners to build the future by cultivating skills, imagination, and agency.
- 3A. Expose students to diverse career pathways through experiential learning that integrates arts and design across industries and sectors.
- 3B. Integrate ethical AI literacy and future-ready skills into curricular and co-curricular experiences
- 3C. Expand A&A’s role in General Education to invite all students to explore creativity and human-centered emerging technologies
- 3D. Develop new degree pathways, minors, certificates, and hybrid learning models aligned with student demand and responsive to workforce opportunities
Goal 4: Champion the arts and design as transformative forms of research, creative practice, innovation, and human understanding to advance discovery, insight, influence, and impact.
- 4A. Build cross-campus partnerships that advance the visibility and impact of the arts and design
- 4B. Elevate the visibility and recognition of A&A’s creative activity, research, and scholarship
- 4C. Lead the University-wide human-centered use of AI in creative practice and research
- 4D. Strengthen external funding, philanthropic support, and revenue generation to advance A&A’s programs, people, and priorities
Goal 5: Cultivate an equitable community for all by ensuring every student, faculty, and staff member has support, access, and opportunities needed to thrive within and beyond A&A.
- 5A. Strengthen holistic student support systems
- 5B. Address affordability and access barriers to reduce or remove the cost of participation
- 5C. Strengthen well-being, inclusion, and equity for staff and faculty members
- 5D. Expand access, enrollment, and retention/re-enrollment efforts to reach 2,030 students by 2030
Alignment to Penn State’s Strategic Plan
The College of Arts and Architecture strengthens Penn State through its unique capacity to bring creativity, design thinking, performance, and cultural engagement into every corner of the University’s mission. Whether preparing students for emerging creative industries, expanding the University’s presence across Pennsylvania communities, or advancing research and creative practice at the intersection of technology and the arts, the college is a catalyst for innovation and connection.
By aligning its goals with Penn State’s strategic priorities (headers in the boxes below), A&A ensures that its work amplifies the University’s impact.
Transforming internal operations
A&A Goal 1: Build a culture of collaboration within and beyond the college that strengthens trust, connection, and belonging across A&A’s people, partnerships, and programs
Increasing land-grant impact
A&A Goal 2: Amplify our responsibility as a cultural bridge that enriches campus, community, and civic life across Pennsylvania – and beyond.
Enhancing student success
A&A Goal 3: Empower learners to build the future by cultivating skills, imagination, and agency.
Growing (inter)disciplinary research excellence
A&A Goal 4: Champion the arts and design as transformative forms of research, creative practice, innovation, and human understanding to advance discovery, insight, and impact.
Fostering diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging
A&A Goal 5: Cultivate an equitable community for all by ensuring every student, faculty, and staff member has the support, access, and opportunities needed to thrive within and beyond A&A.
