The administration sent a broadcast email to the student body announcing a draft of the University’s second strategic framework, Ten for One, on April 14. The framework outlines 10 goals that the University hopes to achieve by 2030. The goals focus on building an inclusive, University-wide community on-campus; promoting excellence in students, faculty and staff; continuing to lead in research endeavours with real world impacts; and contributing to neighboring Baltimore communities.
Ten for One follows Ten by Twenty, the first University-wide strategic framework published in 2013. The new strategy retains the goals from the previous framework to build one University, individual excellence and commitment to our neighboring community.
In an email to The News-Letter, President Ronald J. Daniels reflected on the goals of the strategic framework.
"The Ten for One strategic framework was informed by frank and wide-ranging conversations with more than 1,200 people from every part of our One University and the extraordinary neighbors and partners we have across Baltimore,“ he wrote. “These new goals reflect the highest aspirations for the future of Johns Hopkins, and I am thrilled by the promise of all that we will achieve together.”
The Ten for One draft was created using information from over 60 listening sessions beginning from Spring 2022, as well as written responses and faculty-led reports and recommendations.
In an email to The News-Letter, Assistant Vice President for Media Relations and News J.B. Bird shared that all members of the community have been able to submit comments online on the development of the framework since March 17, 2022. He noted that information on the Ten by Twenty and a conversation guide were provided in both live listening sessions and for online comments.
“Sessions were coordinated through all divisions and with the help of staff, faculty, and student affairs colleagues and community partners in order to reach a broad cross-section of Hopkins and our neighbors and partners in Baltimore,” he wrote.
According to Bird, the live listening sessions were held in small groups with the goal of encouraging participants to engage in active conversation. The sessions were hosted by the President’s Office with groups such as the Johns Hopkins University Council and the Hopkins Staff Advisory Council Planning Group.
As examples of undergraduate student participation, Bird cited the Student Government Association, affinity group leaders, first-generation and limited-income students, resident advisors, first-year mentors and the new Cross-Institutional Student Advisory Committee.
In an interview with The News-Letter, Chair of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences (KSAS) Faculty Senate Peter Armitage applauded the inclusive and communicative measures taken to draft the framework. He highlighted that the University should extend this practice to the broader Hopkins community.
“I would say that although many of the ideas clearly have come in consultation with a full [Hopkins] faculty, the actualization of these initiatives should also come in true partnership with faculty, students, staff and community members,” he said.
In an email to The News-Letter, Sophomore Tam Nguyen expressed her hope for the goals.
“It sounds very promising and I honestly think such progress has been made — even though it's at a gradual pace,“ she wrote. “These topics aren’t something that can be immediately enforced.”
Goals one to three of the draft name the objective of building an inclusive on-campus, University-wide community. Goal three specifically focuses on the University’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.
The main avenue for the University’s commitment to goal three will be through its Second Roadmap for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, which lays out 24 initiatives. These measures include investments to bring in doctoral students from underrepresented backgrounds and recruit diverse faculty, especially in the fields of natural and biological sciences.
Goals four to seven cover individual and collective excellence.
Goal five aims to ensure that funding and experimentation for graduate and postdoctoral programs is an area of priority. Through this, the University aims to develop a more individualized approach to help students prepare for their desired career path.
The framework also revealed that the University will launch A Commission on PhD Education, modeled after the Second Commission on Undergraduate Education.
Additionally, the framework acknowledged graduate students’ need for competitive stipends and financial aid.
In an email to The News-Letter, the graduate student union, TRU-UE, emphasized that the organization looks forward to a productive bargaining relationship with the University.
“As graduate student workers ourselves, we are best suited to decide how to meet our needs, and negotiating at the bargaining table as equals is the path that will allow us to make those decisions with our colleagues across the university,“ the organization wrote. “We are ready to change the working conditions of graduate teachers and researchers at Hopkins one bargaining session at a time.”
For goal six of the framework, the draft highlights the achievements of Hopkins in recent years to end legacy admissions and loan-based financial aid. According to Bird, the University’s undergraduate body is one of the most racially, ethnically and socioeconomically diverse among Ivy Plus peers.
Moving forward, the University seeks to provide undergraduates with increased access to mentors, advisors and mental health services. The draft also introduces the possibility of increasing incoming class sizes.
Bird specified that the consideration to grow the size of the undergraduate body stems from the moral question of whether more students should have access to a Hopkins education.
“This is an exciting but significant decision for Hopkins and will require broad consultation with all of our key stakeholders, including input from faculty and students to ensure the academic and student experience on campus can be as good or better than it is today,” he wrote.
He added that the conversation around class size will come alongside increasing tenure-track faculty at KSAS and the Whiting School of Engineering, with the aim of maintaining the University’s low student-faculty ratios.
Of note, the draft does not contain specific steps to achieve the goals. Jane Bennett, former Chair of the KSAS Faculty Senate, views this in a positive light, as expressed in an interview with The News-Letter.
“Different constituencies at the University will use those goals to guide and color what we do, but I think that the implementation of the goals will be most effective if it happens in a decentralized way, at the level of the academic departments,” she said.
Despite various goals, Armitage believes the main objective of a university should be its education.
“There’s an ever increasing engagement of faculty in media, social media and playing the role of public pundits. These things are important, but it should always certainly be the case that education and scholarship are central,” he said.
Ten by Twenty outlined goals to increase competitive funding and resources for Hopkins affiliates, as well as to make Hopkins Medicine, the Bloomberg School of Public Health and the School of Nursing world premiere enterprises. Ten for One builds on the University’s focus on education, as increased student diversity and collective excellence have been added to previous goals of individual excellence.
Sophomore Hanna Wu described the significance of the new framework in an email to The News-Letter.
“The goals are ambitious but the kind of ambitious that inspires and is pioneering,“ she wrote. “I look forward to seeing what 10 more years will do for the growth of Hopkins.”
The final version of the Ten for One strategic framework will be released over the summer. Community members can provide feedback online or via email at TenforOne@jhu.edu until May 12.
Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The News-Letter.