Five-Year Strategic Plan
Overview
During the 2020-2021 academic year, Mercy’s Administration and Board of Trustees embarked on the process of developing a five-year Strategic Plan. The purpose of this plan is to ensure that we deliver Mercy’s Mission with excellence, increase enrollment demand, secure our financial position, and sustain our vision for future generations of students. This Plan builds on the success of our 2016 five-year Strategic Plan.
Methodology
To help execute this Plan, Mercy partnered with ISM, a nationally recognized consulting firm that specializes in strategic planning for private, mission-based schools. With the approval of Mercy’s Board of Trustees, ISM independently surveyed numerous constituents within the Circle of Mercy to create five strategic priorities.
- Faculty culture and student success
- Student experience
- Campus spaces and facilities
- Organizational stability
- Advancement success
We are tremendously excited to embark on this Strategic Plan for our beloved school. With support from everyone within the Circle of Mercy, its ambitious – and achievable – goals will ensure Mercy’s continued success!
Implementation
The Mercy Administration, with the aid of the school’s Board of Trustees, faculty, and staff, has developed an implementation plan in order to actualize the goals and objectives outlined within these five strategic priorities. These five priorities each contain multiple components with varying timelines.
#1 – Maintain and enhance the culture of our faculty – whose core focus is the mission of Mercy coupled with student success.
The student experience and student performance are intertwined with the quality of our faculty and the culture that they create. We must assure that our faculty is committed to the mission of Mercy and our students, be experts in engaging and teaching students (not just their subject) and have the drive to constantly seek self-improvement.
#2 – Enhance the student experience.
Our Mercy girls are extraordinary people; therefore we should not provide an ordinary experience at Mercy. As Catherine McAuley said, “We must strive to do ordinary things, extraordinarily well.” Grounded in our Mission and guided by our Profile of a Mercy Graduate, our goal is to improve the learning environment and preparation of our young women. We will do so through enhancements to the school culture, and our curricular and co-curricular opportunities. We will also enrich the leadership and counseling programs to ready our students for what is next in their lives.
#3 – Assure Mercy’s campus spaces and facilities meet our learning and programmatic needs.
There exists a critical link between the school environment and how children learn. In order to support teaching and learning and to carry out our programmatic expansions now and in the future – for a fully enrolled school – we must develop a vision and execute plans to improve our facilities and technology.
#4 – Improve our organizational stability.
To ensure our long-term ability to successfully deliver our mission, the Board will continue to structure itself for success, perform its due diligence, and seek to establish a cash reserve to protect against economic or other challenges.
#5 – Achieve advancement success.
We must cultivate a culture of giving to support our capital improvements, endowment and annual fund which is necessary to fund critical strategic initiatives.
