TOWARDS WESLEYAN'S BICENTENNIAL

Goal 1: Enhance our distinctive educational program, capitalizing on academic strengths

• Academic Affairs Strategic Planning
  • Academic Affairs launched its first curriculum-focused strategic planning process in twenty years, completing a kickoff meeting and establishing mission, vision, and values in the fall of 2025.
  • Through the spring, the team convened over 70 listening sessions across faculty, staff, students, and alumni. Drafting of the plan began over the summer.
  • A recurring theme raised in these sessions: the growing pre-professional orientation of students, who increasingly stack three or more majors, minors, and certificates. This is a trend that Academic Affairs will weigh against the University's exploratory, liberal-arts ethos.

• Renewing Democracy's Promise & Civic Engagement
  • The annual Shasha Seminar launched the Renewing Democracy's Promise initiative in November 2025.
  • Democracy Summer launched as a hands-on leadership pipeline, placing students directly with election offices and partner organizations. We also launched a broader Democracy250 effort which will focus on making civic engagement accessible, relevant, and hopeful.
  • Our partnership with National Education Opportunity Network (formerly the National Education Equity Lab) continues to grow. Last year, we offered seven for-credit online courses that reached over 2,000 high school students nationwide (hundreds more students than the year prior when we reached over 1,200 students). Khalilah Brown-Dean offered a civics course in the spring semester that engaged over 150 students from across the nation.

• Generative AI in Teaching and Learning
  • The Educational Policy Committee proposed new generative-AI policies for faculty discussion and vote, and Academic Affairs surveyed faculty on AI use in research and teaching.
  • Multiple open forums were held to discuss the impact of AI on teaching and learning and showcased faculty who are using AI in their research and classes.

• New Facilities for Learning and Research
  • The new Casper Life Sciences Building is complete, has received its certificate of occupancy, and is on budget and on schedule to open for classes in Fall 2026.
  • The Fries Arts Building (FAB) completed its first year of use to strong reviews from students and faculty.

• Faculty Distinction
  • Faculty achievements this year included Assistant Professor Tammy Nguyen's work featured at the 61st Venice Biennale (with an accompanying opera collaboration with Professor Neely Bruce); Associate Professor Edwin Sánchez's novel adapted for a feature film; and Associate Professor Daniel Symth's 2025 American Philosophical Association book prize.
  • Science and Technology Studies marked its 50th anniversary with a campus-wide conference of alumni panels, faculty presentations, and student research.

• Student Success, Athletics, and Career Development
  • Wesleyan had its best fall season in school history (8th nationally out of 429 DIII schools), with every fall varsity team either winning a NESCAC title or reaching NCAA competition. Highlights included field hockey's Little Three title and NCAA Quarterfinal run, volleyball's Sweet 16 appearance, men's soccer's Little Three championship, and football's second straight NESCAC title.
  • That momentum carried through the year to a record-setting 668.5 total points in the final 2025-26 Learfield Directors' Cup standings (20th of 427 DIII schools, Wesleyan's best-ever finish), fueled by a strong spring in which women's tennis won the national championship, women's lacrosse reached the national title game as runner-up, and men's lacrosse advanced to the NCAA tournament.
  • A record 17 alumni won Fulbright fellowships for 2026-27, “Wesleyan’s biggest year for Fulbright yet,” according to the Fries Center.
  • The Gordon Career Center received Handshake's national Career Spark Award placing Wesleyan in the top 2% of institutions nationally on student and employer engagement; 65% of first-year students engaged with the Center in fall 2025, and WesLink connected nearly 250 alumni mentors with students.
  • Our students hosted the second Shark Tank event in May 2026 in New York City. Nine student founders pitched to five alumni Sharks and $45,000 was invested live. There were over 200 attendees.
  • We launched the Anne Greene Internships in Literary Arts this summer where we supported 15 to 20 students pursuing summer opportunities in media, publishing, and journalism. Read about their experiences.

Goal 2: Build on our reputation as a leader in pragmatic liberal education.

• Admission: The Class of 2030
  • Wesleyan received 14,820 applications for the Class of 2030—just one percentage point below last year’s record—and enrolled a highly accomplished class despite a genuinely difficult admission environment.
  • The team arrested the decline in domestic applications even amid the national demographic cliff.
  • A reimagined WesFest, “Say Yes to Wes,” expanded yield programming with student-hosted overnight and day visits.
  • Concerns going forward: continued geographic concentration in New England and New York, a decline in public high school representation and volatility in key international markets.

• The Campaign: This Is Not a Campaign. This Is Wesleyan.
  • The “Why the World Needs More Wesleyan” event series drew record turnout across New York, Washington, D.C., and Boston, featuring alumni such as Ian Bassin '98, Maggie Nelson '94, Hannah Dreier '08, Ted Shaw '76, John Goldberg '83, and Jessica Rosenworcel '93.
  • Giving Day 2026 was the strongest on record, generating more than $2 million from over 3,000 donors.
  • Headwind to monitor: GOLD (Graduates of the Last Decade) donor participation is down year-over-year even amid strong overall engagement—a possible early signal of economic pressure on younger alumni.

• Telling Wesleyan's Story
  • University Communications advanced its website re-engineering project, integrating Classical Studies into the new core site (with American Studies, Planetary Science, Theater, Psychology, and Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies underway)—and began its first administrative department partnership with Human Resources.
  • Faculty expertise reached national audiences on topics from climate policy to AI privacy alongside continued strategic media support for President Roth.
  • The Class of 2030 digital marketing campaign sharpened the University's understanding of “stealth applicants” and will inform an earlier starting, more targeted FY27 recruitment campaign.
  • We have engaged an external firm, Art & Science, to help us better understand the higher education market and identify how Wesleyan can strengthen its positioning to increase prospective student interest.

Goal 3: While enhancing access, make Wesleyan more sustainable through prudent management and diversification of revenue sources.

• Financial Position
  • The University maintained a balanced budget despite higher-than-budgeted healthcare costs and winter energy costs.
  • The endowment stood near $1.7 billion
  • The Investment Office advanced its strategic plan, strengthened operations and manager oversight, and navigated a leadership transition following the Chief Investment Officer's announced retirement.

• Facilities & Campus Planning
  • Facilities and Sasaki presented an initial planning and conceptual design for residential development addressing High and Low Rise—the leading candidate among several long-range capital priorities being evaluated across academic, residential, and energy/infrastructure sectors.
  • The phased steam-to-hot-water conversion continued, building on the prior year's progress (75% of campus converted), further reducing district energy use.

• Operational Efficiency, Technology, and Risk
  • ITS continued the multi-year Workday Student System implementation, completing the “Architect and Configure” phase and beginning end-to-end testing, ahead of a phased production rollout.
  • The University hired a new Chief Information Security Officer and tightened cybersecurity protocols in response to Audit Committee direction, alongside a broader review of institutional risk management amid federal and technological uncertainty.
  • Departments across the University advanced discrete pilots for responsible AI adoption in research, operations, and prospect/donor analytics.
  • ITS launched Small Cohort and Ambassador programs to build AI capacity across staff and began configuring “NowAssist” AI support in the ServiceNow portal.

• Access and Affordability
  • As of May 1, the Class of 2030 was enrolled within the University's 42% tuition discount rate target, with 49% of the class receiving need-based aid, roughly 15% Pell-eligible, and 17% first-generation—modest gains on each measure year-over-year.
  • The campaign's financial aid fundraising continued alongside broader campaign goals, including a new endowed scholarship gift for Pell-eligible students secured through reunion giving.

In Conclusion

The coming year will bring the opening of the new Casper Life Sciences Building, the completion of Academic Affairs' curriculum strategic plan, continued progress toward the campaign's $600 million goal, and further decisions on residential life planning and the University's long-range capital priorities. Cabinet and Board attention will remain focused on the federal policy environment, the demographic and financial pressures shaping admission and philanthropy, and the responsible integration of artificial intelligence across teaching, research, and operations.

Wesleyan's mission—an education in the liberal arts characterized by boldness, rigor, and practical idealism—continues to guide the University's response to a fast-changing landscape for higher education.